- A few days later -
Kasper awoke with a sudden jolt.
His body was rung over with a cold sweat. "HAH-" he grasped at his drenched shirt, "Hah-" and the world around him came into focus, the weight of a hand on his shoulder drew his attention there.
Kasper wiped the tears from his eyes with a trembling hand, the knife slipping from his grip. His fingers brushed against something warm.
A hand.
An arm.
Someone.
He startled, scrambling backward and kicking free of the sleeping bag until a sliver of space separated him from the other person.
His chest heaved. He dragged in a shaky breath. Following the limb that held him up to it's owner.
"It was just a dream. A nightmare." Zak let go of Kasper's shoulder when he had moved outside his reach. "-you were talking again." He rubbed his arm.
With a huff, Kasper let himself fall backwards. His head meeting the pillow with a muffled thump. "I was?" My heart is pounding. He let his eyes close, one hand still gripping his chest.
Zak sighed, the sound of cloth scratching came from his direction. He was rubbing at a bandage on his arm. "You scared me that time."
It had been a few days since that night.
The night he woke up with no idea who he was.
Or where he was.
Only a few days since they'd dug that bullet out of him, and his body still remembered the burn.
Some things had come back.
The big things.
He remembered home.
His family.
The broad strokes of a life that had somehow belonged to him.
Everything else was uncertain.
He remembered feelings more than moments...
Whenever the gaps were too wide, Zak filled them as best he could. The rest... the small things, the important things, the pieces that made Kasper Kasper- remained just out of reach. The strangest part wasn't what he'd forgotten. It was what he'd remembered.
The why never came back.
Only the actions.
The choices.
Never the reasons behind them.
Odder still, he and Zak had begun speaking without words.
A glance.
A sigh.
The nervous shuffle of a foot.
Whether either of them wanted to, they would have to learn each other all over again without ever meaning to. In all the learning, one thing had become impossible to ignore.
Zak had been there.
In every corner of his life that mattered. He'd had far more to do with Kasper still being alive than anyone had ever given him credit for. Whatever existed between them...
It mattered.
It was necessary.
As essential as oxygen.
YOU ARE READING
The Eden Projects (FINAL EDITING)
Acción"This story has no hero." Set in the distant future, where the government has been overthrown, and a new world power has risen, known only by the Moniker "ARK Corporation." We follow Kasper as he fights to survive in a nightmare where wrong is made...
