Crazy » Dwight №1

[01]; Reverence

I can't feel my legs. My shoulders are aching from the weight of my backpack.

Wind whistles through the bare branches of the woods. I hear the foliage crunch under my boots as my coughs erupt the silent air.

I had gotten a cold after we left the warehouse back in the city. It was cold along the way and I'd lost my jacket somewhere between Atlanta and Sonovia.

"You didn't find any cough syrup at the Five n' Dime?" Ritchie asks from up ahead.

"No," I say, voice hoarse. "Greg?" He calls. "You?" Greg laughs and turns to Ritchie.

"Yeah. I have cough syrup in my bag and I've just been letting Meag suffer from bronchitis and shit," He says sarcastically before turning to face back ahead.

I cough again and Greg stops walking and faces me in annoyance.

"I know you're sick, but can you please not make so much noise? You may be slowly dying but you don't have to bring the rest of us down with you,"

Stopping, I glare at him. "You're an asshole. If you hadn't fired a machine gun at that rosary, we wouldn't be in this mess," My voice is cracking and squeaking as I try to yell at him.

"It was coming at me! What the hell did you want me to do?" He demands, getting closer to me in anger.

"How about not be a little bitch for once in your life?" Our argument is interrupted as usual by Ritchie.

"Shut up! Both of you! You're both assholes and you're both idiots," He says angrily. He stands between us as he gives us the lecture that has kept us from killing each other for the last five years.

"You're also both family. You're two assholes, two idiots. But you would do anything for each other. Don't act like you won't," He scolds as the glare between Greg and I softens.

He's saved me from mass groups of rosaries and I've made sure he doesn't get sick or hurt. We weren't really family.

We didn't really even know each other. We just met at a bus station one day and then, viola! The most makeshift of families you could ever find.

A street mucisian, a waitress, and an experienced pickpocketer with a dayjob at a gas station. What more could one ask for?

Another cough rises up my throat and itches as I refuse to let it out.

Eyes watering from the discomfort, I pull Greg into one of our hugs that serves as a reminder that we're still here and we're still alive. "We have to go. It's getting dark," Ritchie says. I release Greg and continue walking.