All I Have

Chapter 23 ~ I've Got Nothing Left to Lose

I've never really thought about it before, but the moon moves.

If I think about it, this is obvious; of course the moon moves. The moon orbits the earth, it has done since our creation. Since however it started, and however we got here.

In spite of every break of my pathetic heart, in spite of the catastrophic loss of my brother, in spite of everything in my life that burned, it's still there. It moves, just like it did before. It carries on. It's one of the only things that was the same from before, to now. Everything is different, but not the moon.

I remember thinking, one night on the rooftop in London with Emilio, that it was amazing how far it could work its way across the sky. The high rise buildings, the trees, the clouds try to block it out, poised like invisible fingers trying to pull it down. The world down here on this rotten earth was trying to take the only beautiful thing left.

Watching the moon that night was like watching the sea. I think about the sea outside the palace at home, looking out across the cove. I can hardly recall the image, but it's like I can feel it. It's blue, which sounds so obvious, but it's a shade of blue like nothing else. It isn't like the sky, at any time of day. The sea is opaque, but transparent, and green and purple and blue and black. It's everything, it's endless.

I ache to see the sea.

There's something different about the sky though. There's lots of seas. They all have their own names and lead to different places on this big spinning globe of water.

The sky is always constant. Not the moon, no the moon moves. But the sky doesn't. The stars are different. My father loved astronomy when I was little, and we'd gotten pretty good at spotting the clusters and constellations whenever he had time to lay down in the garden with me after a long day to look at them.

The sky is the same, it's the same universe. Somehow.

It makes me wonder, if somewhere far away, someone else is looking at the sky. Not that I, or they will ever know, but I wonder who might be looking at the sky with me. Is it morning somewhere sunny, and there's a little kid eating Cornflakes and making shapes out of clouds? Is it raining and someone can't help but curse the grey above them? I don't know. But it makes me feel a little bit less alone.

Right now, I can't see the sky. But the sky sees me.

I'm drowned for three days before I see the sky again.

'Are you ready to talk yet, Your Highness?'

I cough as the last remnants of liquid hit my face, a mixture of equal parts needing oxygen in my lungs, and trying not to swallow any more water. My eyes are burning and there's a pulsing beat behind them, as blood pushes through the blockages to my brain. I gasp, trying to wrestle my hands free to claw at my chest, hoping to tear it open just to breathe a little easier.

I haven't seen the sky in three days, and I can't remember the shape of the moon. I tried to think about the sea, or the sky, or the moon, but nothing beats out the pain. It is constant and endless, and sometimes, so consuming that I wonder if anything exists outside of this abandoned house, or if anything will ever exist again.

I hear footsteps moving away beside me, and I take from experience the brief relief I have whenever they have to refill their bucket. I don't know if they get it from a truck, or from a well, but it's never warm, and never fresh enough to be considered any kind of gift.

For three days, Loki and Titus have held a cloth to my face, pinched together a nose that's so cold it no longer feels like part of my face, and poured water so far down into my lungs that it takes me a while to wake back up sometimes.