Alternate (Phan)

13*Flip

Dan

My eyes fluttered open as I guided my mind into my surroundings. I smiled to myself knowing I'd shared a bed with Phil that night. Talking about Phil...

I patted the surface of the bed, opening my eyes and sitting upright once I noticed he wasn't there. I groaned in annoyance, checking my watch, it was 8 am.

'Phil?!' I shouted out. The secondary door slid open, revealing Phil, who was dressed, holding a half-packed bag. I scrunched up my face in confusion.

'Dan, not panicking you, but we have ten minutes to get out.' I let my mind gather this information for a second, before emotionlessly moving myself out of the bed and slipped on clothes for today.

'Okay, what's going on?' I asked, folding a t-shirt over my body.

'I woke up five minutes ago to a lot of shouting, so I checked outside and there was an incident...' I held his shoulder, zipping up the now filled bag for him.

'Meaning?'

'Dan there's a lot of fucking dead bodies out there.' I bit my lip, nodding and squeezing his shoulder. I grabbed my own rucksack and a bag from the back room which had some basic supplies in. The bag was cutting into my wounds from the metal-shard heart that I clenched the other night. I put the bag down, rubbing my hand down against my thigh.

'I'll take the bag.' Phil commanded, holding a hand out. He already had Ev attached to his front and another rucksack on his bag.

'Let me take Ev then.' I stared up at him as I was crouched down to pick the bag up again to pass to him. He pierced his lips and sighed before giving in and unwrapping Ev.

I attached Ev to my front and zipped my oversized hoodie over the top of him.

'Ready?' Phil asked, tapping a few buttons on the exit door. I nodded as he turned round, hand ready to slide.

I gripped onto his forearm, hurriedly scuttling along with him as we passed ourselves through the street.

We had to keep low, there were submil members around and a lot of people, filled with rage from suffering and despair.

'You two!' we heard a booming voice behind us before we exchanged looks, both charging ourselves down the road, holding onto each other's shoulders so we could individually keep the other one from completely tumbling over.

We heard the steps gaining on us, I turned to Phil who looked different. His expression was harsh, his lips bent inwards and eyes set forwards. He looked at me, another odd look passing through him as his eyes flicked for a brief second towards Ev.

'Stop!' the voice was seconds behind us. I saw a brisk movement from my left, Phil's arm had shifted along his body, revealing a metal object I was confident was a gun in his hands. A sharp bang and a dead guy later, we skidded round a corner and slid ourselves down against a fallen brick wall.

We were both heavily panting, one of my hands resting on my knee as the other stroked the lump on my chest which was beginning to sob.

'Shh...' I hushed, rocking my body up and down to calm the baby.

I turned to Phil who still had the expression on his face. The gun was back in his belt, hidden away, as he sat with his back against the wall and his hands to his forehead.

I brought my hand out, resting myself on his shoulder. The expression clicked off, revealing the Phil I knew.

I stared him down, allowing him to take his time to return to himself.

'Dan...' I smiled gently at him, hopefully relieving any pressure he felt to talk to me instantly.

A bit later, his lips began quivering as words tried escaping his mouth.

'Dan, I'm...' I rested my left temple against his shoulder, the weight of my head flowing into his body. 'I'm sorry for that.'

'You flip too?' I asked, curling my knees into his stomach as much as possible with Ev on my front. A small nod escaped his movements.

'Anger, emotionless...like an override on emotion, I guess?' I moved my hand up to stroke his hair.

'It's alright Phil, you know I flip too.' he nodded.

'I get worried afterwards, though, that I was scary. I don't want to be scary Dan.' he curled his knees up to his face as his body began to quiver. I heard small whimpers escape his breathing. 'I have tablets for when it's a long episode, but like then, when I can't take them and the episodes are too short...what happens if I shoot someone I shouldn't do, Dan? What do I do then? How can I prevent that?'

'You act out on anger, I doubt someone you know will get you that angry.'

'But if they do but...' I poked his cheek.

'Hey, just don't socialise with anyone.' I smiled, poking my tongue out, making us both laugh.

'I'm sorry, I'm a wreck sometimes.'

'We all are, Phil...we all are.' he nodded, sighing as we settled back on the wall and stayed there for a while. By my estimates, we were about a five-minute walk away from the outskirts of the city.

'Where should we head, North or South?' he considered this for a while, weighing up the situations.

'Down south is London, which is a danger in itself because of it being the capital...but up north is the base of submil.' he scrunched his mouth up in thought for a while. 'Head down south? The war isn't too bad at the minute and we don't have to go to the actual city.' I nodded, agreeing to his point.

'Okay, if we get the A616 to the M1, we should pass through Leicester and Northampton until we reach London. Milton Keynes and Luton are quite close but far enough away to not be a danger, so we could stay at one of those places along the way?' he nodded, seeming to more agree with the plan I put out rather than having any thought into it.

'To the M1 is about thirty miles, so eleven-hour walk?' I nodded, groaning as I sunk against the wall then picked myself up again. I stood up, holding a hand out to Phil.

'Best we should get going, we could make it before dark.'