Who We Were (Who We Have Become)

Five Months Underground

Teeth wailed like a toddler once outside, his shovel cracking dirt, even as he unsituated the watch around his partner's wrist which didn't even fit around his own. Not that it mattered, he thought to himself, resetting the time to an hour before he had gone unconscious, and his partner was found beneath him with his eyes bulging out of his sockets.

By midnight, he was completely intoxicated, unable to wipe 8-Ball's glossed-over expression from his memory. There was still the side of his face etched into Teeth's gut like a red-hot branding, and nail-marks from where he'd tried to rangle his unconscious body off. To some, they would have been trophies; he was who walked away, victorious in light of their scuffle.

To Teeth though, it only added to his grief. Pouring himself another glass of whatever had been in 8-Ball's cabinet, he cried over his inherent misfortune; who was expected to pay off his late partner's debt, but the only other person who had been in on their little deal? Himself.

$30,000 was so, so much money.

Where the stress had originally laid on both of their shoulders, Teeth found himself pacing the living room, stepping over TV glass, feeling the full weight on his own. He couldn't be a one-man act, not when 8-Ball had been running the show. It was like flying a plane without a pilot.

Teeth only contemplated fleeing the country as much as he dared look outside. There was still 8-Ball's pant-leg peeking from the dirt, the oily brow of his head, and a needle's worth of his nose. Teeth had known working under him would mean getting mixed up with The Mob, but that had paled in comparison to the benefits at the time. He'd never thought to consider back-alley exits, not when his partner worked such a cozy little set-up in the USA. What a mistake; there was no escaping under a Cipher's watch.

A black Audi cruised down the ghost-road of their hide-out; a slow, observing pace at unpredictable hours. Sometimes, there were creaks on the roof, or the switching of branches, and Teeth went wild-eyed. There always seemed to be a presence just beyond his line of sight, with pen and paper, disposable camera, microphones; Teeth assured himself of these things without evidence.

There wasn't room to run. Even he knew that. Still, being the coward that he was, whimpered to himself that night, wondering why he was so entirely cursed with bad luck. (He could be an upstanding man when he felt like it.) He didn't want to die. He didn't deserve to. Not him. There were things and people that made up the bad in this world, and he toed the line closely, but surely wasn't a part of the whole.

When Teeth cried again, it was in fear of his life. He slurred crazily, slobbering and howling on all fours, remembering 8-Ball's stricken, dead face, petrified to imagine his own. Would his final moments be just as horrible? Would he be in pain? He checked the mirror and spoke hastily, "No! No dead men 'ere!" before blubbering like a baby.

The mirror stared back. "You're going to die," It said. Teeth ran from the bathroom.

He went outside to consult 8-Ball. With a shovel in hand, a bottle in the other, he slung away dirt, sing-songing "No dead men 'ere. No dead men 'ere." All until the hole was big enough to get stuck in. If he weren't quite so drunk, he might have realized 8-Ball's grave was several feet from where he'd dug.

He woke the next morning in the hole, and didn't bother filling it back in.

***

Light isn't something people think to miss, not unless they're living in Antarctica, or still wet the bed, or a sprinkle of both. It's an intangible, formless being, stored in glass bulbs, wires, and balls of flaming gas. Perhaps it's unpredictable in theory, but once understood, the process to gain rein over it becomes almost embarrassingly easy. Light is suddenly so physical. It's as three-dimensional as that vase on the kitchen table, or the television stand with old, rotting legs, or the bars that enclose Dipper's cage.