I hate that river. I hate that the hot desert sun can’t evaporate its moisture. I hate that the water will continue to flow forever, no matter what anyone or anything does.
Hunter shifted my body so that I sat in his lap. I could feel his warm, firm arms wrap around me, as he closed his eyes and exhaled.
“It’s almost as beautiful as you,” Hunter said groggily, his words almost slurring together.
I didn’t even respond to his statement. It wasn’t worth me trying to figure out a worthy response to a blatant lie. I’m not beautiful, and certainly not nearly as beautiful as the magnificent canyon and glorious village cemented into the ground above it. I have wavy, perpetually messy, dirty-blonde hair. I have a skinny, frail body. I have brown eyes and fair skin. I have a layer of dirt stuck into my pores. I have a nose that is too big, and ears that are too small. I have shoulders that are too wide, and a heart that is too narrow. I have a stomach that is too thick and lips that are too thin.
I’m not beautiful. That’s my reality. I can accept that. But I couldn’t accept this state of loneliness and despair. I couldn’t accept defeat.
I moved my gaze away from the river that was still illuminated by the sun, and worked my eyes up into the darkness that rose above it. The thousands of different bands of color, which included oranges, reds, and browns, all encrusted into the surface of the canyon were truly beautiful. The colors were magnificent, yet refined. I remember when I went to the Grand Canyon just a couple years ago, and none of this even existed. There was no need for enclaves for the super-rich in secluded areas of the country until long after the Great Crash and after the rise of President Ash.
I could feel Hunter breathing in and out as his body relaxed slowly and collapsed on the glass floor beneath us. What did that red powder do to him? What will it do to me? I brushed his hair to the side as the light from up above radiated down on his body, surrounding him in a heavenly glow.
I felt my body slide next to him, and I sighed as I glanced up at the blue sky above us. It was that odd time of day where the sun is about to set, but the glorious colors haven’t erupted into the sky as a result of the sun breaking through the horizon.
Shit. I closed my eyes, trying to force the reality back into the depths of my mind that was beginning to seep in front of my vision. I tried to crush the hopeless feeling inside of me, and with the adrenaline numb the regret and anguish consuming my insides. I tried to absorb myself into the endless stretch of colorful rocks and the river flowing below, hoping that it would somehow sweep my mind away from reality.
After a few moments, I began to change the defeated feeling omnipresent in my veins into a fire of determination. That fucking crazy bitch! I began to let the anger fester inside of me until it began bubbling into an inferno of rage. She will tell us what is going on, even if I have to choke the answer out of her throat. She will help us, even if it means me giving up myself.
For once I began to channel all the desperation and the incessant hunger inside of me. I will be happy again. I will get my life back. There still is hope, even though I can’t see it amidst the blackness. There is still light even in hell.
I shifted my body to cuddle up closer to Hunter. I breathed in a breath of the cold air and felt my muscles relax.
This is my only chance. This is my only shot.
I would either live a happy life and get back everything I’d lost, or I would die at the hands of my own misery.
Chapter 17
My eyes shot open, and were instantly enveloped in a wave of blackness. The darkness had swathed over the canyon floor, rendering the colors on the canyon walls invisible. The only light protruded from the Ferris wheel and Grand Canyon National Village, which looked like an orb of hope burning through the film of perpetual darkness surrounding me.
I could feel Hunter violently shaking next to me, and a burst of adrenaline instantly rushed through me. Holy crap. I instantly shot up, shifting my weight off his convulsing body. He looked like a fish out of water, flopping around helplessly for air. All his muscles contracted with such ferocity that it appeared as if he had been struck by lightning, or tasered mysteriously while sleeping.
“Hunter,” I said. My shaking voice was only exemplified when he began to scream madly. His bellowing literally pierced through my ears, and immediately evoked terror in my eyes.
Shit, what the hell did that red powder do to him? The anxiety caused my tired body to tremor as I continued to stare at Hunter in shock. His muscles contracted wildly, as he began to literally shiver with fear. The whole fit looked so unnatural and so painful that I could feel a horrified scream roar out of my own throat. It appeared as if all the agony and torturous memories inside of him were being brought to the surface of his mind, like some sort of horrendous exorcism.
Even though his body was presently in this reality, I could visibly see that his brain was castaway into some dark world, where he was being beaten brutally. His body jerked erratically, as if responding to the crack of a whip against it.
Oh god. I shook his arm, desperately trying to bring his mind back into reality. “Hunter, wake up!” I screamed, the bone-chilling terror in my voice reverberating off the walls to only funnel back into my own ears. I continued screaming, the intensity of my voice and magnitude of the fear inside of me only increasing, as my voice eventually transformed into a blistering screech. Even then, my high-pitched whistling was unable to pierce through the impenetrable wall of hell encasing his mind.
What is wrong with Danielle? I finally gave up trying to wake him, having lost all my breath and energy, and I began to stare helplessly at Hunter’s beautiful, terror-stricken face. Why would she ever want to put someone through this? The taste of pure disgust began to foam up in my mouth, until it began to spill out of me in raucous screams. I pounded my fist hard against the glass, hoping that it would shatter the continuum of hell that we seemed to be trapped in.
