Survivin' - [B.C.]

Chapter 29: The Kid In The Walls

'Yeah,' I thought. 'As if anything else could happen to us.'

========= SURVIVIN' =========

I really did not want to stay at home alone with Benedict anymore after what had happened. It just felt like too much then. If I thought it was walking on eggshells before, it was walking around landmines now. Thermonuclear bombs. You set off one, the rest of it is all gonna go off in flames... and all you gotta do is go near them. Touch them. Exist.

I wish I didn't exist.

The 30th was sort of a sluggish day. I sat on my couch all morning and didn't bother getting breakfast. I just stared out of my window and watched the surrounding London bustling with life. Well, if you could really call it that. In the rather limited time I've lived here, I've come to notice that not a lot of people are happy here in London. I've seen the memes where they're like, "it's London; you have to be miserable," but I never took them seriously. That's probably why London never took me seriously. But London is just about as serious as you can get.

(A/N: Obviously this is bullshit because I'm a teen from the states who's never been out of the country, and my only travel experience out of the state was when I was younger so I don't even remember it.)

I poked at the keys of my keyboard but they made pitiful groans instead of melodies. It was still broken from when I threw it. Chips of the plastic rim had probably been swept up and thrown out by now. And who knows what kind of interior damage the impact did to it.

I looked down at my hands. It was something strange to see them appearing more or less normal. The initial crookedness of the bones had been repaired, and the scars left behind from the surgery were rather thin, but I was unsure whether or not it still counted as a disfigurement.

But I was more or less grateful. I was still bombing every song I played - that was more so because of the lasting pain and stiffness from the surgery - but I was able to play more. I could stretch my fingers out more to reach more notes and I had way more flexibility with generally everything. I could button my jeans without wincing in pain. I could fasten my seatbelt without jerking my hand back in shock from the painful cramps.

Talking was still a very painful activity. I mean, of course it was; it had only been a day and a half since the accident. But it was reasonably easier to do. When Sophie talked to me, I tried my best to write things down or use looks or gestures or things like that.

Sophie had wanted to take Ben with her that day. She figured that I wouldn't do much good in a theatre when I couldn't talk or hardly move my fingers. And she also thought that I could use Rodney's company -- without Ben around. She also tried to get Ben to hang out with Rodney that day, but Ben said no to a visitor and no to leaving the house. He didn't provide a reason. Sophie just chalked it up to him being still riddled with grief from his sister's death. That's understandable.

Fuckin' prick.

Pacing my room became my pastime after I'd gotten far too bored with just sitting around. Pacing and reciting notes to a song that was stuck in my head. Not a classical piano song, but a song I knew far too well on the ivories.

A metallic rattling jolted me out of my trance. I stopped pacing and paused my analyzing, listening closely to the sudden noise.

It sounded distant and quiet, but sharp and prominent in whatever area it was in. I skulked up closer to one of the walls of my bedroom and pressed my ear up to it. The rattling was now more defined and accompanied by the humming of the aircon. The rather... off-putting... humming of the aircon.