Fields of Grey - WIP

Ch. 4 - Draft 1

Chapter 4

Italics (WIP)

Reed sat by the window, his eyes fixed on the unyielding blackness outside. He had spent hours staring into it, trying to make sense of the void, but the longer he watched, the more it seemed to swallow everything—thoughts, time, except sound. Reed could hear the sounds of life happening distantly—whispers, murmurings, and even the faint sound of music. But when it was quiet, out there, in The End, there was nothing. No light. No wind. No life. It was an unsettling stillness, a silence so profound it felt almost alive.

His body was healing fast—too fast, really, for what he'd been through. The ache in his chest had dulled, though the inky black bandages still clung to his skin, replaced and reapplied day after day. Each meal Lewy brought was a new test of Reed's resolve—strange, stringy meats and vegetables that looked more alien than familiar. He never asked where they came from, but something in Lewy's wry smile when he dropped off the trays told Reed he wouldn't want to know.

It had been three days, and Reed still hadn't learned much from Lewy. The older man seemed far more interested in probing Reed's past—his time in the Navy, his life before the H.M. Restitution, and especially the events of that fateful night—than in sharing anything about himself. Still, Reed had at least pieced together how he came to be here.

Lewy explained that a crew of scouts had spotted a brilliant yellow-orange glow piercing through the Fog near the edge of The End. As they approached, they found Reed slumped in a lifeboat, unconscious and bleeding out of his cobalt blue Fogskin, with a 100-kilo mass of half a Rotkin sprawled on top of him. The Rot from the creature had been slowly festering in his wound, threatening to overtake him completely. By all rights, Reed should have died. The fact that he hadn't—that he was still breathing, still healing—was nothing short of a miracle.

From the scattered pieces of information Lewy had slowly offered, Reed gathered that they were indeed in The End, not far from the Fog's border, on a free-floating pontoon. There were no land masses here, no waves or storms—just an endless stretch of darkness, punctuated by a sky full of brilliant white dots.

Lewy had explained that those dots were suns, millions of miles away, far beyond their own. Their light, so powerful, travelled through the aeons to be seen, even from this desolate place. "It's cruel," Lewy had said, "that the Fog robs us of their beauty."

Reed had always been taught to fear The End, and Lewy didn't give him any reason to think otherwise. But there was something strangely captivating about the calm nothingness here, a kind of quiet wonder that made him appreciate the stillness more than he ever thought he could.

"When can I leave this room, Lewy?" Reed asked, awkwardly breaking the silence that had settled between them.

Lewy paused, as thoughtful as ever. "Well, son," he began slowly, "I reckon it's time you stretch your legs. If you're feeling well enough to walk without heaving and hawing, then I ain't about to stop you. Remember, Blue—I only want what's best for ya."

Blue. Reed didn't care much for the nickname, but it had stuck. Still, better to be called Blue than to be counted among the dead. The thought of finally stepping outside the ten-square-metre cabin sparked a flicker of excitement in his chest, and Lewy noticed.

"Hey now," Lewy said with a chuckle, "don't get too worked up and undo all that recovery. Look here, Blue, I'm gonna make some arrangements, get you situated and acquainted around here. Think you can hang tight for a couple more hours?"

Reed couldn't really say no. Lewy had been more than hospitable, and a few more hours in the cabin seemed easy enough. Right?

But it wasn't. Each minute dragged on, and soon the cabin felt more suffocating than ever, every second stretching into an eternity. After three hours of endless minutes later Reed's waiting finally came to an end. A knock gently rapped against the iron door breaking the isolating silence.