An Ombré Apocalypse

Reality Check

"This is really, really unnecessary. Let's just get to the Home," Blaze complained, dragging his bag of food behind him as I marched ahead.

"You're useless enough already, the last thing I need is for you to be half blind too."

Annoyed, he buried his forehead in one hand, but winced when it hit a ragged wound that ran next to his right eye.

"I've had worse cuts than this," he tried.

My eyes rolled back in their sockets.

"How many of them were from your own knife?" I snorted, stopping to survey the dusty overhead signs for an aisle with medical supplies.

It was good to see the sunlight again—or see at all, for that matter.

His forehead crinkled, either from the bright light or from exasperation, "None."

"Really? Amazing."

I mean, I understood that combat could be confusing, but what he did to himself seemed pretty—difficult.

"Hey, you weren't exactly Chuck Norris out there yourself. You look like a Fifty Shades of Grey scene gone wrong," He said, gesturing to the heavy (and painful) bruising on my neck.

I laughed under my breath. "Point taken."

"So we can go now?"

"Nope. Ever heard of Tetanus? Neither of our knives are exactly rust free."

"Ever heard of a vaccine?" he shot back.

Ok, so I wasn't entirely sure that his cut was going to get infected, but I was pretty determined by that point not to let him win. Thus, I gave him the death stare.

Wait for it. . .

"Fine," he yielded, "but only because I'm going to take this as a sign that you no longer hate me."

"Believe what you want," I said, picking up the pace. I wasn't really in the mood to take an emotional inventory at the moment, and I especially didn't want to figure out how I felt about Blaze. Again.

I meant what I said: the conversation we had the night before wasn't over.

Whatever my feelings were, healing him up was something positive and constructive I could do for once. If I knew one thing, it was that it felt great to worry about someone else. Even if that someone was Blaze.

A couple of turns later, we reached a rack of first aid stuff. I wasn't surprised to see that it was mostly picked over. There was no antiseptic left, and barely any bandages, but there were a few bottles of rubbing alcohol along with one box of band-aids. It would work.

I grabbed anything that I thought looked valuable and stuffed it in my backpack, then ripped off a wad of my roll of tissue paper and doused it with alcohol.

Blaze eyed it nervously, "Y-you don't have to do this. I'm pretty sure we've got some some Neosporin at the Home."

"What?" I teased, "Afraid it'll sting?"

"Just let me do it," he mumbled, then snatched the toilet paper out of my hands and gingerly applied it to his wound.

My eyebrows shot up, "And you're the one that says we need to trust each other."

He blinked, apparently not sure how to respond.

"Whatever. Now that you're good and sanitized, let's get back to the Home," I said, not waiting for him to reply.

"About time."

——————————————

"I think I'm dying," Blaze droned sarcastically, poking at the Home's front door weakly, "Help, Riley, I clearly cannot take any more physical strain."

"Uh huh. I get it, you managed not to mortally wound yourself." I stood aside, refusing to give in and knock.

He continued to limply prod at the door until I decided it wasn't worth it, stepped abruptly forward, and rapped on the door.

He gave me a look that said 'I knew you couldn't wait' and I gave him a look back that hopefully said 'I don't freaking care.'

And then the door opened and everything changed.

Because it wasn't Ira or whatever her name was that opened the door. I wasn't too worried about figuring her name out either. The person who did open the door was big and scowling and holding a Glock pistol to Daniel Westwood's head.

——————————————

They hustled Blaze and me into the building with the usual kidnapping stuff. Lines like 'don't try anything or you're dead' or 'put your hands up slowly' and my personal favorite 'just do what we tell you and nobody gets hurt'. Right. But it didn't matter if I believed them because they had guns and I had the equivalent of a rusty butter knife that was apparently better for self inflicted wounds than anything.

There was no way of telling how many there were. Right off the bat I saw two in the main room—guns directed at a group of Home-dwellers scared into silence—and as we worked our way to the basement there was at least one more. They were all dressed in black uniforms that didn't look like they had been worn every day for the past couple of months, which meant they were cleaner than anything I had seen since I woke up. . .

And also meant they had to be seriously bad news. Either they had multiple sets of identical clothing or managed to get a washing machine going, neither of which would make sense if they were just scrappers. Who were they then?

A constant stream of background noise overloaded my brain, but nothing but fear ever lasted long. Guns. They've all got the same gun too. Where did they get this stuff? Why? Who cares why, they've got the guns stupid.

The basement was more mass chaos, way too many people crammed together like tangerines in a can and guarded by more Glock packing men-in-black. This room seemed to be occupied by the oldest kids from the Home, but by the looks on their faces, they were just as likely to pee their pants as the ones I saw upstairs.

I saw Ava and Iris (her name came to me the instant I saw the sheer rage in her laser-pointer eyes) and just about every counselor I knew of. Except probably the most important one. Hartley.

Did they kill her already? This is bad.

"Listen up!" one of the men shouted—not that it was necessary, the room was practically void of sound already. "I'm only gonna say this one time. I call a name—first and last—and that person comes over here. Anybody else moves, I shoot them. Got it?"

No noise came other than the ringing in my ears.

"Good."

We waited. My skin started to prickle from all the trapped body heat. I hoped it wasn't me. I hoped it was me. I hoped that Mr. Muscle Man would drop dead before he got to say anything.

"Riley Lark."

And at that moment it occurred to me that oblivion wasn't just a state of being. It was a job. It took some ignoring and convincing and work.

I made myself get used to the idea that maybe this Home thing could be okay. Safe, at the very least. I blocked out the facts and the little voice in the back of my head that said safe wasn't a possibility anymore. I focused on the stupid stuff. The little problems.

So when the big bad problem came marching in, I was blindsided.

Reality was waiting for me, had been the whole time, but I wasn't ready to go to the front of the room and face it head on. 

-------------------------------

Ok. I know this is super late, and I'm sorry! Life can be crazy. This part may be a little disjointed because I tried to write it over such a long period of time, but I tried to make it as smooth as possible. 

I hope you like it, and, if you did, as always you can let me know through votes and comments! Thanks for sticking with me! <3