in the hills • zayn malik

three- astonishment

three- astonishment

song for this chapter: 'only human' by Jason Mraz

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“To eat or not to eat.” Zayn muttered, eyeing the red berries in his hand with skepticism, a frown etched onto his face.

He had walked for an hour, and the lactic acid had begun to build up in his legs, forcing him to sit in the middle of the dirt road, stretching his legs out, his face tilted towards the sky.

It was the middle of the day, and the sun was shining hard through the leaves, making his throat go dry from the heat and his breaths short and quick. But for the moment he didn’t care about his ailments, or the fact that his life had quickly gone from amazing to crap in four hours.

Zayn had no knowledge of how to identify if berries were poisonous or not. It seemed like watching The Hunger Games once didn’t exactly give you knowledge on whether berries found in the middle of nowhere could be eaten.

He brought them to his nose and smelt them carefully. They didn’t smell poisonous to him. He eyed them for a long moment, and then chucked them in the bush from where they came, continuing to walk.

The hill seemed never ending, but he kept a steady pace, continually turning around to see if a car was driving up the hill, ready to pick him up and take him to a far away town, where he could call Harry and tell him to bring his credit card and phone.

He figured that Harry would be the most understanding to his situation, mainly because Harry sometimes went out and did spontaneous things, sometimes not considering the consequences, because thinking about consequences meant living a safe life.

Harry wasn’t a guy content living with a safe life.

But he knew that whoever he called, whether it be Harry or not, would chastise him for what he’d done. He could imagine himself sitting in the back seat of the car, arms folded, listening as one of the boys scolded him.

No, Zayn didn’t want that.

Maybe he could call Perrie, just to spite her. He would say nothing, while she attempted to talk to him, and make her feel uncomfortable. Then when he got back to his apartment (which would have been theirs together after they got married) and gather all of her stuff and throw it out of the window.

He started to laugh, imagining as she would look up in shock, seeing all of her clothes fall down like leaves in the autumn, and how she would attempt to pick them all up as quickly as she could, embarrassment turning her cheeks red-

Zayn stopped laughing, suddenly feeling guilty, and all the feelings that he had been trying to hold down surfaced and took hold of him, making him feel sick with disgust at himself.

He couldn’t help feeling some pleasure in the thought, because he wanted to get rid of all this pain, and the only way that Zayn could think of doing it was by inflicting it on someone else.

His legs felt like jelly, and his stomach didn’t cease to make gurgling noises, making him clutch at his stomach. His feet were starting to drag against the ground, scuffing his already worn Converse shoes.

“When will this end?” He moaned to himself, smiling slightly at how over dramatic he was. Louis would be proud. Everyone thought that Louis was crazy and random, especially the fans, but in Zayn’s view he was just plain sassy, and sometimes took things too seriously.

He wished the boys were with him now. They would probably all be laughing at how unfit Zayn was, but at least they could get through it together, like they did with everything else.