Imperfect Fear

Fourteen

Aril doesn't come back during my hospital stay. I spend most of my time sleeping, and the rest of it thinking.

The doctors and nurses come and go. It feels like I'm in there for months, but when I get checked out, the sheet says it's only been a week and a half.

The scene is all too familiar to me. Doctors giving me halfhearted farewells, white receptionists relieved to get another black off their hands and walking back from the hospital to the black block, people staring at me on the way. It has all happened before.

It's different when I get back. I step into my room to face reality. Reese's side has been totally cleared out. The sheets have been stripped from her bed, the bedside table is empty of all her possessions and her drawers have been pulled from her cupboard and are lying around the floor, empty.

I force down the lump in my throat and look at the clock by our door. It's only just past two. I check my schedule to find at six o'clock I'm scheduled for a sewerage check. What a good idea, sending the girl fresh out of hospital down to the sewers. At least it's a partner job. I won't be alone.

For the rest of the day I will be though.

I sit down on my bed and close my eyes, thinking. I'm sick of thinking. I'm sick of mourning. I'm sick of feeling sick every time I think of Reese or Calix. But there isn't a way I can change. I can't just forget them. They deserve remembrance. They deserve mourning. I won't just move on.

But don't I deserve to move on?

I sigh and stand up again, wondering what to do. I could go train Elyria. The only problem is that Tyran would be there and I really don't want to talk to him. The last time I did, I was confirming that his ex-girlfriend had committed suicide.

I decide to just wander for a while around the complex. But when I get to the stairs leading away from the girls dormitories, I find myself going up instead of down, to the black bar on the top level.

I don't realise it until I reach the stairs, but I could seriously use a drink.

The halls are empty and I expect there to be no one at the bar, but to my surprise, there is. Sitting on various tables and benches are six people. I recognise Tala, leaning over an almost untouched drink and staring at a wall. She looks like she hasn't slept in days, with dirty hair and bags under her eyes. I try and ignore her and walk to the bar where a man who seems to be in his late twenties stands, looking bored. I've never understood the bar here. How does it keep running, despite the fact it isn't allowed. I haven't been here very many times but I do know that the white guards are fully aware of what is going on in 'storage room three.' I also wonder how they get their liquor, and how there is always one of the bartenders there. It's a mystery, but no one questions it.

As long as there is alcohol, everyone seems to turn a blind eye to details.

"What can I get you?" The man behind the bar asks me when I sit down on one of the stools. I don't know many drinks, so I rack my brains for something I remember. In the end I decide to just ask.

"What do you recommend?"

The man thinks for a moment, then smiles. "Because you're young, I'd suggest just a light drink. Usually kids your age go more for the ones that will make them the drunkest, but I have a feeling you're a little different, aren't you F?"

I give a halfhearted shrug. "I guess."

He pulls a plastic cup from under the bar along with a black bottle. He pours a small bit into the cup and hands it to me. It smells sweet and I barely hesitate when I tip it down my throat. The bartender scowls.