hollow promises

07

SHILOH JONES

We were in one another's arms before I could process that we had been left alone. I was crying. Marcy was crying. We were on our knees between the two beds in a tight embrace. I couldn't believe that I had forgotten what my sister smelt like until that moment, with me sniffling back the moisture leaking from my nose and her lavender scent wafting in.

"Where are mom and dad?" I shook Marcy suddenly, my vision blurred from the thick layer of tears.

"Didn't you see it?" Marcy's face went pale, her face contorted to one of confusion and the tears flowed without any effort.

"See what? What are you talking about?" I begged, I didn't know how much time we had to speak. How long would they be gone for?

"God, Shi, they're dead. All of them. There was a pile in the corner, it had to be at least a hundred people in it." Marcy explained quietly. Our breathing filled the room and made it feel hotter than it was.

I remembered the red smears across the faux grass, why hadn't I realized they were blood stains? Why hadn't I looked to see where they went? Why didn't I remember the last thing I had said to my parents? Why didn't I say goodbye that morning?

    I couldn't breathe.

    "Stop it, Shi. Stop it, please. Don't make them mad." She begged me, her tears soaked her shirt and I'm sure that if I would've looked down my shirt would've been the same.

    "They're gonna kill us." I pushed back and sat on the bed, a eery calm talking over my body without my consent.

    "Shut up." She responded, kneeling in front of me still. I felt selfish in that moment, playing the victim even though I knew hundreds of others had died. I hadn't been hurt that bad, and yet I sat there in a puddle of my own pity. I couldn't move.

    Footsteps echoed down the hallway and Marcy scrambled onto her own bed. My ears buzzed, and I itched the backside of my left ear as the door opened. Doctor Soleil stood between the two of us once again. I felt the bed dip as Joph sat beside me and heard the soft scraping noise of the cuffs in his hands.

"I'm sorry to report that you girls aren't in as well of a shape as we had expected." He snapped his lips and continued; "You are each nearly identical in conditions. You both have quite severe vitamin decencies and anemia. Shiloh has strangely reported with a mildly severe case of osteoporosis. Marcella, on the other hand, is a pre-diabetic. You're new families will be informed of your ailments and you'll be treated in outpatient style."

"Anyways, one of them has arrived a few minutes ago." He smiled brightly and Joph walked away to go open the door. I glanced to Marcella and found her staring hard at a spot in the carpet, however the carpets were completely spotless so I couldn't find what she was looking at. I picked my own strand of carpet to train my eyes on.

Shoes clicked across the wooden floors before coming onto the carpet and half i mg between the beds. I could see through my peripherals that they were black leather boots with dirty red laces. I didn't move a single muscle.

"Which one did you want, sir?" Doctor Soleil's voice was constantly cheery, for all of the ten minutes I'd known him he had been eerily upbeat.

    "Quod est salubrius?" His voice was accented. He didn't sound like the rest of them.

"Non possum dicere utramque sanam esse, utramque acceperunt morbos singulares. Dicam aegritudines Shiloh tractabiles esse, sed Marcella minus ponderis et minus ieiuna." Doctor Soleil replied whilst loudly scratching the stubble hairs on his chin. My eyes didn't falter from the man's shoes.

"Cedo quod facilius habere, Soleil." The man replied unhappily.

"Shiloh, Maxime." Doctor Soleil returned.

I made the grave error of looking up after hearing my name. I met the eyes of the man, only to see the one from the Underground. The very same man who had stolen Pippa from her hiding place back in the White Room, which felt as if it were years away, and the same man who was the first to ever use a weapon in the Underground. We were a peaceful people, the invaders were not.

"You can't have her." I quickly spoke.

"Which one are you?" The man's foreign voice replied.

"This one is Shiloh, sir." Joph inputted.

    I made a grave and terribly mistake after that. I looked up. He was terrifying. His eyes were such a dark shade of green that they pierced directly through my gaze. His hair was messily slicked into a short ponytail near his neck on the backside of his head. He was dressed as if he was trying to attract all the heat he could, his entire outfit was black. On his shirt was a small golden bar reading a name, STYLES.

    "I'll take her." He stared directly at me whilst speaking to Joph and Soleil.

    "You can't have me." I replied.

    "Let's not start out on a bad foot, child, come on." He replied and held out a hand. His solemn face never faltered.

    "I'm no child. I'm nearly of age." I protested without giving him my hand.

"You're what, maybe sixteen? Seventeen if we're pushing it?" His face never moved, only his lips. He couldn't have been that much older than me, maybe twenty-four if we were really pushing it.

"I'm not going with you." I spoke quickly.

    "Nonne obstinata est illa?" Finally, a smirk cracked onto his face. He glanced at Soleil and then they were both smiling.

    "Bedtime, Joph." The doctor politely spoke.

    Joph reached onto the table between the beds and grabbed a long needle. I squirmed back and inched away as far as I could. Joph inched towards my neck with the needle and suddenly I was flying, moving my body as fast as I could to get away. In a blind panic I slammed directly into the new man and when I moved to get away his arms locked around my body like a prison cell.

    "Hey!" Marcy hollered, "Take me! Leave her alone!"

    I was screaming too loud, hardly anyone paid her words attention. I couldn't breath with my head pushed so deeply into the man's stomach. My elbows moved the best they could so I could jam them into him. With a prick in my neck, the world began to turn dark and my vision blurred.

"You can't have her! She's my sister! You can't have her! You can't!"