The Archer and The Airship » 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕒𝕝𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕕𝕖𝕒𝕕 «

Chapter Forty Four

'What to do if you find yourself stuck
in a crack in the ground, underneath a giant boulder you can't move, with no hope of rescue:
Consider how lucky you are
that life has been good to you so far.
Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are
that life won't be troubling you much longer.'

-douglas adams

⤐

  'We're on easy street, and it feels so sweet, cause the world is but a treat when you're on easy street.'

  That fucking song.

  Daryl had heard the song countless times already, the assholes just outside his cell had played it over and over again, the cheery tune a taunting jab that he was on anything but easy street. It came full blast through his door, and every now and then they would pause it, only long enough to let him get to the brink of sleep before it screamed out through the speakers once again.

  He knew what they were doing. Not a stupid man.

  They wanted to drive him crazy, wanted him to do anything they asked him in order to turn that fucking song off, they beat him and stripped him bare ass naked, gave him nothing but dog food sandwiches and that fucking song.

  They wanted to break him.

  They can all eat shit.

He knew hunger, and pain. He was very familiar with those. They could give him shit sandwiches all day, and he can take a punch better than any of those sorry fucking rats. What he couldn't stand was missing her.

He was torn between two sides of himself. On one hand, the ache of losing her was too much to handle, setting his skin on fire and gnashing his teeth together. On the other, the only thing keeping him from ending it altogether and bashing his skull into the concrete was the thought of Zeppelin.

  He thought of her face, over and over, forcing himself to hold on to the memory. Each time the song started over again, he'd go through a checklist in his mind of each moment where he could clearly remember that beautiful face.

  When he first met her, and she was scrawny and disheveled with eyes like a wild fox, then she was darting away into the trees the moment he looked down. When he was feeling sorry for himself, learning to breathe again after losing Sophia, and then by some miracle she was there, standing in the road and drenched head to toe in another man's blood. That night they laid by the fire and let their knuckles rest against each other's. The moment she decided to leave the group. Leave him.

He knew that one well enough, he had seen that memory plenty of times; it played on repeat in the nights they were apart from each other.

He pushed on.