Sand Red

35

I was right. Yul was in the camp, captured like a fool because he waddled up there with a body in his arms, an inaccessible weapon and no trusty sidekick to sort things out for him. I fought for him, I really did. I brought heaven and hell together trying to win. But there were too many of them and I could neither think nor stand straight. I had killed a man that had lived the sky knows how many decades and I was nothing today.

They put us in an unruined building with four cement walls and no windows. A single double ironed door was the only way in or out and I didn't have the energy to beat at it the way Yul expected me to while he sat and smoothed Aida's hair. I curled up around my panging stomach and slept deeply and irrevocably, without a care in the world. Though sleep is dangerous when you are concussed, Yul didn't bother waking me at any point. I hadn't expected him to. With my new place as head of our little group had grown a fresh awareness of the truth of us. Yul and I grew further apart every day, and he didn't care very much about me anymore.

Upon awakening, the place smelled forebodingly of humanity. Smells of sweat and urine and faeces lurked in every corner and in the pitch, pitch black, things that felt like cloth and teeth presented themselves beneath my feet. Like people had been imprisoned here before. But I didn't care at all. My mouth was always swallowing, trying to wet my tongue, but it hung fat and sticky out of my mouth anyway. The inside of me was as empty as the darkness of the last night skies I had ever seen. The pain of my forehead dried with blood, and my ribs wet with blood, and the hunger pangs in my stomach ravaged my body, and all the say my mind had in this was a wish for death. I cared for nothing at all and death was all the control I had left.

Aida whimpered from the blackness to my right. I could hear Yul comforting her. Words and lies I wished were mine.

'What are we going to do?' he asked hoarsely.

I didn't bother answering him. I was sure we'd die.

I lay curled up against the ever cold wall, breathing shallowly. Winter was approaching. I couldn't remember if it was night or day outside.

'They're going to eat us,' Yul continued.

Certainly. What did it matter? I missed Jordan. He was the man I would never be. They had all agreed that Aida was too important to be lost and now she was dying.

I'm going to die. I had always loved the sky. My mother. I hoped something good happened to you when you died. She deserved it. And I had had enough of suffering for a while now.

I turned to Yul, a new objective in my muddled head. 'Yul.'

'You're awake,' he said.

'I love you,' I said. 'Even though you make me want to cry.' Now I wanted to cry.

He was silent, but I wasn't anxiously awaiting an answer. For the first time in months, I was calm. I didn't need validation from anybody. I didn't need anything at all. I loved my mother and I loved the sky.

'And you love Od.'

'Yes.'

'You're my best friend.'

Despite myself, my heart bloomed. 'You're also pretty childish,' I continued, encouraged. 'It's tiring.'

He said nothing to this.

'And I suppose I've been jealous of Aida these past few days,' I finished with some effort.

'She could die.'

'We're all going to die.'

'She's in so much bloody pain,' he said lowly.

'So are we all.' I fingered my fresh cut from the child outside the camp. It was meaningful in some way. The pain was negligible in the face of everything else my body was experiencing, but it was important in some way. A memento. I have killed hundreds, but I had not murdered that boy.