And all it came down to was one final noise.
Nothing hurt more than hope. It was what kept so many people alive and moving. It drove him to get out of bed each day against the weight pulling him down. Sometimes, it wavered beneath pain or sadness, but it was always there in the end. This unreal feeling. Like warm water against sore muscles, loosening up the tension carried in thin, tired shoulders and soaking them until he could hoist everything he held onto his shoulders again and keep moving. Like a single flower sprouting from beneath the thick slabs of stone suffocating the air out of the cavern, growing despite every obstacle pressed against it. Hope was an indescribable feeling in his chest, lighting it from the inside. Hope made people want to feel alive.
And when it shattered, Upton wished he was dead.
A sob wracked the boy's shoulders, his throat too worn to keep fighting. Each cry was silenced to a hoarse whisper. There was nothing he could do but clutch the skin tighter, hold the body closer. He was terrified that at any second it would be ripped away from him, stolen by bloody, mangled hands and dragged away to the same fate as the others. Hot, fresh tears rolled down Upton's cheeks and dribbled down to the tip of his chin. Every unheard cry that followed shook a few droplets of water loose. They spilled down his front and onto the boy in his arms.
Teardrops settled on American's cheek and soaked into his shirt, Upton's eyes too blurry to see. He tried once, then again and again and again to wipe away the onslaught of liquid flowing down his face. Snot began to bubble from his nose. It stuck to the back of his hand, hanging in long, sticky threads across his body and turning red from the crimson coating his hands. Blinking harshly, Meric's face finally came back into a fuzzy-edged focus.
Warm, rough skin was growing paler by the second. Tears coated his face, but his arms lay slack against the ground. American's eyelids were shut tight in a protest in going any way that resembled peacefully. His teeth clenched against each other, scraping bone against bone to withstand the pain. With every second the puddle beneath Upton's knees spread an inch farther. Deep red soaked through his pants and clung to his skin harsher than before.
As the ounces drained away, Upton only clung harder. It had been so long - so incredibly long- since he had last held another person in his arms. Someone that was warm and breathing and whose heart was beating away with every step they took. Often, the limbs were numb and the heart was black and their chest never rose nor fell. They were as cold as ice and the semblance of comfort they offered was that of a passing shadow. Hiding Upton beneath it for a single moment and disappearing the second after. A fleeting comforter in a world too bright for him to survive in alone.
Reaching down, the boy brushed his tears off of American's cheek. A fresh streak of blood replaced them, a red hand print covering the left side of his face as Upton dragged Meric close. "Please," he begged, choking on his own guilt-riddled voice with each word. "Please, American, you promised. You promised me." He wouldn't be alone again. Upton raised his gaze away with a shiver, unable to watch the life draining from his ally's limbs with the small sliver of time they had left.
How had it come to this? The boy stared out at the brightened area around him, stone pressing in on all sides. But beneath that there was what once was green. The moss was no higher than a couple of inches, curled and blackened but still damp to the touch. With gentle pressure, blood leaked out of the absorbent ground and back onto snow skin before returning. Though even the blood from Meric was too much and it spilled over the ground refusing to taint black.
When they had first entered, Upton clinging to American and supported only by the words whispered repeatedly in his ear, the cavern had appeared beautiful. Shimmering lights like those of fireflies had danced through the air. The soared and dances, casting glittering, tiny shadows to dance with them. It was the warmest Upton had felt since the lava they'd found in one of the first caves. The temperature was not so unbearably unpleasant that the boys had been forced to strip off their shirts, but instead held a mere absence of cold. Where every other cave the darkness encouraged a lack of warmth to swirl in and leech away the body heat of its captured prey, the soft light gave the duo a narrow window to breath without a painful chill creeping down their throats and seeped some strength back into worn and battered limbs.
