Evil Is Pink (bxb)

Chapter 19

The next morning, Sticks felt remarkably better. Tendril came to greet him with a glass cup of orange-looking water. Unlike Sticks, the passing of the night made the teenage boy look even worse. He was still wearing those huge patchy shorts and was still covered from head to toe in those white bandages. The dark circles underneath his eyes seemed darker, so much so that they looked like the smudging of charcoal.

Sticks sat up from the bed, his joints and muscles still throbbed, but the sharpness of the pain had subsided. He reached out with cupped hands.

"Thank you..." The glass cup was actually plastic. And upon closer inspection, the bottom was a cobweb of cracks. It looked like the cup was about to break and leak at any second. "Did you sleep well?" Sticks asked as he took a swig, tasting a very light tang and a thick speck of bitterness. He grimaced.

"Yea, I don't like it either," Tendril muttered. He took the cup away from Sticks once he was finished. "But it helps."

"But what is it...?"

"Orange," Tendril answered. He seemed so stern and confident that his answer was satisfactory, Sticks found it kind of funny.

He laughed a little, causing Tendril to raise his eyebrow. "What?"

"O-Oh...nothing..."

Tendril blinked. Then gestured with his head towards Sticks's legs. "Can you walk?"

"Oh...I haven't tried yet."

"Then try."

So he did. He pushed himself towards the edge of the bed, letting his legs slip out from under the covers. He wiggled his toes and rolled his ankles. At first they felt sore, but he felt the feeling slowly subside like a retreating wave. The work of that orange concoction probably.

He pressed the ball of his foot down onto the cream carpet. The fibers felt itchy on his skin, and had an uncomfortable dusting of grime, as though someone had spilled something oily long ago and it never properly dried. When he lifted himself off, it was his neck and torso that throbbed instead of his thighs. He tried to roll his shoulders, but that's when the throbbing became sharper, and he winced slightly at the pain. Bearable though.

"Cool. Follow me then."

"Where even are we...?"

"Flatlands," Tendril stated, before adding, "...It's right on the border of Atlanticana."

The word passed through Sticks like a frosty, frozen breeze in the middle of desert. For a second, Sticks was stunned.

"The City of Glam and Glamour...?" Sticks mumbled, to himself in quiet shock, the slogan resurfacing from some hidden file he had tucked away somewhere in the confines of his memory.

"More like the City of Ass and Trash..." Tendril grumbled. "Trust. Nothing great about it."

Nothing great about the 'Greatest City in the World?' Despite Tendril's statement, Sticks felt his heart thrum with both anticipation and a twinge of sadness—it had been a dream of his to come here. And now here he was. Only without a father. The thought of Dr. King's face made Sticks's skin prick—his anger rippling into despair cyclically, like a pair of waves undulating over each other on the beach, both fighting for its spot in the sun.

His mind still numb from the reveal, Sticks followed Tendril out of the room without another word. The hallway was tiny. Not at all big enough for a pair to walk through standing side by side. The walls were mottled with streaked stains, probably oil or long-lasting water damage, and the wallpaper looked like it would fall apart and peel away if someone actually attempted to clean them. The flooring was no longer carpet, but was some sort of oily linoleum that licked his feet uncomfortably with every step and after lifting his foot over a particularly grimy spot, Sticks caught a sour whiff of either vomit or rancid butter. He looked forward, not wanting to look at what he might have stepped on.