Garden of Spiders Volume 1: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 3

by Quil Carter

  “Liam?” Silas looked up. “Is he well enough to go upstairs?”

  Liam appeared with a clipboard. He pushed his glasses further up his nose with his finger and lifted up a piece of paper to check it, before letting it fall.

  I smiled when he nodded. “Keep an eye on him. And…” Liam paused and shifted his weight. I got the feeling that he was uncomfortable with what he was going to say next, but I didn’t know why. “Remember what Zamir discussed with you.”

  Silas’s jaw tightened and he nodded. “Yes. I remember all too well that the psychologist thinks he knows what’s better for my chimeras than I.” Silas slid off of the bed and walked to me as I put my own feet over the edge. “I’ll carry you down.”

  I didn’t want to be carried but I also didn’t want to make Silas mad. I let him carry me to the elevator and soon we were walking into our apartment in Alegria.

  The first person I saw was Garrett. He was watching the television with Squish beside him. Garrett turned towards the door and his face split into a huge smile. “Elish is back!” Garrett shrieked happily. My littlest brother ran towards us with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, but stopped when Silas held out a hand.

  “He’s sore. Hug him gently,” Silas said sternly. Garrett, wearing suspenders and a pink bow tie today, slowly and carefully put his arms around me and hugged me.

  And because I had missed him, I let him, and even hugged him back. When I pulled away, Ellis was there and she was holding what looked like brownies.

  “I upset Master Silas and my punishment was baking,” Ellis said. She hated cooking or anything that was stereotypical woman’s work before the Fallocaust. This would’ve been quite the punishment for her. “But they turned out really nice so I saved them for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said and hugged my sister too. I then took the brownies and Silas sat me down on the couch and told Garrett to get me a blanket. It was good to be home but also overwhelming in a way. I found myself looking around the house to make sure there were no places that ravers could hide in. I didn’t feel safe here, and that was strange.

  And it was… quiet here. More quiet than it was usually. My siblings weren’t hollering and screaming from playing, and the sengils weren’t telling them to be quiet or playing too.

  The sengils…

  I froze stiff, the container of brownies still in my hand. I stared blankly at the television, not even sure what was playing, and found a tremble begin to form inside of my chest. It quickly spread, and coated my body in shivers.

  Our sengils…

  Dylan.

  Dylan was dead.

  Suddenly I was cold, cold enough for the shivers to consume my body fully. In my mind, I saw the beast raver pulling Dylan’s head from his body. I could see the red stress line appearing before that split, before his spine came out from his back, breaking his rib bones in a series of sickeningly loud snaps.

  He’d looked directly at me and I knew from the holes in the ceiling above us, that he could see me.

  I was the last thing he’d seen. Now he’s dead. He’s dead and that means I’ll never see him again. All because of…

  Cristo.

  Where was Cristo?

  “Let’s watch a movie.”

  I jumped and let out a gasp. My head shot to Silas who was holding a bottle of ChiCola, and I saw his face turn concerned.

  “Your heart is racing…” he said slowly.

  I didn’t know how to tell him what I was feeling. Or the impact of the memories that I was just beginning to realize hadn’t been left behind in that mall. How could I explain that I didn’t feel safe here? He’d think I was insane; this was the safest place in Skyfall.

  Instead, when Silas sat down on the couch beside me, I crawled into his arms and made him hold me. He did without question or complaint, and put the blanket around the two of us as well.

  Soon Garrett joined us and then Ellis. We all sat on the couch together and watched Hercules. I felt a little better having my family around me, but I kept jumping up whenever my mind would get away from me and I’d see the raver. Silas noticed and would squeeze me tighter to him, but he didn’t say anything out loud.

  After the movie was done, Garrett and Ellis went to their studies and Silas was walking around on his remote phone. The television was on but I didn’t feel like watching it. I didn’t really feel like doing anything.

