The Eden Projects (Book I)

Chapter 18. Humanity.

There were no questions about it, Archer was gone. Although, every creak the barn made brought him back to them. So they waited, they listened. Begging for him to walk through the door, to kick Kasper out, to lambast them with the truth. But he never would. Archer was dead. 

Dead.

Kasper did his best when he wasn't thinking, but now, his mind rambled at one hundred words per second and he saw their faces, the flickers, his own. The people he killed... his father. The way he tore through them like wet paper. It was so easy. I killed them. I am a killer. He wanted so badly for someone to say it. For someone to tell him and confirm the worst of himself. Archer... He would never hear it, or see that anger fueled stare, or well placed satisfaction of someone who had been proven right. He would never hear Zak defend him in what he had chosen to do. I am JUST a monster. The weak state of his conscious was only made weaker by his desire to bask in his own radiating darkness, to soak up the blood with his tongue and swallow away the pieces like skeleton keys. I am a monster. He was slipping.

After all, he was a vessel and nothing more for whatever the thing that lived in his shadow truly was. What Adam was. I can't run... He couldn't run. I can't stop it. He was helpless. I'm so hungry... He could never be sated. His was a hunger that ran deeper than his pitting stomach, it was an emptiness plunging down into his very soul. Maybe I've got it all wrong. Kasper turned over, looking at Zak who slept buried in his blankets and hay. If he's safe, if I protect him, and that means I... kill... is it wrong? If I do it to be strong? He stuck out his hand against the space between them and touched the corner of Zak's sleeping bag. There were no right choices.There was no devils advocate. There's no going back... maybe this is my purpose... maybe this is my why... It's just one more person, if it's Malcolm, in exchange for Archer. He'd want that. He withdrew, pulling back into himself as Zak stirred and shifted over. One more. Yet he himself still couldn't decide whether he wanted to kill the man in revenge, or to fill his own growing lust for blood. He was so hungry. He was slipping.

Morning came easy, bringing with it a silence unmatched by even the grave. Wind tossed the grasses outside with a swish that made the barn hum. Every now and again a stiff billow rattled the tin roof and Kasper would sit up expectant of some giant beast to tear it from its nails. It never did. He rubbed his face, then picked at the dirt and dried blood that had nested in his hair and nails. Then he nudged Zak awake. "Zak- Zak-"

Zak jolted and sat up quickly. The sleeping bag coming up with him. "Wh- what time is it?" He mumbled, laying back down after a few seconds. Wishing he were waking from a nightmare. Oh how he wished that was all it was. Nightmares could end. This couldn't

Kasper rolled over, "It's a little after twelve." and unzipped his sleeping bag.

Zak didn't respond, he pulled his fluffy sarcophagus down enough that his arm could reach for his water bottle. His skin had gone a dull brown, like rusting metal in the light. Kasper could smell him. All iron and death. It stung at his nose.

"Ok. Come on." Kasper pulled on his boots. "Let's get moving."

Zak let his arm down. The blanket following suit. "And where are we gonna go. There's nothing left out there. Let's just stay here."

Kasper could sense in Zak that whatever rage he held for yesterday was already beginning to fizzle out. His was only growing. He would fix this. He would do something to even the score. "You can stay or come, I need a bath and there's gotta be clean water around here." He wiped at his face, making sure nothing that hinted to last nights events tainted him. In the dark, he had wept. It was a quiet letting go that only he would ever know about. He cried for himself, he cried for Zak, because he knew what was left, and what was to come because of Archer's death. He cried for him too, how in a blink he was made into nothing but common trash. No one deserved that. No one.