Fever Dream Red

48

We marched behind him across the causeway, looking down at the watery road. We were shameful in our surrender.

Eli was wordless, glancing back at us every so often to check that we weren't escaping. We stayed obediant and followed him like ducklings following a swan.

Except Eli wasn't a swan, and we weren't his ducklings.

Once we got to the other side where the rest of the men were.

As soon as we reached properly dry land, the men searched us, patting us down sheepishly. It was like they didn't want to touch us. I could understand that. We could easily be bringing in the plague to The Base.

That wasn't good for anyone.

I found it quite ironic that they were searching for weapons after Eli had been the one to pull the gun on us.

After finding no weapons the men took us one by one into the car.

We were then all squished together like before, except this time it felt dark and ominous. We knew what we were driving back into, even if some of us had wanted it. It was probably just as hard for Doug and Alfie to face as it was for the rest of us. Maybe even worse.

They had the guilt to live with. They would foever have to live with the fact that they had brought us back there against our wishes.

If one of us died, it would be them that would be at fault.

I hope they knew that.

We were all squished in like the many times before, me in the rubbish seat in the middle next to Skye and Sunny.

I sat with them both the entire ride there.

No one spoke. Actually, Skye did speak. They kept muttering under their breath about Eli. They kept swearing at their foot.

I wished that Skye would just pop off so that they and Eli could fight each other.

Eli would be toast.

Sunny was shaking her leg, nervous as anything. She kept biting her nails, and I wished more than anything I could make her stop because I knew she always wanted to grow out her nails. She wasn't failing now just because of some stupid apocalypse.

I hated it for that.

As we were driving, I caught glimpses of the samd over the cliff in the distance.

We had walked on that sand just a few days ago. We had had hearts full of hope and nerves which were splintering the more time we took.

But we managed it. We did all that hard work. All of that perfect, lucky circumstance had collided for us to only return.

Aggie had died for us to return back to The Base.

We approached the sign and I made a hopeless promise to myself.

One day, I vowed I would draw a penis onto that sign. If could have been the day I died, but I knew I had to do it.

It was all that I was destined for in this life, but I was okay with that. I was okay with being extraordinarily normal.

We pulled up at the yellow palace with the endless rows of facades that hung as panes of glass. We were pushed out of the car as if we were prisoners awaiting our life sentence.

We were.

We were ordered to sit in the waiting room of hell. The fancy marble and sleek shapes had always felt wrong to me. It felt even more wrong now.

I knew I shouldn't have been there.

I should've been at a lovely sand snow beach in a hammock with Sunny wrapped around my arm watching the sun go down into oblivian.

Instead I was there at the posh reception, waiting for Nick to chew us out for escaping his cult.

How sad had my life gotten?

The door opened and Nick came through.

It was nice to see that he had not yet learnt the purpose of clothes. He was still wearing the same suit. I was starting to think he had bought multiple suits and just wore them in rotation.

I would have paid to see his wardrobe.

"You're all back." He said simply, clapping his hands together as if he was starting up his own TED talk.

I bit back an "Obviously." A pause ensues. Everyone seemed too scared to defy him. I was.

"I knew you would all come back eventually. I can't say I'm surprised. What I am surprised at is the sight of a new face."

Nick walked over to Chloe, knelt down and cupped her face.

"And what may your name be?" He asked her as if she was a little kid.
"Chloe." She replied, with a stone cold face that told him that the cult would not be an easy sell to her.
"Why are you here?" He asked her, hardy, as if he realised that she wasn't playing any games. His eyes searched hers, looking for an answer there and not in her words.
"Hitchiked." Chloe responded, keeping the straight face.

If I was her I would've laughed.

"I asked where, not how." Nick narrowed his eyes in irritation, and Chloe nearly gave him a dirty before thinking against it and switching her face up at the last minute. Her nearly scrunched up face turned straight almost immediantly.

"Them." Chloe looked at Doug and Alfie with bitternes in her eyes.

They had brought her into this mess. She was only here because of us. We drove past her. We could have drove on and left her to potentially die. She would have been probably better off.

She would have certainly not have been in the situation that she had found herself in.

Nick followed Chloe's gaze, still cupping her face.

He grinned like a maniac at them, and for a minute my blood ran cold.

This really scared me. He could have done anything. He was an unpredictable wild animal.

What he did do is put a gun to Chloe's head.