“Now I’m more scared and confused than I was prior to us being here. If I thought it was all strange and somehow dreadful, well, I haven’t taken this moment into account and I have absolutely no idea how to take it into consideration. After all, one doesn’t just go around thinking people would puff out as if dragged into another dimension in a shrill.” Finally, I can bear as much as putting the vortex of dizziness into words.
“If I had my suspicions up to this moment about the purpose of the rally at this place, now I can undoubtfully say I’m officially horrified at us being here. And the worst thing than having this place as a shelter, is hitting the deck and getting the heck out of it. Guys, what should we do? Because, obviously, there’s nothing that screams ‘secure’ here.”
I see Carter grabbing Zoey’s hand so as to comfort her. And what I don’t understand, is that with all the latent danger on the latch, their starting to get so attached with each other, is what is chafing me the most.
I feel so relieved when she dispatched his catch and is running towards me.
I smile to her.
Muggings me!
She ceases and snoops over at where Cody’s vanishing took place. Clearly, she’s trying to get a hint at what might have caused that unbelievable situation.
Over some not-so-prosperous moment of mine, mainly fueled by Zoey’s rejection (although, I’m not quite sure we can call it that, since there was not any admitting request in the first place, except the binge wishfulness of my mind) I take a glance at the enchanting tree, rendering full to bursting with those magical lightning bugs. It was like a hundred bees were having a field day on a honey pot.
“Don’t!” I hear Andrew holloing, and disrupting me from my attempt at enchantment. As soon as I follow his eyes, I realize it is Zoey he’s talking to.
She is almost making a go at jumping over the confines that kept both proprieties apart—the one that we lodged in, and the one that would make people disappear.
“Don’t you dare even think of it.” I shout at her, now that I’m fully earth to Greyson.
God, it is becoming a thing now! Should I keep calling myself that?
“Hey, don’t worry. I’m just trying to figure what’s in there,” she attempts to make us all remain calm, which is even harder given the circumstances.
“It might be better if we go now,” Andrew hopped over with his brilliant idea, which when put into scrutiny wasn’t so brilliant anymore.
“And leave him all alone there?” Zoey’s eyes crack open so wild it makes us all hold any other latent resolution all to ourselves.
“We don’t even know he’s there anymore.” Avery barges in. “And if he were, then we cannot do anything to save him, without putting our lives at risk at first.”
Zoey looks at her in a way that suggested how inappropriate and unhinged Avery’s promulgation was.
Another moment of soundlessness captures the ambience, until the crackle of people approaching the lawn disturbs the serene progression.
“They’re coming,” Zoey hinges up, as one does when caught with the cookie jar. It was hilarious how inflected her complexion was when the sounds broke through. Their coming here, on the other hand—not so hilarious.
“Where?” I ask horror-stricken. “There’s nothing to hide to, except that bizarre tree, and…”
“And?” she wants me to proceed.
“Nah, it’s too crazy.” I sway my hand in the air.
“Come on, given the circumstances, we can handle crazy.” She persists.
“We can hop over the confines and bring ourselves to the other part.”
“What? That’s not an option.” She looks at me like I’m crazy or something. “We don’t know what might be out there. We don’t own the luxury to do such thing.”
“Yeah, but, we’re gonna get caught.” I explain.
“Then so be it.” Carter interferes. I don’t understand why I am looking at him at though there is bad blood between us… which it isn’t. “It’s not like we did something wrong. We were just having a field day on the tower; that’s all, exploring all the options the propriety has to offer.”
When put it like that, it doesn’t sound as unreasonable as it did on my mind prior to now.
“Hey,” we hear a deep man’s voice groaning. It’s Mr. Berkeley’s. “What is going on over there?”
We all look at each other, mouths opened in distress.
He is followed by three other possemen and the guy (scientist, or whatever) dressed in white that pinched me with the nutcracker thingy in my first day here.
I still can’t get over how bad it hurt having that device twinging me.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he proceeds. “What are you looking for across the lawn anyway?”
“Um, nothing much. We were just bored and decided to explore the other part of the tower. I mean, the outdoors.” Zoey takes over. God, she’s so audacious.
“Okay,” he says. “That’s all for today. I hope you had your fun.”
That was the signal that we needed to run off, which we did, delightfully so.
3
I was bumping repeatedly the footboard of my bed with my calcaneus, dealing constantly with the same thoughts swaying over my head. It’s been two other days since the vanishing incident that I was trying so hard to recall as much as the slightest detail about myself, though was failing for the hundredth time. There was a lot to take into account, really.
Ever since Cody had withered out of the blue, they hadn’t mentioned a thing regarding these events. All the resurrection crew had displayed rather extrinsic behaviors and they seemed to be rushing off the hallways in the most distressful of ways. But, no. There hadn’t been any official announcement of explanation taken off to the rest of us.
As for me and my friends—which now I could unquestionably refer to as such, being that Cody’s disappearance had linked a bone between us now; we shared a secret together… and a terrifying one for that matter—we hadn’t been able to talk about it ever since, having befuddled thoughts and constant haze swaying around our orbits.