  So I didn’t do anything. I got my blanket and I curled up on the couch and I stared at the wall. While I stared, I tried to force my brain into admitting that I was okay, but my thoughts kept taking me to that mall. Even when I decided I’d try and find the good in all of this, my thoughts would kidnap me and I’d be at their mercy.

  Maybe because it felt stupid trying to find the good out of something. Now that I’d been forced to survive, it seemed stupid all those other things.

  I threw the blanket over my head and closed my eyes. No one bothered me and it was dark and safe in here but with enough noise around the house to remind me I wasn’t back in that mall. That was good enough for my body still tired from my ordeal. I fell asleep on the couch.

  But my dreams were not peaceful. How could they be? I’d always had nightmares, all children did, but never did I have a real source of terror to draw from. My nightmares consisted of things I’d seen on television, or some mutated animal that Perish showed the crowds in Stadium. They were things that my imagination twisted into terrifying phantoms, but on their own they were relatively harmless… for the most part.

  But now? When I dreamed of that beast raver chasing me, his bone-shaking stomps echoing throughout the crumbling ceilings, I could draw up each and every terrifying detail. The smells were correct, the sounds, the details of the beast’s scarred face and that female hanging off the chain. I now had fuel for my nightmares, and they ate like hungry titans feeding upon the flesh of gods.

  My eyes snapped open and I gasped. Beside me I heard a second gasp and a spasm.

  Nero? I rolled to my side, wincing under the pain in my stomach and arm, and looked beside me

  In my bed, in my bedroom, was my younger brother. He had his G.I Joe blanket thrown over him and he was squished beside me on my own bed; his was empty.

  “Are you having bad dreams too?” Nero whispered.

  I nodded. “The beast raver’s chasing us down the mall, right behind us.”

  Nero shuddered and looked around the room, his eyes wide. “I dreamed that we were in the closet and the ravers were looking for us right outside the door…” He hesitated. “Want to ask Silas if we can sleep next to him? If we’re both in bad dreams, we can’t wake each other up… but Silas can tell. He could always tell when we were having bad dreams.”

  I hadn’t slept with Master Silas in years. But… I did feel the need to be closer to him since getting back. I nodded and Nero and I got up. I grabbed Tangerine and Nero grabbed a stuffed raccoon he loved and we both tiptoed down the hall to Silas’s master bedroom.

  Because I was the oldest, I opened the door first. I peeked in and saw King Silas sleeping sprawled out in his king size bed. He was resting peacefully, his chest slowly rising and falling.

  “Master Silas?” I whispered.

  Silas’s eyes slowly opened. He squinted his eyes and looked at the two of us. “You two look terrified. I assume this isn’t a social call?” he said as he stifled a yawn.

  I shifted my feet. “Can we sleep with you tonight?”

  Silas nodded sleepily at us. “Yes, of course.” He patted the bed beside him and Nero and I laid on each side of him.

  I felt safe beside Master Silas, and I was glad Nero was here as well. I was his older brother, and he was my responsibility, even if he’d been the one protecting us for a lot of that endeavour. This experience I’d had seemed to have bonded me with my brother, and I felt a real connection with him. That this was one thing we’d always have, just the two of us.

  “I love you both. Wake me if you need me, no hesitation.”

  “I
love you too,” Nero and I said back.

  I closed my eyes, Silas’s warm body beside mine. Maybe that would be a good thing to come out of this? That and not taking my own safety for granted, and being aware of my surroundings.

  There would be some good to come out of this, even if I didn’t feel like there was right now. This was a life-changing experience and I’d use it to its full potential.

  But as I dwelled on this, my thoughts flying away with my consciousness, a single face pushed through the haze of memories and made itself known in the front of my mind’s eye.

  Cristo.

  What’s going to happen to Cristo?

  I fell asleep with an ache in my heart, and a creeping feeling that my terrible ordeal wasn’t over.

  CHAPTER 8

  Everyone was so excited that Nero and I were both safe. People that I didn’t even know were sending gifts for the two of us and giving notices to nervous sengils to drop off to King Silas personally. And the elites who did have privileges to request a private audience with Silas, were doing so in droves. I don’t remember getting this much attention, and we were always the center of attention, so that was saying a lot.

