green eyes in the dark

Chapter 12

I need to go somewhere else. I walk as far as I can in the darkness of the tunnel. I look at every crack in the walls, I kick a small rock on the ground, I'm not sure it's the same since the beginning, but it doesn't matter, I close my eyes once in a while and take a breath or two. I'm not using the flashlight anymore. I don't need it. I don't really want to see the light anymore. I go to run my hand through my hair, but I stop. I can't touch my hair or anything in my body. I haven't washed in so long. There are so many things I haven't done in so long. I walk past the date written on the wall. Thinking of Green wasn't one of these things. It is always there, in my mind. Even when I sleep. So I don't sleep anymore. Because when I don't sleep the way I think of it doesn't hurt as bad.

I sit in front of the date. I watch it as tears roll down my cheeks. This happens too often. Green is hurting me more than people back home when it isn't with me. When I don't know if it will come back. For once, I don't want to think, but I have nothing else to do and I couldn't fall asleep right now. I remember the mini class about reading emotions. I go through everything it says to me. I try to figure out everything it said. What is changing from person to person? Why is fear so easy to read? Why do we read emotions? What makes you learn so much about yourself when you read somebody? And it clicks in my head. I know the answer to all of these questions. This is what it meant by master theory. I have to find something I already know. It makes everything harder because you think you don't know the answer so you search farther, too far.

What is changing from person to person is the situation. No one lives the exact same thing as someone else, even if it seems like the same thing there is something different. The reason why fear is so easy to read is because it's the base of all emotions. Joy is when you fear nothing, when you have nothing to fear. Anger is when you don't understand your fear. Sadness is when your fears are too much for you. The reason why we read emotions is because our lives are literal stories. Biographies are the proof.

I don't know if it left to make me understand this, but I don't care anymore. I t shouldn't have left without any explanations. I stand up.

- Green! Where are you hiding! Come back now! I'm tired of this masquerade! If you can't face me, you should have thought about it before you started helping me! So stop hiding from something that isn't dangerous!

I scream as loud as I can. My throat burns. I know it can hear me. I don't know if it will come back. My ears are buzzing, the echo in the tunnel makes my screaming louder. I'm shaking. I scream again, louder every time. I want to make sure it hears me. I repeat the same thing again, and again, and again. Until I can't anymore. My throat hurts so bad, it makes it hard to breathe. I fall to the ground, shaken by the hard breathing and the lump in my throat, created by Green's absence. I'm alone as always. I couldn't tell if I've been screaming for minutes or hours. I want to scream at the top of my lungs again. My skin is burning from the rage. I stare at the date. I want to throw up. The day they found it. They never found it for real if almost all of them died at the sight of it. They haven't discovered it like I did when I got here. I never saw it like a monster, but they did. This is why it killed every single person who entered that tunnel. But not me. I am not a threat to it, and it clearly showed me it wasn't a threat to me either. Well as I thought. I don't know anymore. It shouldn't have left when it was too scary. It shouldn't have done exactly as I did.

I lay down on my back, small rocks piercing my cold skin. It doesn't hurt enough for me to move, to sit up. My eyes are wide open, I can feel my breathing as my eyelashes flutter at what would be wind for those. My fingers are drawing doodles on the rough, but covered by sand, ground. I can't see anything I'm doing. I close my eyes and imagine it. The small drawings, my fingers, dry and dirty at this point, my legs, not moving, completely still, my body, not hurting. My mind is hurting. Not a big change if we compare it to back home. I laugh at that thought. Not a big change indeed, but it was far worse back home. I open my eyes. There's a spider climbing my thumb. I'm not scared of spiders, I've never been scared of them. I think spiders are misunderstood by humans. Just because they don't look like a small puppy, people are scared of them, but those who aren't scared of spiders have seen far worse, have bigger fear. Maybe. They are probably just like me. Fearing people. Fearing my equal, fearing what can't be beaten. That's what I think. People are my spiders.

 I'm on my side. My neck hurts from not having a pillow to put my head on. My eyes are closed. The spider is still on my hand. It moves once in a while. I'm back to imagining things. But I hear it. It doesn't want me to know it is here. It probably came to give me food while I'm what it thinks is asleep. I don't wait for it to put the food down.

- Is it that hard to come back?

I haven't moved, but I know that behind me Green has gone still.

- I had other duties. So yes, it was this hard.

I clench my teeth, anger rushing through me.

- How so?

-What?

- I said 'how so'.

- I know I understood the first time, but what do you mean by that?

- I understand what you meant by 'master theory'. I also know you heard me the other time. You heard me every time.

- Well, glad my lessons bore fruit. But I'm guessing that's not where you wanted to go with that statement.

I snap.

- You are right, indeed. Why tell me all those things, to leave right after. That is what I asked myself all the time you were gone. There is no answer to that question unfortunately, you're just scared of caring more about me than your own self. That's why you left. It has nothing to do with the lesson, you didn't even intend to tell me all this in the beginning. But it got to your head and it worked well to make a perfect lesson for me. You know what that makes you, Green? A coward.

It flinches. I don't know if it's the fact that said its name, or what I called it, or the situation in which I called it all those names.

- What's your name?

I turn to face it. I look at it stunned and confused. I realize I never told it my name. I clasp my hand to my mouth, having to put it down at the same moment to answer that question.

- Sid.

- Sid.

It repeats. I can hear the smile, but also the fear in its voice. It was scared of getting attached to me for real. 

- I'm sorry I left. I should've at least said something, but I didn't. It's fine for humans to get attached, but I'm a monster. I don't even know what created me. You're my friend, and I shouldn't have left you all alone because I was so scared of the fact that I couldn't leave you alone anymore.

I can't keep myself from laughing.

- What?

- Nothing...

It looks at me almost like I'm crazy. I probably am anyway.

- It's just you are scared of your own feelings, while I'm scared as hell of others feelings. You are scared of what you can't control about yourself, I'm scared of what I can't control about others. Feelings are like a time bomb, they can at any moment, making more damage than secrets. I don't mind exploding, it doesn't affect me, but if you do or my mom, my friends do, how do I react? I'm not good at this, I don't understand my own self, I won't be able to understand another soul than mine. This is mostly why I asked you to teach me how to read people.

- And I said yes for a close reason. I wanted to read someone with real feelings, someone who's had those on and on for all their life. Didn't work, I just got more confused.I'm not good with emotions, but you seem to understand pretty well, contrary to what you say.

- Is this why you killed every person who entered the tunnel until me?

- Yes, pretty much. Why suffer because of yourself when you can simply stay away from it. But I love our friendship. I wouldn't change it for anything, Sid.

- Me neither, Green.

And we talk again. I smile.

I shiver, I haven't changed my clothes in a while and they are wet all the time. It notices it. It doesn't speak anything, it just moves. I follow, it doesn't need to speak the words to make me understand. I read people too, now.