The red powder seemingly triggered Hunter into a series of wild hallucinations, which resulted in his body physically responding to the visions he was enveloped in. Then another thought crossed my mind. Am I hallucinating? Is this all just a nightmare? I wildly rubbed my eyes, attempting to bring just enough of my reality to the forefront of my mind.
I glanced through the sliding glass doors to try and see if Ethan was reacting the same way, but I couldn’t see him in the pitch blackness that had settled over the house. Great. I pressed my hand up against the cool glass that caused an icy chill to run down my spine. So, while Hunter is helplessly flailing around on the glass screaming frantically, I can just sit here and continue to let my life waste away.
I sighed, letting some of the anger and despair inside of me flow out of my nostrils. But by letting just a little of it out, I had taken the cap off the boiling water of emotions inside of me. Instantly, tears began to stream down my face, as I looked around at the blackness feeling more alone than ever.
Who is to say that any of this is real? The insanity that the sheer emotional toll of the emptiness in my veins clawed at my mind, driving my thoughts into an out-of-control death spiral. Who is to say that any of this will really matter? After all, in the grand scheme of things I’m insignificant. In reality, I’m powerless.
In truth, I am nothing.
I shivered madly, a combination of the eerily cold air conditioning, and the icy fear that had begun to paralyze my nerves. I closed my eyes, and put my hands over my ears, trying to block out the hysterical screaming fit that Hunter was still experiencing. I can’t do this. I tried to hold the back the urge to begin violently and frantically shaking Hunter’s body in an attempt to alleviate him from his nightmare. I can’t watch this.
I let the anxiety and terror flowing through me begin to numb my senses and overwhelm my mind. I willed my mind to succumb to the defeat, and I willed my body to become one with the blackness all around me. I need to escape this. The screaming of all the emotions inside of me rivaled the intensity and madness with which Hunter bel
lowed. I need to end this.
My eyes wandered up to the sky, glancing at the hundreds of stars that were visible above the barren desert. Each one shimmered like a faint reminder of the happiness that I’d lost, and how it would most likely be forever unreachable; forever encapsulated in a blanket of darkness light years away.
I tried to force myself back to sleep, and I tried to push the horrid visions of the bombing of Camp Camel, my family being ripped away from me, and the countless days without food or water, back into the darkness of my mind.
I can’t defeat it. I buried my head into my lap, wiping the snot that ran down my face onto the turquoise tank-top that I wore. After years of battling it, I could feel myself finally beginning to lose grip on control. After years of trying to suppress the darkness inside of me, in hopes that light would one day fill the gaping void in my heart, I could finally feel the thick blackness begin to seep in and fill all the emptiness inside of me.
No! The anguish inside of me began to push back against the tumor that had begun metastasizing; soon enough it would infect my entire being, completely enveloping my body in the blackness. I felt a surge of anger at myself, at the world, and at the pain that incessantly flowed inside my veins. In my rage, I found myself carelessly tear the bandage that had numbed my shoulder, and throw it down onto the ground.
By some miracle, my shoulder actually turned out to be healed, besides the fact the skin that had coated my wound was still pink and raw. I then had a radical idea to plaster the bandage around my brain, hoping that it would somehow heal the scars that lined my brain like cracks in the foundation of a fractured building.
And, with the lack of any light or happiness to take its place, the darkness in my mind has begun to fill in the cracks and engulf the foundation of my brain. And soon enough the regret, despair, and anger will swallow everything, leaving me with not even a memory of what happiness or love feels like.
I can’t let that happen. A truly desperate feeling roared up inside of me. I can’t give in to defeat. I can’t let myself succumb to the darkness inside of me. I have to get everything back, no matter what the cost. And this is my only chance.
Hunter’s screaming and flailing eventually simmered down, and his twitches became more sporadic. However, even in the darkness I could see sweat seeping out of his pores. Minutes slowly melted into hours as the first rays of light began to penetrate through the darkness. The sun rose behind the compound, which made it impossible to see it break through the horizon, but the explosion of colors against the wispy clouds over the village created a beautiful scenery in the sky. Rays of light began to illuminate the bands of color on the canyon wall, and it caused the jagged, step-like formation of the canyon wall to appear like a stairway to heaven, or the booming city that stood at the edge of the canyon.
With the light beginning to pierce through the darkness in the sky, dusk quickly turned into daybreak. As light began to flood the glass pavilion, I could see Hunter’s eyes flutter open. His body immediately shot straight up, and he glanced around with an emotionless expression to his face, and an empty look in his blue eyes.
What the hell? There was a part of me that shivered as I stared at him, deeply disturbed by his almost robotic movements. I felt like I was going crazy. Is this even real, or is this just a dream?
“Hunter.” I glared at him with a serious, frantic tone to my voice.
He barely even turned to look at me in response. Instead, he stared, transfixed at the water that flowed by hundreds of feet beneath us.
“Hunter,” I repeated, this time putting my hand on his shoulder, somehow hoping to break his zombie-like trance.