  Garrett and Ellis should’ve been jealous, but if they were, they were hiding it. Garrett was sticking pretty close to me and Nero, and Ellis hadn’t said a snobby thing to us since we had arrived home. Silas, of course, had been treating us better than we’d ever been treated, and he’d already had his talk with Nero about what horrible things he’d said to us, and he’d spoken to me as well.

  I’d never heard such an apology and I knew he’d meant it. He explained what alcohol does to people’s minds, making them say things they don’t mean or should keep to themselves, and had said even though he was working on creating us new little brothers, that didn’t mean we were getting replaced.

  From the outside looking in, everything seemed perfect. The family was closer than ever, and Skyfall was celebrating our safe return home. We were even going to a special Stadium Night this Saturday so the residents of Skyfall could see and fawn over us.

  But even though I knew I should be pleased with all of these things, inside of me felt like a haunted forest full of horrible creatures, creatures that were slowly eating me alive. I didn’t feel happy, I felt scared and closed in on myself. No longer did I like speaking with people, even King Silas, and I preferred to spend most of my days alone in my room doing my studies or reading.

  Silas wasn’t happy with this. At least once a day he’d try and get me to talk about what happened but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to relive what I’d experienced, nor did I want to think about what was happening to Cristo, or where he was. I just wanted to be left alone without anybody pestering me.

  Nero seemed okay. Or at least on the outside he did. Four days after we’d arrived home, he was shadowing for Zhou, even though his leg was broken and his arm so badly injured he had a drain sticking out of the bandage. Nero seemed like typical Nero, loud and happy…

  … but every night he still crawled into my bed, and just last night we’d slept in Silas’s bed again. So maybe he wasn’t bouncing back as quickly as I thought.

  “That’s the last appointment today, lovely bean,” Silas said with a smile. I was shadowing him today and it had been meetings the entire time and boring office work. I was happy that it was the end of the day today, sometimes it was difficult not to fidget or doodle on something but I restrained myself.

  “Good,” I said. I looked out the window and saw that there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. It was the end of August and a bright sunny day outside. The sky didn’t get as blue as it used to before the Fallocaust but it still got a little bit blue and it was beautiful.

  Was Cristo okay? The house was so empty without our three sengils. I hadn’t even seen Caleb.

  Silas caught me staring out the window. He put a hand on my head and I watched him in the window’s reflection brush my light blond hair away from my face.

  I had a look of worry on my face, one I didn’t even realize I had. My eyebrows were knitted and my purple eyes wide and staring, my hands were kneading together too, so much they were beginning to get rough.

  Silas sighed and shook his head. “You’re so quiet now,” he whispered. “My little sunbeam has lost his brightness. There’s a dark cloud blocking him from shining down on me.”

  My gaze broke from the cityscape that was spread out in front of us. So many buildings from here to the dead ocean, some repaired pieces that boasted beautiful architecture, but most dark towers that stood as haunted reminders of the dead world that was this planet now.

  I turned from the cityscape and began walking to the exit with my head down. I waited by the door for King Silas, since the king was always supposed to enter the room first unless he was worried about his safety, then a guard entered first.

  But Silas didn’t move. He watched me, his green eyes heavy with concern, and when he didn’t look away from my face, I found myself having to pull away from his gaze to stare at the office chair in front of his laptop.

  “Dr. Zamir has told me you haven’t spoken to him about what happened either…” Silas said. Finally, he moved, but just to put away his laptop. “But Nero… Nero has told me and Zamir a lot of what happened…”

  My feet shifted. I wanted him to be quiet. I wanted him to be quiet so much I think I might run if he wanted me to talk more. This was… something I didn’t think I’d be able to do, even though he was my king and my master.

