The Dead Kings

Unpleasant Companions and Untrustworthy Tulips

"And I long for you to appear, after losing your way across the riddled skies, to carry you home."
Enter Shikari,

The drive home is spent with silence from everyone in the car except Gale and I. He fills it with his so-called 'witty commentary' and I use my replies to shoot digs at Cole, who I just know is accountable for my sister's ill health. The scene plays out a little something like this:

"So that doctor, huh? They should paint him blue and call him Sonic. Who knew that such speeds are allowed in a hospital? I was totally expecting an older nurse to tell him off or something. You and Cole could barely keep up and he was, like, 40-something. " Gale would say, to which I would sweetly reply:

"Yeah, well Cole put a lot of effort in anyway. Heaven forbid that I should see my sister before he gets the chance to brainwash her, right Cole?"

At statements like these, Cole would promptly respond with a silence that seemed to have grown icier than the last.

Eventually, even Gale gives up on trying to turn the mood around, and instead locks his gaze unwaveringly onto the surrounding landscape, trying to pointedly ignore the mounting tensions in the car.

It probably doesn't help that we are stuck in a hideously built concrete jungle that hides the hospital from the world like a grotesque representation of the enchanted forest.

It probably also doesn't help that the view is forced upon us by the crawling traffic that we also happen to be stuck in.

We have no choice but to be surrounded by the pale grey concrete apartment complexes that tower somewhat uncertainly above us, tall but without the grace to pull it off.

It was a place filled with desperation, trying hopelessly to be not than what it was, an area densely populated with those who preferred to walk the night and hide from the light.

I don't know how Elizabeth would have responded to the stifled conversation as she was fast asleep, or maybe that was her response.

Either way, she's now fortunate enough to have escaped into her imagination, dodging the eyesore before us.

I try and do the same, escaping into my music as I plug myself in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At home, Cole manages to remain surprisingly civil, despite my toxic behaviour towards him.

"I assume you're all hungry so I'll make us something to eat. Pasta sound okay?" He says, directing the last bit at Elizabeth as he helps her onto a sofa in the living room; having gotten to her car door before I'd even had time to open mine, he'd won himself the privilege and responsibility of guiding her whilst I followed uselessly behind.

I take the space next to her on the two- seater and say, "Try not to poison it with anything forensics might find."

Though, in truth, after the day I've had I'd probably devour whatever he made, poison or no.

To his credit, Cole still manages to hold his tongue, though, from his dead- eyed stare, I'm sure he'd much rather put mine in a vice.

He exits the room through the door on our left (the same way we came in), walk into the hallway, then disappears into what looks to be a dining room.

I guess that that's either the way to the kitchen or his personal dungeon, where he's gone to torture an innocent soul to calm himself down.

Changing my focus, I take in the room around me, whilst Gale throws himself into the armchair perpendicular to my right and yells to Cole for directions to the remote.