Brady Tyson's Walk Along the Precipice

The Things That Humans Cannot Bear - 7

 "How the hell is he standing?" I say, staring daggers at Tarrance from across the room. He's getting a serving of peaches from the cafeteria breakfast bar.

"Did you- excuse me." Eight swallows his forkful of scrambled eggs before continuing. "Did you miss the part where he made contact with an otherworldly entity through a massive mirror?"

"This sucks."

"Okay." Eight shrugs and keeps eating. Akil swirls his bowl of porridge with his spoon wordlessly.

"Sorry, it's just that after seeing that kid pile up bodies in the streets of New Adiarca I can't help but feel a little resentful that he's not going to fully enjoy the punishment I inflicted upon him."

"Yeah, well, I'm glad that we have someone else on our side that's fighting the good fight." Eight sighs. "Come on, Brady. How many times am I going to have to ask you to work with your troops?"

"They aren't my troops."

"Yet."

"Hey guys. How're we doing today?" Tarrance says as he sits down across from me.

"Worse now." I say.

"Sorry." He replies, shrugging his shoulders with a placid expression before chowing down on his fruit salad.

"Alright, what's the agenda for the day?" Akil mumbles. "I'd rather not be up all night reconciling all of my guilt and trauma again."

"Well, it's more of what we're going to do tomorrow that's important." Eight jumps on the chance to escape casual conversation. "I hope to run a raid on the Eien leg tomorrow, so we're going to get all of the preliminary preparations done today."

"Well, me and Akil have our shiny new toys. And Brady's getting some other thing, right?" Tarrance looks to me, and I purse my lips at him until he looks away. "J-just, what is there left to do?"

"I want to see what you people can do. Hurry up and finish your food so that we can hit the gym. Stop giving me that look Tarrance."

"Aye aye, Mr. Eight." He snickers.

I finish my food in silence.

"Hey." I tap Akil on the back, and he starts, slamming his alabaster tome shut as he turns towards me. "Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." He clutches the book to his chest, looking anything but fine. "I just don't know what to do. I mean, Tarrance got his cutting weapon, and I figure that you're going to get something similar. So what am I supposed to do in here with a book?" Akil gestures to the large gymnasium.

"Well, what's in it?"

"That's the thing, there's-"

"Iiiiiiii'll take it from here." Eight interrupts him.

"Jesus! How do you move that quietly? You nearly gave me a heart attack." I rub my shoulder.

"One picks up some tricks with age." Eight delivers the cliché line with a straight face. "Brady, how about you go spar with Tarrance?"

"Yeah, no. You don't really need to 'fight' things in that Eternity space. I'm good."

"Maybe not in this one. Or maybe Tarrance will go insane and try to kill you. Better to be prepared, yeah?"

"He's already insane, I think I'll be fine."

"God, Brady, you sure can be a pain in the ass when you want to be, huh?" Eight waves me away. "Just go babysit the kid, alright? I need to talk to Akil."

I flip him off, but still begrudgingly walk over to the gym mats in the center of the room. Tarrance is doing pushups. His form is abhorrent.

"You haven't touched a weight in your life, have you?" I step on his fingers and his hands jerk back, toppling him onto his stomach.