The Eden Projects (EDITING)

Chapter 48. Rift.

- Zak -

Zak had been at it all day and now, he understood the pitch and yaw of flight. Nothing had ever made more sense than this. He was free. When he left the roof of one building and filled himself with the sky, it made him whole. He. Was. Free. The sound of feathers making his line more stable as he caught each billow and bluff. The chill of wind in his lungs and the burn of his muscles as they adapted and learned new movements with each turn. The slack of his body hanging from powerful structures. If he had a choice, he would never come down, he would live out his days above the clouds and only at his death would he return to earth. 

Everything felt so much smaller. His troubles, the group, the monotony of a day to day existence. Each spray of clouds was new and unique; he felt new. He felt rare. He was a thing made to be free and nothing should have held him down. Except for the one nagging point he couldn't bear letting go of.

That one nagging point.

Kasper.

The wind chill bit at his nose and the sun warmed the freezing tear burns on his cheeks. I have to go back. Up there, he was perfect. He was a gust being tossed lazily along. He was a mist, a drifting smoke let out of an old mans lungs. He was beautiful and he wondered why he hadn't done this sooner. He was a bird, and birds cared little about what they left when they took flight. But he was tethered. So even his meager ounce of false freedom was still a cage. If only he could have gone higher, flown closer, he wanted to feel the sun's brightness in the emptiest parts of himself. The ones so desperate for anything or anyone. The ones terrified of the "after." The one unable to rest in a nihilistic bliss. He regretted so much, and most of it wasn't even something he had done. But he held a seeded regret still. He regretted what he hadn't done even more than what he had. And maybe in an alternate timeline, he could have been loved in the way he did. He would have moved or acted different. He wouldn't have to settle for scraps and he would be okay. It would all be okay.

Everything would have to be.

He headed home...

Zak steadied his hand.

"Just pull it out already-" Kasper gritted. "Agh-"

"I'm trying!" He shouted, jamming his knife deeper. Zak grimaced when it pricked against Kasper's rib. "Sorry." Then he wiggled his fingers into the cut, taking hold of the disintegrating metal. "What the hell were you thinking?!?" Zak tossed the fizzing thing to the ground.

"I couldn't keep waiting for them to kill any of us. I had to-"

"You didn't have to do anything." Zak sat back on his stool. "All you had to do was stay put." They were in his room and even though it was warm, a coldness split them apart. "What do we do about him now-" He gestured with his blade. "He killed Fog- do you think Ace is gonna want him here?" 

Zero was unconscious on Zak's bed. His hands tied together with a length of useless rope. 

"-you know what he did to you. What he's capable of."

"He's my brother. I'd do the same for you."

"Damn it Kas." Zak wheeled his stool to his bed. Looking the boy over. "It doesn't make this the same. He's not him anymore."

"He's hurt."

"Well I can see that." Zak folded his free arm to his chest. "Why didn't you take the bullet out?" Zak used the edge of his knife to lift up Zero's shirt. "I don't even wanna touch him." 

"I can't do it." Kasper looked at his hands. "I can't stop shaking."

Zak's mind was running at a hundred miles per second, rocketing through every moment and event that had splayed out like some dead-racked creature over the past few days, connecting the dots. Finding a pattern. What did he miss. How did this get past him, why didn't Kasper ask him to help. He could have helped. "I'm no medic. I can't tell you I won't hurt him. But if you want me to. I'll try take care of it."