Dark Places

80 | so you feel safe

**Uh... did I miss several weeks of updating? Yeah. Life is, as usual, crazy. But I still love delving back into Dark Portland and seeing where Luz and Drake are, SORRY!!!!!

❝i know you'll come
in the night like a thief...
but i've had some time alone
to hone my lying technique.
i know you think that i'm someone you can trust,
but i'm scared i'll get scared
and i swear i'll try to nail you back up.❞

☽

—and I see Jonah. His silhouette translucent, mummified; a jawline protruding, bones cracked and splintered. There's heavy silt in creases and crevices of white-stretched flesh, charcoal powdery-dusty—

He's hovering. He's above you, Luz.

It's for Her. It's for Her. It's for Her.

Darkne—

I WAKE UP ALIVE.

I wake up slowly, groggily. Thunder growling low. Rain pounding, spitting in an open window. My breath frosty. My cheeks cold. I wake up tangled in Drake Medina—arms and legs splayed across a scattering of dry paintbrushes. Salty. Dirty.

"Ugh..." Jonah is groaning.

Sunday.

My heart jerks as I rip away. Drake rouses from a half-dozed living room slump, blinking blearily. Surrounded by oil and pastels and a canvas painted midnight-dark. (No charcoal, Luz.) Silhouettes. Trees. Dabs of clumsy froth: a fringe of shadowy leaves, pine needles, so realistically textured I can feel pinpricks—

"Shit," he rasps, stirring.

And Jonah is sitting up quickly, hacking a violent cough. My hands slip; stumbling up, grabbed and yanked back a step. The 700 Club is playing. Muted. Call 911, Luz!

"Espera," Drake is hissing in my ear, an arm locked around my waist awkwardly. Like Jonah is- is- is...

Hermano.

My head is spinning. Jonah warbles slightly, wincing, as if mildly bothered by being so off-balance. Tremors. His bare feet on wooden floor, caked in muddy pine needles. "What..." he swallows, frowning. His gaze drops, a wandering indication. "What happened?"

"¿No te recuerdas, Jones?" Drake croaks, echoing him. "¿Qué pasó?" His palm on his forehead, rubbing furiously. Headaches. Everybody semi-hungover, blackout drunkenness like leaving a pit of darkness suddenly and sharply.

"I just remember being cold," Jonah murmurs, opening his eyes slowly: glassy black orbs reflecting shiny. Marbles. Coal. "It—yo no sé, hungry and so fucked up..." Everything blank, dark. His lips slack.

It's only a thing you can feel, never know.

"Dude, do you know wh—"

"Fuck," Drake cuts him off, grunting—a one-handed push up. His mud-matted shirt lifts an inch, exposing caked skin. "Where— Ugh, no puedo—" He's wincing at his dimly lit iPhone. "It's past 5."

On Sunday?

Or... Monday?

Time is a human construct, Jess would argue slyly. Calendars. Weeks. Days. No, no, whispering in your ear, pressing against your body, breathing on your neck, Luz, Luz, Luz. There is only light and darkness. Sometimes in long bouts, seemingly forever. Life is cyclical.

We'll all die, she'd said back in February. Another Mass Extinction. It's a cycle. We're next, Luz.

Mátalo.