ADRONITIS (II) : tmr minho

35: I could be Dave

Michelle 35

I finally manage to sneak out of bed. It isn't an easy task, and the night is almost over, but I move. The flood boards creek under my feet.

My head still hurts, but it's a dull ache. It's not a concussion though, that much they have noticed. My brain has been working fine, and I haven't felt any worse than any one would feel after getting hit in the head by a boy they used to sleep with. I guess, anymore than anyone else would.

"Got the Builder curse, you should be in bed," I step out into the hall, and Clint is waiting for me next to the door.

It's late. Really late. Late enough that we are supposed to be silent and blend in with the rest of the building. I don't have an excuse for being up, except that being in a room for hours upon hours really sucks. Being blind sucks more, but whatever.

"What Builder curse?"

Clint leans over, spinning my chin to face him. I knock his hand away from me, insisting. "I asked you a question."

"It's only Builders so far," he mentions. "Would suck if it was another Builder next."

That's a shucking shucked up way to put it. As if we will die, one after another after another. As if we can be reduced to a single syllable and a single sentence. A curse if you will. Gally died, and then Adam died, and its like Clint isn't mourning. He's even shucking creepier than Winston.

Clint simply persists, his hands wrapping around my chin. He is examining my face. "Wound's still fresh. The hit was nasty. My best guess is that it takes a month to heal."

I step back, moving away. Yeah, I know I look shucked up. Thanks for reminding me. The cut wraps across my jaw, slicing all the way up past the back of my ear and towards me head. No shucking klunk it looks bad.

I look hurt because he hurt me. The force he used is displayed on my skin. He didn't mean to hurt me, he meant to knock me down. Or, at least whatever thing that took over Gally and made him want to die did this.

This physical pain resonates with the emotional one. It's just how the world works.

"Still can't see?" He asks.

I back away, rolling my eyes. Or my eye. I haven't asked any one if I can move both. Klunk, what if I look shucking weird? No one will ever take me seriously again.

"Just shuck off," I brush him off, moving away.

I make my way down the hall, moving forward through the Homestead. I don't know where I am planning to go, or where I'm planning to be. Maybe dead in the mouth of a Griever for all I shucking know. Not like if it approached me from the right that I could see it. Could grab me without me even knowing.

I walk around the corner, trying to find where I need to go, and I feel it. Call it fate, or call it what it actually is (a stomach ache from dehydration), I find myself stopping in front of the room they are having me sleep in. Or, are supposed to, before the Builders took over it. The room where Adam was sleeping last night.

I creep inside. The door squeaks on its hinges, though it opens. No one else in the Homestead makes a sound. I doubt anyone else is even awake to make one right now anyway.

The room is empty. Unlike every other space, crammed with people, no one dares to stand in here. The window is covered by dust, holding itself together by a thread. I guess they've tried to repair it after last night to know luck. They've run out of spare wood, so it seems they've taken to using the ruins of the Map room to protect us. Easily flammable, and it looks to be easily blown away. Like the whole structure could disappear like dandelion seeds into the air. Like Gally left, and Adam left, and everyone who I have ever known, truly.