In Search Of The Neon City

12 - Hannes

My feet dragged themselves slowly up towards the tower, the soles moved over old footprints and stains of spilled engine oil.
I rubbed my eyebrows with a brown-spotted thumb and a plastered index finger. 
Why does the body always get extremely tired after a good night's sleep?  As if it has realized what it lacks and demands more?

My steps moved forward anyway, my feet knew it was no use listening to the protests of the brain.  It had been a long time since I'd been able to give in to what my body wanted.
As if life wanted to fuck me even more I moaned in pain and hissed annoyed at the stone that had crept into the shoe and insisted on drilling into the sole of the foot.
I immediately nicknamed it Carl, a stubborn bastard who annoyed me when i least expected it, and for once I thought that this morning was going to start smoothly.

Although it was my own fault, I admitted bitterly and left the stone in my boot.
Because I was so tired, and because I could not help but fuck with Carl.  Though I knew I would get paid in double for it, but I couldn't cope with his I-know-it-all attitude.  It was like pouring a whole fucking bottle of lighter fluid on my fumes.

My eyes slid up to the tower where I had spent the last few nights and my heart softened a little when I thought of all the times Lo had come up and joined me up there, even though he had worked at least as hard as me all day.
Now the roles had changed, Lo had offered to take over guarding and for once I had been allowed to rest.

Should I show my gratitude?  I glanced at the kitchen and raised my hand in a careless wave to Fia, who stood bent over dirty pots.
"Is breakfast ready?"

She rolled her eyes in response and struck out with her arms "If you clean the rest of the pans, Sugar."

I moaned and took a step back, but knew I had stayed away from the burnt pots for far too long.  And that kind of thing had consequences.
"I'm just going to make sure Lo's awake first.."

She glanced up at the tower "Was he on guard duty  last night?"
I nodded and took out a dry breakfast ration from my back pocket, which I immediately started gnawing on.

"Does that mean he's done with the search?"

I shrugged "only he and Carl know that."

She tilted her head to the side and smiled slyly "Officially maybe, but everyone knows you're closer than that."

I shook my head and smiled at her teasingly before continuing my walk towards the wooden ladder, the rickety structure that led up to the weather-beaten tower.
If you could call it a tower.
There were four logs with a ledge, a railing, a canvas roof and a few boxes stacked on top of each other.  But it fulfilled its function, we had excellent visibility and would notice if someone unknown approached.

"If you're a sleep, you deserve a beating," I shouted in the most serious voice I could muster, but I suspected that my smile ruined the tone.

My little brother was a pain in the ass,  he could tease me into madness and often I sighed with anger at his idiotic little inventions.  But I had never raised my hand at him.
Never. So my empty threat was pointless, more of a bad variant of an alarm clock.

Five steps left, I thought and let the leg muscles work a little more.
No one moved up there, but I knew he had heard me, he had always been a light sleeper.

When my fingers slid over the floorboards and I could pull myself up through the hole in it, my eyes immediately registered how disturbingly empty the tower was.

"What the hell Lo" I muttered and looked down at the camp "you know better than to leave the tower early."

With a sigh, I sat down on one of the boxes and waited for him to show up with his breath in his throat and a really bad explanation.

I pulled another dry, gray cardboard-like cookie out of my pocket and filled my mouth with its bitter taste.  Every little moisture particle in my mouth was sucked up by it and I frantically started looking for some old forgotten water bottle.
Without results, I searched further among ammunition boxes, forgotten rubbish and patched blankets. My fingers moved from box to box, until my eyes landed on a dirt-stained piece of paper with my name written large over half the page.
My heart stopped when I saw it, I didn't have to read what he had written, I already knew.

My feet froze to the floorboards even though my body screamed at me to run after him.
Fuck! That bastard Twelve must have lured the shit out of him!
I could see in my mind how he sat chained waiting to be grilled over an open fire, or thrown into a dark fucking hole. He was quite skinny, my little brother, maybe they would rather let him dig for coal than eat him?

I shook all the sickening thoughts off me and reached for the note with trembling fingers.

Forgive me Ness, he started the fucking letter and that alone made me want to shake him really hard.

I'm doing this for our future, I hope you can trust me even tho I lied to you.
But you know in your heart that I would never do it if it weren't important!
So please don't tell Carl .. because I need time.

I promise I'll be back.
/ Lo

I read the note three more times before I sighed and sank to the floor with a thump.

"You little idiot" I said aloud and leaned my head back against the unstable railing with tears burning behind my eyes.  "You can't promise such a thing, not if you are all alone out there."