  “They say you saw a lot of things,” Silas continued, his voice slow as if he were wading through mud. “You saw… Dylan…”

  Suddenly and swiftly, a crash of anxiety hit me like a tidal wave after an earthquake. I wasn’t expecting it, nor was I prepared for it, and I physically recoiled from Silas’s words.

  And out of that same fear, I put my hands over my ears and shouted Stop! to Silas. Then I closed my eyes as tight as I could and felt my face crumple.

  Silas was there in an instant. But he didn’t take me into his arms like I thought he would. Silas grabbed my hands and pulled them away from my ears. “Elish, stop it,” he commanded. “I understand it’s scary, but, love, you need to talk about it or else you won’t feel better.”

  “No!” I cried. I tore my hands away from his grasp and folded them over my chest. “I want to go home.” I turned and put a hand on the doorknob and pulled it open.

  “Elish…” Silas shut the door and leaned his hand over it.

  “I want to go home,” I said again. My voice was begging now, and there was a strong sense of desperation inside of me that I’d never felt before. “Please. I want to go home. I want to go home.” I grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it. I kept pulling it, and with each passing second that Silas didn’t let go, the anxiety multiplied. “I want to go home. I want to go home.”

  “Elish…”

  “I want to go home! I want to go home!” I cried as I kept pulling and pulling. My face was on fire now and every time I breathed in I felt like I was breathing through a hot blanket. I couldn’t breathe properly, and the moment I realized this, more panic claimed me and held me hostage.

  “Elish!” Silas snapped. He grabbed my arm and whirled me around. “Calm the hell down, chimera. What’s wrong with you?” But when he saw the state I was in, his face dropped.

  “I want to go home,” I continued to cry, my turmoil making me ignore the expression of anxious concern on his face. I tried to take in a breath but the heat burned me; there was no air in this damn room, it was stifling hot!

  “You… no… love, you’re too young…”

  I inhaled a choked breath, and when I got no air from it, my body exploded with more anxiety.

  I looked around as my chest heaved. I ran to the window and tried to open it for some fresh air.

  “No!” Silas screamed. He sounded terrified, the anger he’d held for me just moments before now gone. “Love. Oh, fuck… no.”

  I just needed fresh air, but Silas gra
bbed me and sprinted with me towards the door to the hallway. I screamed out of desperation and began to thrash to free myself of Silas’s grasp. Didn’t he understand I couldn’t breathe? I needed air. I needed… I needed darkness, a quiet place. Not here!

  My world dissolved into panic and terror, two feelings that I’d experienced constantly during my excursion in that mall but the way they were hitting me now suggested we’d never crossed paths. These horrible feelings were different and I didn’t know why, all I knew was that I was going to die right now. I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe and the fear I was feeling was going to give me a heart attack.

  “Get Zamir to the elevator now; he’s on the medical floor with Liam. Elish is having a panic attack,” Silas barked to his office receptionist Carl. He ran with me to the elevator as I gasped for air, and clutched me tightly to him. “It’s okay, love. Just try and breathe.”

  “I can’t!” I screamed. This was it. I’m going to die. I’m going to die right here. It won’t be the beast raver. It’ll be from this. My throat must be closing up. Something was happening! Why wasn’t King Silas making it stop?

  I felt like I was going crazy as the elevator travelled up. My thoughts were racing in all directions, up and down, right and left. They were wild rabbits and I only had one net, but even though there were thousands, each promising me a way to get rid of this maddening feeling if only I could catch them, they outran me easily.

  My hands flew to my hair and I began to pull it, my teeth now clenched and sliding back and forth making a squeaking, grinding noise in my head. I didn’t know why I was pulling my own hair; I didn’t know why I was doing anything in that moment.

  “Elish. Stop… stop pulling… Elish!” Silas cried. He tried to grab my hand but the moment he did I was digging my fingernails into my skin, the screaming now so constant my throat was raw and dry.

  Then the elevator stopped and Zamir was in the hallway. “Elish, open your mouth.” Zamir said. But even though I had always been obedient my panic refused me to obey his words. “Silas? Can you calm him?”