Things Fall Apart

4. The Danger Days

Party Poison was woken up by the sun's first rays shyly darting over the pale blue dunes still cold from the night. He looked down at Kobra Kid, sound asleep, snuggled against him. All that Poison could see of him were a few blonde locks of hair out of a Better Living Industries sleeping bag, which was originally meant to carry around the corpses from the city left to rot in the desert, under the placid eyes of the Trash Lords: As the city's damps and cemeteries were full, and the BL/i had a hatred for mess and dirt, the wasteland was used as Battery City's garbage can. The Rebels living here got most of their stuff from this trash which was, for most of it, still pretty useful, including the corpses bags. What they had previously contained didn't seem to bother anyone. Here, being asleep was synonymous of being dead.

Poison zipped down his sleeping corpse bag, and, after throwing a quick glance at his comrades in arms, still asleep in their own bags, at the remains of their campfire which had left a black circle of ashes on the white sand, he got up on his feet and walked further away from the circle of sleepers. He took a moment to admire the horizon. It would just be a matter of minutes before the sun rose entirely over the dunes, and burning red, orange and pink shades already spread in the pale blue sky slowly fading to darker blue in the places were the night hadn't quite left yet. To his far left he suddenly noticed Fun Ghoul, who was taking his round of guard, sitting on a rock, staring at the morning sky as well. Poison walked the distance separating them in a few step and sat down next to him silently.

"Hello uncle" Fun Ghoul greeted him, without even moving his glance away from the sky. "The sun was waiting for thee to rise."

Poison nodded. He was used to his strangeness. They had noticed, ever since the day Cola had found him, that that boy wasn't quite right in the brain. Maybe it was because he had spent too much time wandering in the wasteland, the deadly sun heavily beating on his head, cooking his brain inside his skull, maybe it was something the BL/i did to him. None knew and he never told. Another good shooter was more than welcome here, so they had taken him in anyways. No questions were ever asked here.

The past was dead, and the future bulletproof.

For some reason, Fun Ghoul called Party Poison his uncle, even though he had been told many times it wasn't the case. Party Poison didn't mind, so he let him do so.

He actually enjoyed Fun Ghoul's presence. He was less serious, less aware, more careless than the others, and his Shakespearian ways of talking sometimes amused him.

"Today will be as bright as the sun, nuncle!" the latter exclaimed, while the rising sun drew pink shades on the morning sand hills, and coloured the whole sky.

In the camp, Kobra Kid woke up, feeling his brother's presence missing next to him.

"How would you know? You can never know what happen." Poison replied darkly.

"I know what happens, uncle. I know it all. I know the Witch like my own mother. She's thy sister uncle, but she ain't Kobra's. Nah nah nah nah!

She smells the blood of a Battery man.

By the end of the day masks will fall.

The Witch will have dinner tonight, she already sets the table for four."

Poison replied with a rare thin smile to Fun Ghoul's incoherent babbling, slightly amused.

"Jesus! You do have teeth!" Fun Ghoul exclaimed, noticing it.

At that moment Kobra arrived from behind them, as silent as a wildcat, and as mute as ever. He sat down in the sand in front of them, staring at the rising sun, entirely ignoring both his brother and his comrade.