Savages

29: The Honey and the Bee

Judit lay staring into the darkness, all her joints locked, neck and shoulders so tight it was painful. The emptiness around her was vast and liquid, filling everything, seeping its way into her pores.

She was alone.

All alone.

So alone.

She was alone, and scared, and the blackhouse was cold and hostile, and

Sa—

No.

Don't think about it.

She was alone.

The isolation moved through her like radiation, and she could barely breathe.

She had no idea what time it was, or if time even existed anymore. If there was anything in the world except emptiness and a fear as alive and as poisonous as fungus, its spores in her lungs, eating away at her from the inside.

She was alone.

She was alone and she was going mad.

She turned on her side and pulled Sannah's bed-blankets closer around her, but they brought no comfort. The blankets were just another part of that cold emptiness, a part she could clutch and tug, but that would never ever touch her, never give her warmth.

She swallowed, and the taste of metal and blood was on her tongue, exhaust fumes in her throat. A white hand reached out to her in the darkness, accompanied by struggling wet breath, and she closed her eyes to block it out. It didn't disappear.

No, she told herself. What's wrong with you?

Screeching metal, shattering glass.

No. You weren't there.

Sirens. There's a baby in the car!

No. You weren't there.

She squeezed her eyes tight shut to stop the tears.

My brain is breaking.

She had to get out of there. She had to escape from the darkness before it drowned her.

Drowned.

Drowned.

Water in your lungs they say it burns how deep do you fall do you float or sink does your body swell up like a balloon do your eyes—

Judit almost knocked over the lamp in her haste to switch it on, her arm flailing in the blackness, breath fast.

White-faced objects stepped forward from the shadows as she hit her mark, but nothing looked familiar. The boards and blankets of the bed were foreign. The scuffed plastic lamp and rough wooden bench were foreign. She was in a foreign room, on a foreign island, in a foreign body. Her stomach gurgled and she jumped out of the bed onto shaking legs.

I need to get out of here.

She needed to not be alone.

It was lighter outside, but just as silent. There was no wind, no stars in the sky, and the air felt unnaturally still.

Judit walked almost calmly to the neighbouring blackhouse door. She didn't care, now, if anyone saw her. She didn't care what anyone thought. Thoughts would have to be be real to mean something, and nothing felt real, not any more.