Toys are 2 play

24 Snowstorm

Angelina's

It was easy to drive in the world outside Oxygen. The street albeit old was clean of cars and any trash that could be residential there if the roads weren't cleaned after they decided to evacuate the city. The air coming from the windowless truck tickled my nose and down to my mouth, that after a while began to scream for water, but the water had been wasted when Sebastian tried to open the bottle using only one hand. I was not mad at the moment - poor Sebastian couldn't even think properly - but as hours seemed to pass with nothing to sustain my thirst I began to regret my lack of attention. I could have stopped the water accident.

When the news showed people abandoning their houses in the city long time ago I secretly thought that some of them had remained, untouched by the war and living with the little they could get from earth. Fact is, if they had tried to survive, they failed. Miles away from Oxygen's green surroundings, we were surrounded by dust and old buildings that once were family houses, hospitals, restaurants and even parks. It was a sad view, monotonous even, but despite my eyes dragging down I couldn't sleep. Of course, I had to be awake for anything happening on the road.

"Sebastian, how long have we driven for?"

"No more than 2 hours. I think 1 and a half... I know it seems more." He said after I turned horrified to him. "I am never sure if time passes faster or slower when we are thinking too much. When we are in a boring meeting, for example, imagination helps. But at night when we are trying to sleep, thoughts seems to stretch time."

"Sebastian, we need to talk."

With one light push on the breaks he stopped the car, in the middle of the street because why else would he bother to park somewhere else. For a moment I wondered why the heck he actually did stop because I hadn't prepared the situation after that point. So we kept staring at nothing, the difference was the absence of the car's snoring and the brush of the wind in our ears.

"What now?"

Honestly I am not sure if the thought came from Sebastian or from my own mouth.

"I don't know" - again, both of us could have said it. The outside silence didn't match with the chaos inside me and thoughts of the city, freedom and duty mixed unconsciously with hunger, cold and Oliver. Oh, Oliver... what was I thinking when I left you behind? A light breeze bristled the hair of my arms, making me hug opposite elbows. The first time Sebastian and I disappeared he found us. He always does. Would he come this time?

The breeze became stronger. I hugged my arms closer, heating up my chest while my hands rubbed my skin up and down each side. The cold pulled me out to reality. Dust was invading the road ahead of us, carried by a wind blowing from behind the truck. Looking back through the mirror I was struck by this mass of particles that was coming towards us like a gigantic inky cloud occupying the entire horizon. I wasn't able to distinguish what was ground and what was sky anymore. I hit Sebastian's arm, the cold wind came inside the car more furiously than before, messing the hairs that were not tied to my ponytail.

"Oh shit, what is that?" He went to turn on the truck again but pulled the key out of the hole instead of moving it to the side. "Argh stupid."

"That is a very big storm, we need to find shelter and fast!"

The first rocks of ice started falling on the streets, cracking onto the pavement and on the car hood. Sebastian broke the car, we couldn't go any further. Besides, "further" for what? - we weren't going anywhere.

"From which hell is this coming from? It was sunny half an hour ago!" - klok klok klok... The noise above our heads sounded like bombs with each hit, and steadily the hail made its way forward over the whole city. This was followed by more wind and the more the wind blew the closer we were from the silver fog that was the blizzard. It circled around us like a blanket, sinking us in until all we could see was inside the car. The rocks sometimes would seem to stop for long moments before coming back again, this time mixed with real sticky snow. I was afraid but couldn't tell him so. Truth was we didn't even have the intimacy to do such confessions.

Count one, two, three...

"This is snowfield, isn't it?" Doubted Sebastian out loud. I wasn't sure whether to let him hypothesize alone or tell that I had the same belief myself. No wonders Oliver was capable of creating a storm to terrorize me. He had always had a storm inside him, easy was to get it out.

The last rock of hailstorm had fallen on the hood some time ago, but the snowing still swirled in great waves of wind. Would a storm near the ocean have the same sound? Vaporized ice ran above and under our heads to open somewhere else in space, the wind seemed not to throw us away because it was coming from every direction possible. No one was able to speak because of the fear of becoming prisoners. The idea of Oliver being the responsible for such unnatural phenomenon was frightening me, I swear I could touch my heart and feel it shaking.

I told Sebastian I was afraid. It came out like a small feline moan. His hand reached forward in an attempt to touch me, but he held in midair. Involuntarily I looked at his piercing, pressed between his upper and lower lips, showing discomfort and lack of ideas. Sebastian Castle used to be the most impulsive person I knew. He used to say what he wanted to say and touch whatever he felt like touching, even if it gave him a burn someday. He wasn't afraid of anything, anything that he could call "life". Looking at him now I realized how the years confined under Oliver's rules have pushed him down. "You can touch me", I wanted to say. Fact was - he couldn't.

"Let's get out of here; break down into a house or something." He said disengaging our seatbelts.

The soft crystals I once found so pretty accumulating on Oliver's eyelashes now found their way into my clothes in every possible way. They entered in my hair and neck and between the flapping front of my shoes. I tried to think about the cinnamon tea Mom used to make when I felt sick. When the weather was bad outside, I would sit by the fireplace with my journal and write until my hands tired. I couldn't see much of Sebastian's silhouette, just the oversized flakes falling heavily from the white shapeless thing that was the sky.

I felt my skin become icy. From so many sensations I was used to, this one was the worse. We shouldn't have come out. We shouldn't have come at all. I was lost, disorientated; Sebastian was only a shadow who'd be erased soon. I cried out for him to but my voice was carried away. I felt my muscles numb.

"Give up and you will die", a male voice said so close to my ear I was sure it was coming from the wind. "Come on, butterfly, one more jump."

"No... I can't. I was not born for the Olympics!"

He laughed as his gaze smoothed with mine. The wind got stronger. "I won't let you give up the training; the more muscles you have and the stronger your lungs becomes, better chance I have to keep you forever."

My core pulsated with every beat of my heart, the gym apparels seemed brighter and more real than before. The wooden box I had to jump over was right there and so easily overcoming. When I was done, he took my hand and we jogged across the room, hitting my exhausted legs against the floor as they gained more energy. When I closed the place's door behind us, its sign exposed in golden letters the magnitude of my challenges: Room 9. If the war reached Oxygen building the only thing capable of saving me was myself. I was the proof that I could not only complete what Oliver has given but also getting energy to run an extra lap.

"Come on, butterfly, one more jump..." I groaned as the snow tried to stop my feet from walking. The air was dense and silver, and the triangular top of a house surged from its depths as I went forward. Sebastian shoved his hand into his front pocket just to pull out a lot of paperclips, most of them falling down sharply on his white feet. The wind itself had stopped blowing directly at us, but the noise behind was unbearable.