The Eden Projects (FINAL EDITING)

Chapter 56. Rain.

- One Month Later -

Rain always came when it wasn't wanted. This was no different.

Whether it was another odd Michigan norm or whether rain simply followed them in clouded droves made hardly any difference. Winter had finally surrendered its hold on the land. Now the rain came. Plucking. Picking. Scraping and scratching at the earth. Filling the fermented chasms. Washing pavements clean of months of decay. Again. Again. Again. White mist rose where the drops settled and weren't taken in by the waiting soil.

It was raining.

It had been a month.

And people were vanishing.

The disappearances weren't random. Watches went missing. Patrol sizes changed nothing. The time between each disappearance never repeated itself. Only one thing remained consistent.

No bodies.

Unless Kasper had started hunting in his sleep, it wasn't him.

Nor was it Zero.

Zero had spent over two weeks locked inside the warehouse. He hadn't eaten. Hadn't asked for food. Had barely spoken.

Whatever was taking people...

was something new.

No one said it aloud, but everyone felt it. The deaths they'd dealt to the world had begun circling back. Life was trying to begin again, but could only grow from what remained.

It was raining.

Things were wrong,

and life was strange...

Zero wandered the warehouse. He knew every crack in the concrete now. Every rust stain. Every patch where rainwater darkened the walls. He watched sunlight crawl across the floor and play over the window sills. He watched flies disappear into spiderwebs stretched across broken windows.

He slept.

He thought.

Then he thought again.

He replayed his mission endlessly.

Kasper would never come willingly and he was too weak to force him. The bullets had done their job well and even though he'd been the source of whatever toxins they ran on, their effect could still be felt.  So he became weaker still. He refused food. With each passing day his body quietly consumed itself. Goals dulled. Muscles wasted. Necessary systems cannibalized everything else.

Sleep came easier.

Snow disappeared outside.

 Endless rain coaxed green buds from black branches.

Life returned.

Time was passing for everyone, including him. Though slow, he could feel its steady crawl. 

And then there was Kasper. Somehow stuck outside of it. 

Zero couldn't explain why Kasper kept returning.

At first the visits lasted minutes.

Now they lasted hours.

Kasper rarely spoke.

He simply stood there, watching him with a sadness he couldn't understand.

Then he left, alone and as quiet as he'd come.

Brothers.

Kasper insisted they were brothers.

Zero scratched absently at his arm. Every visit he studied the target named Kasper a little longer. They shared almost nothing. Not their hair, not any of their features, not even their builds were similar... but... their eyes. There lied that same spark. Where it came from, he didn't know. But it was there nonetheless.