Zero Zero

3: i'm your zero

we walked a few feet apart from one another in a strained silence, tiptoeing in stocking feet, trying not to raise any red flags. the only sound was the quiet snore of a night watchman napping on the job, daring us to just make a run for it, because maybe he wouldn't notice. 

but they were always watching. the blinking light on the security camera shone off the wall, intermittently lighting up the dark blue hue of the hall in an eerie red. 

I quietly followed him around a rounded the bend of the hall. I could hear each and every footstep I took, traveling through my skeleton and right into my eardrum, but my pulse barely increased, even without the pills. I knew I was much quieter than my brain was convincing me of, which calmed me slightly, but I could still feel my heart straining to not act on impulse to race.

as soon as we passed the first door around the bend, he pressed the illuminated blue button on its plastic light grey frame. the door slid opened with a faint whoosh, and without warning, he pulled me into the room. 

the abruptness, the event which I hadn't measured as a possibility, gave my heart no time to think at it began to race for the first time in a long time. the air of my lungs remained in the place from which he had pulled me, leaving me silently gasping to reclaim my breath as he pressed another button and the door closed behind us.

"you've just signed my death sentence." I said, being hushed as I could manage while I was still trying to catch my breath. 

"they signed that for us long ago." he said with a smirk which displayed the scar beneath his lip. "besides, i'm in the blind spot. don't worry."

his eyes sparkled in a way that felt reminiscent of things i'd long forgotten, like firey stars in a sky which I had never been lucky enough to see, or at least remember seeing. like they held beneath  a thin film glimpses of hope and pure impulsivity, things which were a rare sight around here. 

and on the few occasion I had seen them, it was usually in the new residents, or sometimes someone older but they always ended up disappearing. I had never it in someone who had lasted as long as he had.

"what, do you think i'm hot?" he asked, with another smirk, through this one wasn't sarcastic. I felt a heat creep across my cheeks, reaching up to the tips of my ears. I didn't know how to answer. I supposed he was a pretty attractive person, probably the most attractive person I had ever met, radiating of pure defiance in a strange angelicism which was equally as devilish. 

"what?" I asked, not knowing how or even if I should answer the question, especially because I didn't know the answer myself.

"you were staring." he said with a small smile. it was soft, remaining on his face unlike the quick, sharp smirks, but it was still befitting of him.

"oh." I said. I hadn't noticed my staring and silently cursed my slip-up. I felt the heat spread from my face to the back of my neck as I looked down in embarrassment, trying to not display my blunder. 

"you're funny." he said, "i'm surprised you haven't gotten kicked out or whatever yet. you're like, the opposite of who they've made you to be-or tried to."

it was true. if they had caught me blushing for any reason other than a burn or a fever, i'd be off to the solitary white rooms, maybe even getting intervenous drugs so they made sure I was taking their damned pills.

"what, are you so sad that I didn't end up as some mindless puppet of them?" I joked, trying to distract myself from my climbing heartrate. "besides, you're not exactly their daydream either."

"no, I like you because you're the opposite." he said, inching closer to my face, tucking a runaway lock of hair behind my ear as he pinned butterflies to the line of my stomach. the emotion was something I wanted to capture in a jar to remember forever, the terror of being found out heightening everything to the point my heart was threatening to explode.

"and yeah," he laughed, smiling in that unforgettably unforgiving manner, "I get transferred a lot. I cause problems, it's fun. or as much fun as you can have in here." 

I wondered for a second how he managed to still be alive in the hands of them, but the heat of his breath was grazing my face in the cool of the night, shifting my attention away from my speculations. his wide, starry, unforgettable eyes were staring right into mine, starless as the steel night sky of this killing jar, piercing right through them and planting his grasp right into my brain. his smirk fell to a quiet grin upon his bright pink lips, the shadow of his lower lip falling upon the puncture scab, hiding it like a secret rebellion. everything hiding and waiting like fuel, waiting to start, daring me to burn everything down.

and something which I had never felt before was telling me just to do that. it was terrifying and intoxicating and I never wanted to let go of it.

blood flooded my eardrums and I could hear nothing but my heartbeat. his face close enough that I could feel each tiny breath on the dew of sweat forming on my upper lip. before I could doubt myself, before I could even think about what I was about to do, I crashed our faces together into the most unsatisfying kiss. our teeth and noses crashed together, lips barely moving against, so starved and desperate for anything, yet left purely clueless by this cold place.

he pulled me in again, tangling his fingers in the locks of my stress-knotted hair, fixing what I had so hastily messed up. he moved against my lips with in sweet deliberate motions until I finally gathered the gall to try again, and push back into the kiss until we were starved for air.

"fuck." he said. the unfamiliar word crawled through my ears and down each and every nerve in a way which implied its meaning. his face was flushed, his eyes full of another emotion which captivated the room in a way I had never seen nor felt before, a photograph which I knew would remain as a etched in my mind forever. 

"run away with me." he said, his voice taking on a sappier tone as our shaky hands delicately intertwined in the quiet of the night.

before I could enjoy even the idea, reality came crashing back in. hot saltwater filled my eyes to the brim until they spilled out and I crumpled back to the silent flurry of emotion. the guilt, paired with a gram of dread, shot through my veins as I remembered I had seven days left, and here I was, ready to ruin "frank"'s life.

and if we carried on the way we had been so far, for seven days, I would have to live with that guilt. and after that frank would be thoroughly fucked-up by the false hope I had given him. or even if I told him the truth, my death certainly wouldn't come as a good thing in his eyes.

it should've been enough to stop me, because I felt things, I felt an overwhelming amount of dreadful empathy. I should've turned away because I knew that it was the right thing to do, but he made me feel so many things, and every selfish neuron in my brain was overwhelming my morals.

he held me in his arms as I silently cried, the tears drying against the warmth of his neck. I didn't want to leave him, I knew that much. I didn't and I feared that that made me just like them, not caring whose lives were ruined in the course of getting what they wanted. 

but I just couldn't bring myself to leave.

--

i'm finally updating this after two months. it's not from lack of writing, but rather a lack of editing. i should be updating this a lot more often when i'm done with switchblade fights.