Speechless

Chapter nine

"Well," starts Jason. "What now?" I look around and realize we have no shelter.

"Find shelter I suppose," I answer. So I start walking back to where Jason dropped his many cigarettes and he follows. Once we get there we walk straight and walk silently for a bit. That is, until I ask him a question,

"So what happened?" I ask.

"What do you mean?" He asks back.

"I mean what happened to you, why'd you drop the cigarettes?"

"I was walking and thinking about you, not paying attention to my surroundings," he starts. "And I looked up and a heard of The Gone were in front of me, then they attacked. So I dumped the cigarettes and ran, dropping the box and little after, and saw that boulder and The Gone were a good distance behind me so I hid there, luckily they were confused and didn't find me. And luckily you did," I grin and give that cheesy smile.

"Why were you thinking about me?" I ask, intrigued.

"About what you said. It wasn't fair for me to call you crazy. A few months ago, if you told me a virus would wipe out the human race I would've said you were crazy. I guess many things are possible now, I shouldn't doubt you, I'm sorry," he explains.

"It's okay," I reply. "I forgive you,"

"So," Jason starts. "What happens? You know, when they speak to you," he asks. I have to think about this for a second, it's hard to put the event in words.

"Well," I begin. "I just hear their voice, like when someone just regularly talks to me, the first time I thought someone was talking to me. I mean, they are, it's just through their mind. All of their voices sound the same, scratchy and raw. They have different tones, but they all sound like they haven't been used in a while. It's really cool, actually. And they can even recognize what I'm saying to them, so then they respond. They don't change from who they were mentally, except they know more about the virus like how there's a cure and everything. Except they don't know how or why," Jason raises his eyebrows, shocked.

"That's fascinating," he says. I nod in agreement. "I had a feeling that's what you were going to do, why you wanted to split up," I blush, and I have no idea why.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you why," I say.

"I didn't ask," Jason retorts.

"But still, I should've told you. I just thought you wouldn't let me go,"

"I would've. But I put the pieces together anyway, but you deserved to go," he explains. He then grabs my arm and we both stop in our tracks. I look up at him and he doesn't release my arm, looking down at me. We gaze at each other until I see his eyes become glassy with tears, filling his eyes with them until they overflow and a few tears stream down his pale, lovely face. "I'm sorry, Aubrey. I'm sorry I didn't believe you, I had no right. I'm so sorry," he says. I put my finger upon his soft lips. I shake my head slightly,

"Shh," I whisper. "It's alright. I forgive you, Jason," I assure. That's when he grabs my finger and removes it from my lips, then grabbing my other fingers and soon we are hand in hand, while his other hand is still gripping my arm and my other hand is around his waist. That's when we both have the same thought and action at the same time, and we lean in and softly touch our lips together. We don't move, completely still and frozen in that moment, not wanting to be anywhere else and wishing we could just stand there, forever, within each other's arms. After we release our lips from each other's grasp, we just stare into each other's eyes.

"Oh Aubrey," Jason whispers as he moves a loose strand of of hair that fell from my ponytail from my face, placing it behind my ear. He then cups my face with his hand and I lean into it, feeling how strong he can be but how soft and loving he is now. "You truly are beautiful," and with that, I leaned and kissed him again. This one very short, like a shy kiss that was snuck in right before our parents could catch us.

Too bad both of our parents are dead.

"We should go find shelter, it's already pretty dark out," Jason says. I nod, our noses barely touching. I then wipe away his tear stains on his soft cheeks and pull away. I walk forward and Jason walks right beside me. We walk in silence for a while, it's what we do best now. Silence is truly golden, and it's beautiful.

But then Jason breaks the silence, "In the tree," he says. I turn to him with a funny smile,

"What are you talking about?" I ask as we continue walking. Jason looking ahead of us and myself looking at Jason.

"I've had a crush on you since fifth grade. When the virus broke out, we were freshmen. Still would be, but we never really talked a lot. We were friends but I had always had a crush on you, Aubrey. It was during the spelling bee, it was you and some other boy with glasses left. His word was "incredible" and he misspelled it, so you had to spell the word "gracious" and you spelled it perfectly, with no hesitation. Then he pronounced you the winner and when you smiled my eyes opened up to the world and I had fallen for you. It was a cute crush for the longest time. But then, up in the tree a few days ago, that was when I had fallen in love with you. It wasn't a crush any longer, I was in love with you, Aubrey Reed. I am in love with you, to this day." He tells me.

You know that promise I made to myself about not crying? Well that ended here.

As I wiped the tears away I said, "How did you remember all of that from fifth grade?" I ask him. He shrugs.

"You tend to remember the moment when you first realize you're in love," he says.

"But you said you didn't love me until a few days ago," I retort playfully.

"Well," Jason begins. "It was only the beginning," I then smile and along with that smile follows a blush. We continue walking and soon it becomes so dark we could barely see our hands in front of our faces, it was no longer safe out here. "If we don't find shelter soon, we're going to have to sleep out here," Jason warns. I begin to sweat, even though it's very chilled out here and my hands are buried in my jacket pockets, while Jason's one arm is down by his side and the other wrapped around my back and grabbing hold of my arm on the far side of him. I then come to the realization of which option is safer, a) walk until daylight trying to find shelter and not become rested enough to conquer the day. Or b) sleep by a tree with a trap so we have at least some protection and rest up and walk in the morning, when we can see. I decided choice b.

"Let's stop," I say. We both stop and Jason looks at me, confused.

"Why?" He asks.

"It's safer to stop and sleep rather than wonder through the blind fields," I state. I barely see him nod and we make a turn to the right and walk a little distance further before coming upon a single tree. "Should we sleep in the tree?" I ask.

"What would we use to stay secure? We don't have any rope," Jason says. I ponder this and come to a conclusion.

"Let's just sleep next to the tree," I say. Jason sets the bag down and we sit, knees tucked up to our chest. "I can't believe we've made it this far," I whisper.

"I can," Jason says. That's when he lays down on his side, facing away from the tree, with his back up against it. He uses the bag as a pillow and I hear the thud of his hand against the grass, motioning me to come sleep as well. I lay down with my back against Jason's chest, his arm around me, and his hand finding mine as we slowly drift to sleep. Before I fall asleep, I rub my eye, then feel the cut from when I first discovered my ability. I just totally forgot about it, the blood dried and I just got used to the burning. I haven't even cleaned it out. I will in the morning. I think. I then bring my hand back to Jason's and slowly fall into a deep sleep.

I rise and see the sun in the sky, but the second thing I see isn't so pleasing.

I see The Gone. Even though it's only one, it's worse than a heard. Why?

Because The Gone is Jim.