This particular event had taken all of us stricken in horror and mystification.
Each and everyone of us daily took a pill, a white and blue align, which twinkled strangely at the blue part. There was a symbol ingrained on the blue part: a couple of circles swirling around on a progression.
I didn’t know why we were obliged to take that pill. We were being said it was for our own protection towards the chemical field around us and the lack of oxygen the tower contained, though I didn’t buy on that crap.
I couldn’t say the same as for the others.
I shared my room with nineteen other guys and so did everyone else. There wasn’t too much space for intimacy in this tower. I mean, yeah, as humans we’d like being socialized, but being that socialized… well, I couldn’t say I was so keen on it.
Besides all this, each week we were said we needed to go into the process of being twinged by that nutcracker that I hated so much. They called it a quantity surveyor. What is does basically is, it kept our immune system breezy and resilient, since humans aren’t adjusted to that kind of atmospheric changes as the ones we were under now that earth was all radioactive.
I had a hard time to get around all of this crap that I, not for a second, took credibility in, until last day when I decided to skip on the blue pill. The way I did it is, I rushed off as soon as I was given the pill with the pretense I had to take a piss, which I didn’t, and locked myself away on the toilet. Now there’s another thing about the toilets at the tower. They were all conjoined. So, anybody might’ve noticed my skipping on it. Good thing we take the pills before breakfast and instantly after it, everybody breaks away at the eating house, eager to take on whatever they have to serve for the first course of the day.
So, with their attention being away, and me all focused on the bathroom, I flushed my pill over the water and decided not to have it ever since. I knew taking that thin
g was up to no good.
I’m so encumbered into my own thing, I do not perceive the presence of my friend entering the empty bedroom and taking a seat at the end of my bed.
“Hey, you.” She smiles.
Why does she do this to me? Spreading that myriad speckles, tingling of a smile of hers. If only she knew what kind of impact that smile has on me!
“Hey,” I try to sound amicable. Though, with her presence around, my heartbeats race, palms sweat, I feel nervous and have a hard time finding the right words through the vortex she puts me to. Like, what am I, fourteen?
Ugh.
I hate it when she does that.
Only that she does nothing intentionally, and that I don’t really, you know, hate it.
“It’s time for us to take the pills, I noticed your absence downstairs.”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna have that.”
“What? Greyson?”
There it goes again. My found name.
“You really believe whatever crap they have to lay out for us? I mean, we’re secure now, when it comes to the airing system. Have you seen this high-tech world they have dragged us into? You think they would have problems with the sufficiency of the oxygen? Yeah, right.”
My resolution seems to have put her into contemplation.
Meanwhile, I’m observing her beautiful face, the way her eyebrows crook in the middle when she’s endeavoring to take something into account, the way her lips purl on a way (aughh) so irresistible, I think all the world thaws out at those lips.
“I think you make a good point there.” She jumps up from contemplative mood to normal mood in a flash, I still haven’t gathered myself from my little distraction. “Greyson!” Her voice a little less than a shout, when she notices my inattention.
“Um,” I try to keep up. Where were we by the way? Um… Oh, yeah. The pills. “I… think… you’re…” I make up meaningless words. What am I doing with my life? “Coming to a turning point.”
Well, that almost made as much as the tiniest sense.
Phew.
“But we need to go downstairs, whether you want to spill on the blue lozenge or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Being here is gonna get all suspicious. And we can’t handle that. We can’t handle them being all scrutinous on us.”
God, that sounds so… smart.
She’s becoming better and better any more I know her.
But at some point, I don’t know if her being so perfect is a good thing. I mean, with all this effect she has upon me, I don’t know how I can keep it together when she reaches her most enchanted pinnacle.
“Let’s go.” I say, and get myself out of the bed, in which she’s still having a comfy seating time.
I pore over her, being that now she is being inattentive.
“Oh,” she trembles a little like she wasn’t expecting my waiting on her and gets herself on her feet.
As we’re climbing down the stairs to the main floor, I wonder what her thoughts were.
Soon as we adjusted into the long line that proceeds to the pill section, I realize that all of a sudden, I’m being put under so much stress I feel too incapacitated to handle it alone. I scrape for her hand throughout the mishmash of people on the room. Our hands interlace and I hold hers as if it’s the last thing I’d wanna hold on to across the wretchedness we’re all swept into.
Hands dispatch as though in attack, while Carter brakes off at our line.
“Hey, guys.” He smiles and is so fond, and it doesn’t take me long to realize it’s all concentrated to Zoey. What is his problem? I catch up on my sense of territoriality, like a tiger groaning for its inhabitancy. “How long till breakfast?”
“It seems like forever.” She tipped her chin at the long crowd of people waiting to have the blue medicine.
“Well, I’m not complaining, now, while in good company.” He flashes that white smile at her.
He’s flirting.
And somehow it is pissing me off.
