Gloom (complete)

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Jacey stretched her hands over her head, smacking her palm against her flashlight lighting the ceiling above her. It was sagging and once again the girl found herself worrying about the building's structure.

Blain stood in front of her, awkwardly shrugging on one of the bags. She worried about him moving around so much and would of suggested staying in the basement for another week but Blain was hell-bent on getting upstairs. She wondered if it was being constantly surrounded by darkness driving him, if not, was it whatever had him spooked a day ago?

Things were notably more civil between them lately and she wanted it to remain that way, so she held off on asking. She guessed Blain realized working together would be the only way either one of them survived.

"Are you sure about this?" She asked again. "Its sort of slippery and wet..."

"My arm is broken, Smith, not my leg. I can walk."

"Yeah, but... You haven't been moving around much in the last few days you may still be a little uneven on your feet." The girl argued.

"We're going upstairs, Jacey, not walking across a State on stilts," he told her. "You don't have to worry about anyone but yourself." He lifted both the oil lantern and a bag of animal cookies with his good hand.

Jacey picked up another one of their food bags along with a white garbage bag she had shoved all of their blankets into. "Of course, but if you fall you'll get hurt and mess up all of my hard work," she whined. He could open her sloppy stitches and break his arm all over again.

Blain laughed, "and here I thought you were worried I would hurt myself. Nope, you're worried about your hard work being for nothing."

Jacey fought off a scoff. "You're not wrong. It was hard going finding that crap and fixing you up and it would be a pain to do it all over again." She told him seriously. She frowned at him. "But Blain, I did do it to help you. I don't think anyone is around handing out check and medals for saving ungrateful eighteen year old boys." She frowned at him. "I really don't understand you sometimes, Blain. You should be more trusting."

Blain didn't hide how unimpressed he was by her speech, "Yeah, yeah. Can we go now?"

Jacey sighed, "follow me."

They started down the hall, Jacey leading and Blain stumbling behind her. She had plans of making camp in Mr. Arnold's office, it was warmer and its windows were in tact. They could set up a fire in the corner outside the office away from snow and wind.

Blain breathed hard behind her.

"Be careful," she told Blain once they came to Lester-Miller's stairwell. Her hand had landed on his arm in hopes of steadying him. Bad idea. Blain scoffed and shrugged her hand off him and pushed by her as began stomping upstairs, lamp swaying.

Jacey shook her head and quickly followed after him. She watched his shadow and her own stretch along the wall. Her hair was like a puff ball on the end of a narrow, moving stick beside a scarecrow wearing a large coat. The teen quietly snorted at the image inside her head. Although she found she honestly should have been paying attention to Blain. He tore open stairwell's door, letting in a gust of icy air and a wave of water wrapped around her legs.

She was shocked by how high the water level had risen, though she had barely four seconds worth of pondering time before Blain was stepping forward his legs being lifted from underneath him and sending him falling into the water.

He was springing up out of the water a second later whispering curses. He wrapped his arms around himself began to shiver instantly. Jacey watched as her lamp went out and floated away before quickly sinking a moment after, her attention found Blain a second later.