8. Early Morning Exercise
Three mangled bodies lay in the smoking ruins of a burning house. The ghosts of screams of the dying people echoed around in the still air, their sorrow whispering all around. The stench of the rotting corpses, swarming with flies, was overwhelming. Through the fogginess of the smoke, the smouldering remains of an old sofa were visible, lying dejectedly amongst the dying fires...
Charlie woke up lying sprawled on the floor, his cheek pressed in to the soft carpet. He shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the nightmare that had haunted his sleep. He half opened his eyes and then closed them again.
He could feel the bruises from where he must have fallen out of the hammock. His limbs felt stiff and tired, as if he hadn't slept at all. It was too much effort to move. He looked about, squeezed his eyes tight shut, then opened them again. He blinked several times, trying to clear the horrific visions from his mind. It was like they were imprinted on his eyeballs. He turned his concentration to his surroundings.
The yellow orb had relit, this time a giving out a pale white light which reminded Charlie of the sky at dawn. Beside him on his little cupboard was his jumpsuit, folded and clean, as well as his old clothes, which had been pretty much repaired, and completely washed and dried.
Pushing himself up, he looked around at the sleeping forms of his roommates. Peter was sprawled on the floor, his mouth hanging open. His glasses had been knocked off his cupboard and lay on the carpet beside him. The other three were lying motionless in their hammocks, sleeping soundlessly. Jason's face was troubled, though. Charlie wasn't the only one with nightmares.
Gazing at them, Charlie realised that these were his friends, probably soon his best friends, these four other boys in his dormitory, plus Phoenix and Emma. It was strange... before the explosion he had had a group of close friends, but had been distanced from them by his dad's death. Now, he had lost the rest of his immediate family, but being thrown in the deep end at Merlin had seemed to draw him close to the few people he had met, even though he had only known them a short while.
Getting stiffly to his feet, limbs protesting greatly, Charlie decided to have a shower in the reflective bathroom, seeing as the others were all still fast asleep. The cool water was soothing, but Charlie spent his time trying not to see his battered, tired body in the countless mirrors: it turned out to be an impossible task. He had some pale bruises, which had clearly been healed somewhat, and various grazes and, as he only noticed just then, a thin, mostly healed cut on his nose where he must have fallen when the bomb went off.
He stared unseeingly at his plain reflection. Brown, messy hair. Brown eyes. Brown eyebrows. Brown. Such a boring colour. Like mud. Even his freckles were brown. He was skinny, and quite lanky, his body looking surprisingly measly in the titanium surface. It was probably the lack of food over the recent weeks. Charlie shrugged. He didn't really care much for appearance anyway. It was too much hassle.
Shutting his eyes, he let the sensation of the pattering water on his back relax his body. He let his shoulders sag, though he hadn’t known they were hunched. His muscle cramp from the awkward position in which he had slept in was ebbing slowly. He stretched his neck, rolling his head around in heavy circles. Ugh. Why had he gotten up? He needed to go back to sleep again.
Once he was finished he grabbed a towel from the rack nearby and left the shower, leaving all the surfaces in the room now completely steamed up. Then he changed his mind about leaving the room and went back into the shower room to draw shapes on the steamed titanium with his finger. Some parts of people never grow up.
