Dripping Away

Chapter 2: Breathless

          Breathing was hard enough when the rain was thick with mist and sickness. People were on the streets coughing and hiding there faces. Soon, day would come, and with it would be the dread of hoping. I hoped. I hoped that it would be easier to travel the streets, to believe in a god that damaged our hearts. I felt nothing in front of me without that hope, without believing. My hands tightened around the new phone Ranll bought me, wanting to smash it with strength alone, but I chose against it.
         I kept travelling to one of the farther homeless dens where most were beginning to wake and return to society outside. Into the sickness. As one woke, I stared at them deadpan to take their bed. I was an asshole at heart who could throw punches if I needed to, but all other homeless people were threatened by thunder half of the time. So the nameless homeless ran away from what he claimed in a sleepy daze.
          The mattress was full of unnecessary lumps, but I couldn't exactly complain. I stole it from another, and I had nowhere else to go. Eventually, mostly everyone filtered out of the tiny place except for young children, old people, and pregnant women. Some shouts occurred, some nonsense queued. I ignored it as I fell asleep into my own land of sleep where only darkness could lay a hand on me.
           Or so I thought.
            When I woke, it was from another touch. An old woman with her fingers over her lips. She then put up six fingers, indicating it was the Six. The Six? Here? In silent motion, I tugged on the old woman into the shadows of the abandoned parking garage, and I kept my sleepy eyes alert for anyone in black robes. The Sun had been on its last track to darkness, so I had slept for a long time. Too long.
           "Do not be afraid," someone yelled out. "This place is under quarantine until further notice. We just want to re-locate you to one of our facilities until further notice."
            The woman I clung to had wild eyes. A Six zone was a concentration camp. Like Hell I was going to one of those willingly.
             "We're trying to reduce the sickness here. We're trying to find a cure one step at a time."
            Bullshit. If they trapped us like rats in this place, they were either taking us or gassing us out.
            A plan was hatching in my head.
           "What's your name?" I whispered.
            She stared at me in disbelief, but responded while shaking. "Grevie."
             I nodded. "How are you going to do that?" I shouted out. My fingers loosened from Grevie to be put in the Suns's last rays. She squeaked, but she tried to stay quiet in an attempt to see me.
           This wasn't the first time I faced the Six.
           "State your name!" one of the Six shouted as one of their lights stalked my shadow.
           "Lostin Rotsitt. Named when my mother felt the euphoria of sickness overtake her. She was lost in it."
           "Lostin, you are charged with accounts of murder and theft and-"
           "The list goes on," I grumbled loud enough to cut him off. "I know what I've done, so I don't need the lecture. I'm here to make a deal."
           "The Six doesn't make deals."
           "Let us go. Or them, I mean. And in return, I'll be imprisoned by your means."
           "Lostin Rotsitt, we cannot accept your terms. The order came from the head."
           Ikalanig. The bastard wanted to destroy the homeless, but why? I pulled out my knife, pointing it out the robes that stood tall and menacing.
           "Then fight me," I growled.
            It started with gunshots, then I heard screams and peddling feet. I ran straight into the robes, stabbing one in the chest while kicking others away. I had been ambushed before. I snatched one of the Six's guns, shooting the Six in their bodies as they all fell down dead. And I ran. I grabbed Grevie, pushing her and anyone else down the street. Into the rain. More gunshots had cracked the silent air, and everyone was running. But I spotted one of the Six's cars left abandoned. And it was running.
            I didn't know how to drive, but I didn't care.
            "Let go!" Grevie shouted at me. I let go of her, and she ran into the crowd of homeless running into the rain.
            My foot went on the peddle, and the car sped as fast as it could down the road. I remembered the stories as a child of cars with sirens that would stop people from committing crimes. Before the Six. This car was a Six's car, not one of those. But I saw cars chasing after me, and I imagined the loud sirens following me. Loud. Louder than the rain.
            The streets had large puddles of water. Like always. And the car swerved. It swerved enough to spin until it had crashed into a wall. Or something. I wasn't paying attention to that. The white, plastic thing hit me in the face as my body fell forward and crashed into the glass. My body was limp and bleeding, and I pulled myself up to escape. There was an alley next to the car, and I started limping that way.
              Something was wrong with my leg. And my arm. My head was spinning, and the walls seemed to be swirling. But I knew alley. How far did I drive that car? Ranll's place was just a few blocks away.
            "Stop where you are!"
            I had to limp faster. Faster. Ranll was so close. Then there was a gunshot, a bullet striking the bricks of the wall next to me. Fuck limping. I ran.
            The police were there, police tape crawling across the street like it was last night. I paused.
            "The Six are coming!" I shouted.
            A gunshot again. The bullet hit one of the sleek, black cars the police had. I ran to Ranll's. Not fast enough. I made it the entrance before collapsing from the pain of my leg. Not one guard lifted a hand to help me up, but I didn't need it. The Six were just behind me, and I ran into the lab.
           One of the Six pointed a gun through the door while holding the stand-still guard by the throat. Ranll suddenly sparked up with hands raised.
            "The Six are not welcome here!" Ranll shouted. "Leave now before you are detained!"
              The Six kept his body still. "Lostin Rotsitt, if you come with me, you will be sparing the good scientists' lives."
              The machine Ranll was working on was bright and yellow. It was an open electrical tube that crawled to the skies. It did nothing but glow behind me, and I kept backing up to it.
               "I can't do that," I told him. "I know I've killed people before, that I've stole and cheated people to get here, But I can't go with you. There are things I need to do."
              "Then you will die."
              "I pray to God that I don't."
              A gunshot. A jump. Two simultaneous actions that led to my almost death. Like I said, it wasn't the first time I escaped the Six. I had scars to prove that. But it was definitely my first time evading death by falling int an open air machine.
              And I felt the shock the bullet, the cellphone, the broken limbs. All of it at once through the electric shock, and I heard the screaming from Ranll before the shock took over my whole being.
              And I lost all consciousness before I finally died.

              God would have wanted this, to torture us to an end and kill us one by one. I had thought that I would reach euphoria in death.
               But I woke up in grass. Dry grass. A figure of blues and pinks cast-ed a shadow over my body, and the turned to me. There were three eyes atop their head, and the were bare naked. i blushed, my face becoming as red as a painted sunset, and the person that cast-ed the shadow stood. A giant. Their foot was larger than my body, and they leaned downward to be eye level with me.
             "A visitor," they said.
             I laughed nervously. "Lostin."
             "I know your name, star child."
             Star child? "Is this Heaven? Are you God?"
              "Those are false stories. This is a living world for living things. Which you are. You have transcended from your own to meet Lekereianale. Which is I."
              "Lekereianale?"
             "The last giant alive. I have wanted for one of your kind to make it to me."
              I blinked "Where am I, anyway?" I still believed Heaven existed. I was just dreaming this . Out there, I was probably caught by the Six. Dead. Or worse.
              Gone.
             "This is not your home. You will leave soon," they sighed. "but you will stay."
               The giant stood, long hair falling on naked shoulders. "The rain you wish to end can end. With you."
               "I can stop the rain?" I asked. "With the machine?"
               "With you. Open your eyes, go home, and you will see what I mean."
               Their body started to fade. Everything started to fade.
                And I was still clueless as to what Lekereianale meant.