Dark Hearts

Chapter 10 (Part 1)

Cade woke up multiple times throughout the night, at times covered in a cold sweat that made him shiver from a lack of warm fire glow and other times with a start that had him questioning how managed to wind up in his position. The first time he awoke surprised him considering he hadn't realized that his head lolled forward into his chest and eased him into a light slumber. All around him was a heavy darkness that took much longer than any other to allow his eyes to adjust and make out a vague outline of his companions on either side. The fire burned to a crisp leaving a mound of powdery ash and hunks of thick tree logs that outlasted the greedy flames.

Considering that none of them were injured yet, Cade assumed nothing waited for them and that the screams of danger would alarm them if another suffered the misfortune of being the first choice. Willingly, he let the toll of the previous days consume him and leaned back into the tree as bait for sleep. After that it was restless tossing and turning that greeted him instead of the peaceful future he hoped.
It was the fifth time rest jumped out of his reach -Cade counted each time to participate in life's sick game- when he decided that his limits were peaked and going over only lead to a steep plummet for everyone. For a while, he sat there in the dark and watched as the trees around began to take form in the absence of light while listening to the calming sound of the other two's steady breathing. The sound soothed him in a way that he could only describe as feeling untouchable to the horrors of the world, as if everything wrong could only attempt to harm them while they laid comfortably in an unpierceable bubble. He tried to close his eyes in a futile effort to gain more energy for the day ahead of them but it went in vain.

At last, he threw away the shreds of hope that slowly diminished each day and stood up from against the tree trunk, allowing himself to arch his back and hear the cracks cascading down his spine along with the satisfied looseness that followed. The lack of light obscured his view for the first few steps but his eyes adapted quickly, used to spending many nights awake staring up into the ceiling of his room. With the adjustment, Cade vaguely interpreted the clear spots of dirt where stepping led to safety, and the areas where stray rocks and sharp sticks covered the ground. Any chance of viewing the moon through the trees was eliminated by the surplus of tree branches and the clouds that constantly reigned supreme in this area of the land; the idea of determining what unearthly hour he'd made the decision to awaken burned before the flame touched it.

Quieter than a whisper, Cade moved towards the sleeping boy whose back would occasionally spasm with hitched breaths and suddenly wished that the ability to peer into the dreams of another had been granted to him. Each step closer had the older boy more curious about what disturbed his mind; if it mirrored what Cade suffered in any way. A pang blossomed in his chest that brought down his face in a frown to think that a boy barely touched by the features of a man knew the pain of an adult. The fact would never reach Talso's ears but Cade cursed the devil that decided to bestow a terror upon an innocent boy.

When he reached the twitching body, Cade halted for a few moments to ensure that he hadn't imagined the subtle movements for night terrors. After assessing that Talso left the conscious world behind, the one troubled by reality moved around the body so that their faces viewed the other and crouched down to a lower level. His goal rested in the palm of the younger boy's hand, facing upwards to expose the faint writing on the blade. Cade performed this action many times before to his fantastic boss after sleepless nights- which happened more often than not- and enjoyed the thrill of being intimate with capture but never becoming familiar enough to consider it personal. A fit of unrest overcame the subject beneath Cade and he stilled the hand that crept forward to gently pry the fingers away from the desired object, and the spasm caused the other boy to pause breathing for a moment as well. When Talso slipped back into deeper slumber, Cade inched forward once more and shifted the pale fingers away from the blade one by one so that a gap no larger than a small stick remained for him to pry the object out. Easily, he maneuvered the knife out until it lay cold in his hands.