Light Death

One

A/N: There are some interludes in this story, and sometimes I'll add them to the chapter itself if it's a short one, but I'll add it as a separate chapter if it's too long. 

  ...

"D'you think they'd recognize me?"

"Who would?"

"Everyone. My parents, the girls I used to hang out with, my boyfriend."

Banzai scoffed. "What, you forget or something? My dead-beat dad and your precious boyfriend are dead. Just like everyone else."

"Thanks for the reminder," Heidi rolled her eyes, her fingers picking at one of the sequins on her jacket. It came off and she flicked the purple sequin at the boy sitting next to her. It stuck to the sweat on his pale forehead. "I'm gonna go check on Cal."

"I bet he'd love that."

"Fuck off."

Heidi hopped off the bed, mattress springs groaning. Banzai watched her leave. Even when the last echoes of her footsteps pitter-pattered into nothing, her question still remained.

Heidi used to be one of those girls you would see walking down the school hallway with her very own posse of girls just like her, all their time spent on making themselves look older than they were. Banzai never went a whole week without missing school, so he didn't know her that well, but Cal was always blabbering about that one black chick at school that had pink hair and a twin no one ever noticed. Heidi was never mean to anyone, based on Cal's stories (he did have a crush on her), had good grades, but had a rep for being easy.

Banzai honestly couldn't see how Heidi would ever be considered one of the popular kids, but all he'd seen her in was a tattered red dress and a purple jacket. She even hacked off her hair, the black curls sticking close to her head and the tips of her hair all that remained pink. She looked just like them now. And acted like it too.

"Ben?"

The voice was Heidi's, but not quite. Her twin stood at the door, still lugging a backpack she'd probably found lying around somewhere during her foraging hours. Ida looked exactly like Heidi but seemed smaller in comparison, her face thinner and her back curved. Her hair wasn't dyed, but shaved just like Heidi's and still had a few bald-spots. Her eyes were wide and brown and looked around at the room before finally meeting Banzai's gaze.

"I told you to call me Banzai."

"But why? Isn't your name Benjamin?"

Banzai felt his stomach knot at the mention of his full name. "Just do it."

Ida opened her mouth to say something more, but Banzai sent her a glare and she shut up, her mouth forming a tight line. "Fine. Cal wanted you to know that the food's ready."

"What is it this time?"

A tiny frown wormed itself onto Ida's face. "Same as always."

She left then, climbing up the attic stairs and depositing her finds into a huge hamper there. The house they were in used to belong to some loaded white family and it was the only one on the street that wasn't fully destroyed. All the windows on the first floor were smashed and the appliances were all stolen, but it was better than staying anywhere else. The neighbouring houses were half-burned down or had huge holes in their walls. None of them wanted to know what had caused that.

The bed groaned as Banzai crawled off of it. He made his way down the winding staircase as slowly as he could, holding his nose at the stench.

Another thing about the house that made it much better from the others was the fact that it had food. The kitchen cabinets were full of them, cans stacked over cans and bags of them everywhere. It was a wonder at first why people didn't take any of the food for themselves, but then they realized it would be useless to thieves anyway. The cans of food weren't for humans.