Like, boy, am I working out some gists or something? I need to chill down. Clearly, Zoey is too pretty to be left unattended. So, I better get used to it. I mean, it’s not like I’d hold some patronal rights upon her.
Like such thing exists, anyway.
Zoey takes a good look at me, and I cannot even begin to describe how appreciated and flattered I am feeling at this very moment, until she breaks it off.
“Should we tell him?” she asks mildly. Though, as honeylike as that voice is, I’m so stung at how bad it feels that coup d'oeil moment didn’t turn out as I expected it to.
I thought we had a moment, right there, while waiting for the pills, and it turns out this was her ponderability to whether we should share our first secretive thingy with Andrew. Now, don’t get me wrong, if this doesn’t add up at that, let me explain: I want as much people joining us on this as possible, though, truth be told, I don’t like Carter.
Well, besides his endeavors to grab Zoey’s attention and his attempts at flirting, I think he’s a decent guy.
But, still.
It pisses me off how bad he tries to pick her up.
Like, dude, chill.
And that’s when I realize I’m just being overprotective and jealous of something that I don’t have. She’s so gorgeous, everybody wants to have a taste. So I better learn how to let go, or else, we’re gonna have a problem. I mean, me and myself.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. Still, after this tremendous moment of contemplation, I haven’t made up my mind to whether we should share it with Carter.
“What should you tell me?” he raises an eyebrow playfully at her.
“Greyson and I think the pills have other effects than disposed of.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Well, we have our strong reasonable suspicious on spot.” She explains.
“So, what? Are you gonna skip on the pills?”
“Well, that’s the plan. But I think that having more people do I, then they might take notice on it. And having attention upon is what we’re trying to avoid right now.”
“What are you implying?” I ask her.
“Well, I say you keep skipping the pills. Whatever thing they are causing us; it wouldn’t happen on you. And that’s when we realize what their purpose is.”
“That’s brilliant.” He congratulates her.
I meant to glorify that idea, too, but he went first for it.
God, I hate it when other men go first to what I’m trying to tangle with!
~.~.~
I keep up with them as soon as I’m out of the bathroom, having thrown away to the waters the pill that we’re obliged to take every single day. There’s an empty chair to their table, and I take a seat on it.
“So?” she asks before I have properly adjusted myself to the seat, eyes glinting in expectancy.
“I flashed it away.” I tell her.
“God, you’re such a badass.” Avery says mockingly.
I ignore the comment.
We are having blueberry pancakes for breakfast. They seem pretty normal. Very much in contrast to everything else in that building.
“Why are you guys all hunching up?” I ask when I realize they are all leaving me alone to the table one by one.
“Well, it took you so long getting over a tiny pill. We’re done by now.” Carter explains.
Of all the people, he has to be the one giving that resolution?
Ugh.
“I’m still on my last pancake.” Zoey says as though to comfort me.
“Your last pancake?” I raise an eyebrow teasingly. “How many did you have?”
“Well, I had my first ever since you left, and my second when the others joined, my third before you made an appearance, and this should be my fourth.”
My eyes sway as open as they could get.
“But who’s counting?” she smiles at me, after having noticed my bit of a shock here. “Not me!”
God, she’s nothing less
than amazing.
At this point, I want to spend as much time as possible with her. And it never seems to be enough. I want to hear every silly thing she might have to say, look at her perfect complexion for hours, and wanting to know everything she likes.
It’s like she cast a spell on me or something.
“How do you feel?” she asks.
It takes me a moment to figure what she’s referring to.
Pointlessly, I fail to come into realization.
“Hmm?” I mumble.
“Not having the pill?”
“Oh,” yes. What did I expect to hear? “I—I don’t know. To be honest, I haven’t noticed any difference until now.”
“That’s strange.” She frowns.
“What is?”
“Well, whether if their prescription is correct or not, there might have been some difference. I mean, if the purpose of them is improving your breathing, then you might’ve had problems doing it now. On the other hand, if those pills have completely other unknown effects, you should’ve realized something by now, right?”
“Well, maybe it takes time showing the desired effect?” I shrug. “It happens with a lot of pills.”
“Yeah, whatever.” She stabs a blueberry with her spoon and gets it into her mouth.
I glance over… Until I realize what I’m doing is kinda creepy. And so, encumber to my own plateful of pancakes and take the first bite for the day.
4
A year ago
I push the snooze-button for the fifth time that morning. God, I’m so tired to get up. It’s just a normal day at school. They say senior year is supposed to be fun. Yeah, well, it’s pretty boring for me up to this point.
“Greyson,” my mom calls out. “You’re gonna be late.”
Ugh, I feel so dazzled, but realize that it’s about time I get up and start the day. If only I wasn’t to drowsy. In days like this, usually, when I snooze sleep for multiple time, the wakeup call is when my mother shouts at me from the kitchen, telling that I should get off my sheets. Now, you’ll probably wonder: Greyson, how is it possible that you can hear your mom so loudly from that much distance? Well, you don’t know how adenoidal her angry calls are.
Faking Apocalypse (The Apocalyptic Games Book 1) Page 3