At this, he only turned to look at me, all the life having been swallowed by the darkness that now enveloped his blue eyes. His face was missing the vibrant glow that it normally had, and his eyes looked ominously similar to the blank, aloof expressions of most people nowadays. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether it was me who looked at the world differently after all of my happiness having been taken away, or if the world had actually changed. Sometimes, especially with me being cooped up on top of Camelback Mountain for most of the time, it was hard to tell whether everyone was truly as dull and emotionless as they seemed.
Maybe it was just their natural defense mechanism, a way of protecting their own mental livelihood from being barraged by the constant horrors of this world. Maybe it helped them to block out the hellish reality of America, and all the pain and suffering everyone besides the Government has endured.
But Hunter was never one to just block out his emotions. This robotic, lifeless body sitting next to me was not Hunter. The dead look in Hunter’s blue eyes did not belong to him. This was not Hunter, and I didn’t know where he went.
What did Danielle do to him? His skin felt weak and cold underneath my hand. I let my fingers run down his side, which evoked no response from his rigid, lifeless body. I know something inside of him was aware that I was beginning to inch closer to him, and rest my body on his, but there was not even a part of him that consciously acknowledged me.
This is so fucked up. It took all the energy I had to suppress the desperation and anger from causing my body to claw at his, and attempt to wake him up from the haze that seemed to envelope his mind.
“Hunter!” I screamed madly, tears beginning to force their way down my face. I hoped that somehow the sound of my terrified voice would pierce through the wall surrounding his mind and rejuvenate just a single breath of life back into Hunter.
No. I could feel my eyes instinctively shut, as I tried to push my horrid reality back into depths of my mind. I can’t lose him. I can’t let him leave me, too. I stared at his sculpted jaw-line, and soft, tender cheeks; truly the only person who could still fill my senses with a taste of happiness. Truly the only person who’d been there for me through it all. Truly, the only person I had left.
Hunter nudged my body out of the way, not even recognizing my presence, as he stood up and began to walk toward the glass doors that led back into the living room. As I watched his body walk away from mine, leaving me a nervous wreck sprawled on the cold glass, I felt something inside of me break.
She took him away from me. The second the red dust connected with his body, it poisoned his entire being, leaving him infected with a perpetual haze. She took away the last thing I had left.
I stared down into the empty void of the canyon below, feeling every flicker of hope and taste of happiness forever leave my body. I channeled the adrenaline inside of me to muster up enough strength to stand up and walk through the sliding glass doors and back into the compound. I let my hand run over the rock-like wall that lined the exterior of the compound, causing it to seamlessly blend in with the canyon wall. I then let my hand graze over the smooth, glass wall-screen that lined the walls on the interior of the house.
“Good morning!” Danielle boomed benevolently. She practically skipped through the kitchen, which was full of butlers readying the breakfast for the day.
Ethan was already sitting down, his hair looking like a wild thorn bush because it was so messy. His caramel skin had a translucent tinge to it, and his eyes were unmoving and emotionless as he stared forward from his seat.
Great, now we have two vegetables. I felt like I was in sort of a fucked-up horror movie, but I blinked, a deep disappointment coursing through me as I sadly confirmed that this was my reality.
I sighed almost obnoxiously, letting some of the stress and terror flow out of me. I then sat down right next to Hunter, hoping that maybe the smell of eggs and bacon permeating the air would somehow wake him from his trance.
One of the robots placed a bowl of scrambled eggs on the marble countertop, and soon enough, glasses of water and juice began to be delivered to the table, which now had a lavish, red cloth strewn across it.
“Time for breakfast.” Danielle exhaled, sitting down at the head of the table. Her face had a malicious glint to it that sent shivers down my spine.
The table was no
ticeably smaller, and instead of any advisers seated at her sides, it was just the three of us, alone with Danielle. My muscles tensed as I glanced at her. She was beaming with excitement, for whatever reason, and seemed to be getting a sick enjoyment out of watching two boys shovel food mindlessly into their mouths. She fed off the empty look in their eyes, and I could see her rub her hands together, satisfied.
This is so messed up. At this point in my life I have seen too much for the complete insanity and wickedness of a person to shock me. But it still didn’t make glancing at the maniacal, freaky expression in her eyes any more pleasant.
I refused to pick up the gold fork on the table, instead opting to stare at the plate of steaming scrambled eggs, letting the warmth from the food course up my nostrils and begin to clear out some of the emotions that had festered into a thick snot that was beginning to clog my airways. I finally looked up from my food, and met the line of Danielle’s ominous, sinister stare.
Why is she looking at me? I nervously glanced on either side of me, just to break the tension that was starting to form between us. I could feel the angry energy from her eyes protruding through the air and threatening to wrap around my neck and strangle me like a whip. Danielle adjusted the strap on the tank-top that she was wearing once again, this time her chest looking grotesquely distorted, as a result of the years of fillers and surgeries she inevitably purchased to enhance herself.
I opened my mouth, about to blurt something out, but I let the anxiety in my throat swallow the words before I could even force the air out. Instead, I stared at Hunter, who continued eating at rabid pace, with an emotionless, almost mechanical, edge to his movements.
Control Freakz Page 25
