Photophobia

The Knife

He vaguely noticed that something was tickling on his lips; he slowly woke up, half-caught in a dream he couldn't remember. Something about the Finalizer. His drowsiness vanished when he realised that Tico was lying in front of him, her overalls pressed against his uniform. Apparently they had turned in the night.

The appropriate thing was to scoot away of course. But then she would wake up. Yes, she- she was exhausted and needed the sleep. It was more reasonable to let her rest.

No ... that wasn't true. He just wanted to feel her beside him. He brushed her hair out of his face and closed his eyes again. It didn't matter if he allowed himself this one respite. Nobody would know.

The next time he woke he was startled by a clap of thunder. He felt guilty when he discovered that they were still lying right next to each other. He sucked in his breath when she looked over her shoulder, staring at him. Before she should say anything he looked away, unable to meet her gaze.

She crawled to the cone with the larvae or rather what was left of them after dinner and started to build a fire near the entrance of the shelter.

After they had eaten they sat next to each other, staring at the slowing dying flames.

She stretched her one good arm and groaned. "Guess you don't have a raincoat in there," she said and pointed to the backpack.

He leaped at the chance of conversation and tried to give her something akin to a smile. "Don't you think I would've procured it by now, specialist?"

Her eyebrow rose and she grabbed a small stone. "You're a jerk. It's entirely possible that you didn't want to share it with rebel scum." Her tone was friendly. She played with the stone and looked at him.

"Petty insults? I guess I shouldn't be surprised," he playfully responded.

She nodded towards the backpack. "But there is some jacket in it, isn't there?"

He shrugged. "It's my great coat – and before you ask: it's made of wool. So it will be soaked in a matter of minutes."

She let the stone wander over her fingers before she threw it away. "Well, this sucks. But since we're running out of food ..." She started to crawl towards the entrance. "And I'll go alone, you need to get better so you can climb up that tree."

"You're in no position to-" he tried to interject.

"I know!" Without looking back she went out.

He frowned. Had he insulted her in some way he didn't realise? He sighed. It didn't matter. She was right. He was still a little ill and if they wanted to fix the comm he had to get better. He scoffed when he thought of climbing up a tree. With his luck he would fall down and break his neck.

He got on his feet and tried to rearrange the branches and leaves to fix the roof, then after a while he sat down again. It was futile – at least with the materials he had.

He was tempted to go out, to look for something to build a better shelter but it was still raining.

When the rain let up after an hour he hurried out of the shelter and looked around for bigger leaves. He collected a few and when he felt the rain starting again he returned to camp. One plant on the way back caught his attention. He stopped and looked at it – its leaves looked familiar but he couldn't remember why.

In the spur of the moment he broke a branch of the bush off and hurried inside the shelter. He used the big leaves to plug the leaky roof as well as he could. With a huff he sat down and took the branch of the bush. Upon closer inspection they looked like tea leaves.