I Believe We're the Enemy

6. The Kids From Yesterday

Somehow we ended up having a conversation, and suddenly it was like we were just two guys who had known each other for years and didn't have any reason to despise one another. We were just two human beings living on a speck of dust in the cosmos, so incredibly insignificant. But that's what made that moment in time possible, the fact that we were both just human.

"Where were you from?" I asked, "Before all this?" I gestured outwards with my uninjured hand, I meant the end of the world by 'this.' The time before the fires of 2012.

"This town in New Jersey," He had a tinge of melancholy spilling out with his words, my eyes were glued to the fire, but I nodded along with his answer.

"I was from New Jersey too," I said with a sigh. Reminiscing was dangerous; I should have stopped while I still had enough self control to do so, but I didn't. I continued to allow myself to think of the past. It came to me in flashes, images of my family and my life from before. I didn't like the way it made my stomach twist in knots, I felt like my head was going to explode just thinking about it. 

"Why don't you live in the city? It's so much safer than out here. There's the sense of security and things are predictable."

"Yeah but," he cleared his throat, "That's no life to live, just letting the days pass by, feeling numb to everything while some big corporation runs your life," I shook my head. I didn't get it, but I guess we'd come to the conclusion that arguing with each other was useless. Our views contrasted so greatly that there was no way either of us could win. There wasn't much of a point.

"It's safer," was all could bring myself to say, then we sat in silence for a few minutes.

"Are you gonna tie me up again?" I asked after the silence became too much for me. I didn't particularly like the quiet. In the city there was always something happening, someone speaking, an Android buzzing in the street or just the daily noise from my headphones. Quiet was terrifying, quiet meant death to me; I needed to talk to fill that void.

"I don't know, do I have to?" I didn't have the strength to fight with him or any of them, but if I was in his position I wouldn't have hesitated to tie me back up. In fact, if I was in his position I probably would have killed me by now. But I guess he was more merciful than I. I wondered why he was keeping me alive. It wasn't like I could be used as leverage or blackmail, no one back at headquarters would care that I'd disappeared, I was just a casualty in the endless war of the killjoys to them. 

"I won't tie you standing up, but we both know I don't have a choice," he was right. Once I regained my strength and my arm had healed, I wouldn't hesitate to fight back and run. I still didn't know what his intentions with me were.

"Okay," I stated. No point in arguing.

"How's your wrist?" He took my hand in his and I winced as he examined the tender skin. The outside was red with rope burn from sliding against the knot, and it was definitely sprained or dislocated or broken.

"It looks like you pulled it out of the socket. Probably dislocated it," he turned my hand over in his, he was really gentle so it didn't hurt much, but it was strange considering his previous demeanor, "I was studying to be a doctor, before the fires," his eyes flicked up to mine for a moment before returning to examine my injury. 

"Oh," Was all I could utter. I watched intently as he turned my hand o

"It's gonna hurt, but I need to put it back into place," in Battery City, pain wasn't an issue. There was always some kind of drug that took away the pain away. Whether it was physical or psychological. You could swipe it away and go through the healing process as quick as you'd taken to injure yourself. A broken bone was just as easy to treat as a scraped knee. I missed the feeling of painkillers running through my veins as I lied back and let the doctors fix me up.