Chai

Chapter 9

There was a crick in my neck and my body ached. I groggily opened my eyes and heaved a deep breath. The world spun and I shifted my weight. "Chai? What are you..."? I glanced down into the hazy form below me. My brain sluggishly mulled over the words that poured from its jaws.

I sputtered, shivering with sudden cold, "The fuck, are you?" It heaved under me as something cold grabbed my waist. I struggled and clawed, but the monster held tight.

He growled, fangs flashing before my eyes, "Damn it, the hell is wrong with you? Calm down." As it snarled "down," I was pulled closer to the freezing, heaving beast. I thrashed my wings but failed to escape. I screamed and hissed as it sunk its' long, cold teeth into my throat.

"Is this my Death?" A quiet voice whispered, but the sound echoed off every invisible surface and deafened me to my own anguished cries.

*

"CHAI, WAKE UP!" Gizmo shook me awake and stared with horror in his eyes. He ran a warm hand down my face and held me tight with the other arm. He whispered, voice shaking, "Nightmare?" I nodded and he put my face against his warm chest. His breaths were hot and tussled my hair as he held me close. He let me go and got up to make a drink.

I stared around the room. It was empty, but not in the material sense. It was a black hole, absorbing everything while being cold and silent.

I glanced down to the carpeted floor.

The remote was on the floor, as were the blankets we snuggled under last night. Our phones were also somewhere under the blankets. Gizmo fell asleep first, not long into the second movie. I fell asleep after the second movie, after finding an acceptable position for my wings. Turns out couches are horrible when you have wings like mine.

The monster from my nightmare grunted, and nausea raked my stomach with long, sharp, greasy claws as my head shot up to survey the room.

When my eyes adjusted, I sighed with relief.

Gizmo sauntered in, sat on the couch, and placed a steaming mug on the table. He wrapped his arms around me and groaned. He buried his face into my shoulder. Without warning, he hoisted me into his lap, and leaned back into the couch. He grabbed the blankets, and with one oddly elegant motion, covered us in a heap of blankets. He turned on the TV and grumbled, "We should try to get back to sleep."

*

I laid awake; Gizmo asleep below me. His arms were like a vice, and his heartbeat was a war drum. I squirmed and stretched my wings. I scooped up my phone and opened the Gallery. I thumbed through album after album.

Then I saw it.

"Alice Da Bestest Fren Ever"

I wanted to delete it. I wanted to burn the memories and forget her.

I didn't.

I couldn't.

I can't.

I opened the album.

I sobbed like a child with a scraped knee, knowing everything would probably ok but still in pain despite of it all. All our memories, like an infected, puss-filled, oozing flesh wound, screamed at me for not fixing things sooner.

I moved to text messages, and the flood gates exploded.

The first time we had a sleep over.

The first time we went to a movie in theatres.

The first time we went on a hike at my favourite park.

The first time we partied too hard, sick on her uncle's bathroom floor (And I quote, "Guuurrrlll, you an ANIMA... Anime is not on my side today" *pukes*. I never partied again, but she called me prude and kept going... I should've known...)

The first time I wrote her a "super-fantastic-epic" letter when she was working at a summer camp.

The first time we went to a wedding (I was her plus one because, and I quote "Girls just wanna have fun, but their family is bORing. I'm girls, get in the car and put this on.").

The last time we hung out before the party, never knowing that our world was ending.

Gizmo gripped me tighter and grumbled incoherently. I snapped back to reality.

She's gone... right?

I've reached a thousand miles and she's refused to budge an inch.

I close my phone.

I put it on the floor. I roll over and into Gizmo's arms, and let exhaustion claim me like a ravenous beast.

*

The rumors were all over school. Gizmo and I were being treated like spectacles, like we were freaks. Not sure why, or how, they started but started they did. Everyone stared. Everyone muttered with cold stares and bated breath. The world was against us, but that was okay, we were against the world. Maybe we sensed that this was only the beginning...

Every day more division erupted in the school. The world was turning on itself, a million summersaults a day, a trillion a week, until everything STOPPED.

What stops a calamity like this, you ask?

What stops the sky from falling when the asteroids are bearing down?

What stops a petty, senseless fight?

One of two things:

A solution to the problem

Or

A bigger problem.