An Ombré Apocalypse

Trust Issues

Hours. I've been sitting here for hours.

The truth of it washed over me in waves, becoming more and more real by the second. While I couldn't rely on my internal clock (a two month nap can seriously throw you off), the room had dimmed from 'no light' to 'the depths of a despairing void'.

And I thought it was dark before.

The good news was that I had stopped hearing the scrappers stomp by. Once, the doors squealed open and their pack entered the room, but after several breathless minutes the doors sounded again and they were gone. Still, I was far from safe.

The adrenaline from my earlier grocery-store-showdown had worn away, leaving behind fear that seemed to be a permanent resident in my gut. My whole being was aware of the fact that I was in a dangerous place and instinctively wanted to go somewhere secure, with safety in numbers. Somewhere like the Home.

"What now?" wondered a small, wispy voice that came from my mouth but didn't feel like me. I realized exactly how scared I was and my heart pounded in slo-mo inside my ears.

"I was hoping you wouldn't ask that," Blaze responded, only a little less quietly.

Real answers had been in short supply ever since I woke up, but this time I decided to wait for one.

His sharp exhale vibrated over my cheeks, and I already knew that I wasn't going to be happy with what he had to say.

"It's—too late to go back to the Home."

I didn't say anything. No, I couldn't say anything. This was the realization of what I had been silently terrified of all day, the worst case scenario that I tried to believe wouldn't come true. My legs gave out underneath me, and my body collapsed from a nervous crouch into some sort of exhausted slump.

Blaze's eyes fixed on me, tired with guilt and sympathy, "I know. It's bad, but I'm sure that if we stay in here until morning we can-"

"I hate you," I had been thinking this for so long that it was surprising to hear it out loud, "I hate you and your jokes and lies and I'm going to die out here with you." My eyes welled up and I didn't bother wasting the effort to make them stop.

Blaze's opinion of me wasn't something I worried about. Especially not now.

He swallowed, seeming to be at a loss for words. Of course, he never let that stop him.

"Well, it's nice to know how you really feel."

A smile spread thinly over his face and I laughed, but it was hollow and we were both just going through the motions.

"We're not going to die, you know," Hair-Gel continued, taking what I had told him in stride. It was frustrating that he could keep his cool like that—I wanted to see him angry, or desperate, or even sad. Just one time, I wanted to see him break.

"I don't believe you."

Then we sat there for another vaguely long period of time. I rocked back and forth on my heels to keep the circulation flowing, but it didn't stop my legs from feeling like bags of sand after a while.

I also remembered to pull my knife out of my backpack and stick it in my hoodie's pocket. So kids, here's the moral of the story: if the apocalypse happens, keep your weapon within arm's reach.

I had never been scared of the dark, but I was then. Since my eyes couldn't see much of anything, my mind decided to fill in the blanks. I saw deranged scrappers and, even worse, scrappers that weren't really so bad; they were just trying to live another day like everyone else. Then the scene changed and I saw Hartley, ready to take care of a Problem (me) once and for all.