RED PARALLEL

Chapter 64: Pale

Song: In Pieces, by Linkin Park.

The scenario in front of him as he regained consciousness was silent and dull. There were a couple of people around him. Nate, Jessi, Aaron, Rachel, G.Klo', people he'd rather tell them to get out, and Owen. Awake, both green eyes existing, staring at the wall, still, but alive. The white band around his stomach was huge. Before Traviz freaked out again and shoved thousands of questions in a flood of nonsense, G.Klo' spoke, calm as a river under a warm afternoon's sunlight and performing his telepathic skill.

"Son, your friend's fine. Rachel took care of his wound and no, you've been unconscious for only five minutes, not four hours. Everything's fine. Nate is not mad at you because you hit the car, neither am I. I'm impressed and proud of your courage to save your friend, and no, it does not matter whether you were the one who hit him or not, what matters is that both of you are fine now." G.Klo' grabbed a glass of water. "Here. Have it."

Traviz held the cup, staring at the unit of family and friends and girlfriend and brothers and friends and family and... Gosh.

"Ah, he's crying again..." Aaron sighed. "Man, this is boring-"

"Shut up!" Nate and Jessi yelled in unison.

Traviz didn't hear the voices. Instead, he drew himself toward the numb friend, who was sitting on the couch a few meters from him with eyes fixed on some imaginary picture on the wall. Traviz offered him the water. What happened next was not what he was waiting for, maybe because he wasn't thinking anything but offering the dude some fucking liquid. What happened was this: absolutely nothing.

Phants didn't notice his approach, nor the large heavy cup of water inches from his face, a friendly desperate dude holding it with trembling hands, waiting for his move. Phants didn't notice anything but what he had noticed before, and that seemed more than enough. The wall with nothing but the wall. Uncle Tims had taken off the pictures to clean them, so there was absolutely nothing. Traviz felt a deep pain in his chest. He'd rather get beaten and punched and yelled at than receiving zero reaction.

"Phants," he spoke, swallowing a rough and dry and piercing ball of nothing. "W-water. Dude. Drink."

His green eyes, the whole face, it had nothing. It was not angry. Maybe a little sad, but. It had nothing but the skin over his skull. A frozen doll, painted in the palest tone, sadly sitting on the couch, not because he was tired and had decided to sit or because he had woken up and decided to sit, but because someone might have put him on that risky stable position, and it was too much effort for him to attempt a move because he didn't care showing signs of life. All he cared about was the wall. Phants's dead energy reached Traviz like an invisible gas, and Traviz stood still, holding the cup with the useless water in his lap, heads down and thinking about praying. Now he understood why everyone was not attempting to do anything. The morose and dull vibe had hit everybody in the room.

But the water in the cup was making him sick, swinging back and forth and maybe laughing at his face. That was ridiculous. All that. That was not acceptable, a bunch of people acting as if they were at a funeral. Were they at a funeral? Aaron was the first to break the long five-minute silence.

"Hmm, I gotta pee," he said. "Excuse me..."

So Aaron left in tiptoes, then other people decided they were up to crowd the toilets, too. Traviz stared around. The only ones left were dad, Nate, and Rachel. Dad had stayed because he was his dad, Nate had stayed because he was probably too tense to make a move or who knows why, his face was unreadable, and Rachel had stayed because she was the motherfucker awesome girlfriend who had managed to save his numb friend from a fatal ridiculous death. Rachel and Traviz met eyes, and she shook her hair, begging.