Wake of the Dead | Three

Chapter One | Killian

There was nothing but an empty, endless void of darkness that Killian could see. The only source of light came from the thin crack beneath the door of the truck, barely the width of a pinhole. It had been days since he'd been outside, felt the sunlight on his skin. There was no warmth provided to him, nothing to comfort him except for the oversized and worn jacket that still held the lingering scent of his boyfriend, Jasper. He could read the name on a patch near the top of the jacket. Killian longed to see the muddled dark green, brown and black patterns of the rough fabric.

The rumbling of the wheels beneath the armored truck and faint yelling, gunshots, or menacing voices were constantly overwhelming Killian's ears. If it wasn't those, it was complete silence. At night, he couldn't hear the crickets chirping, owls hooting or cracking of twigs from smaller forest animals traipsing through the foliage. The first few hours of confinement had been pure hell, he'd thrown himself against the heavy metal doors several times trying to escape. Killian had never thought of what he'd do if he fell out of the truck and injured himself, if the dark bruises from battering against the edges of his prison hadn't been enough.

How many turns had they taken? How many long roads had they travelled through, how many stops were made? How far away from home was he, was Jasper even still alive? These questions raced through Killian's mind, never ceasing. He'd tried keeping up with the distance and route back home, made several plans of escape, but eventually he realized it was a hopeless cause. He was alone, praying for one more hug, one more kiss, one more touch from Jasper or any company of his groupmates. A miniscule thought began to linger at the back of Killian's mind, the morbid wish for a final escape. If the Reapers were going to kill him, he wished they would get it over with. Why make him wait such a torturous amount of time, wondering just why they had taken him and nobody else?

When Killian began to wonder the reasons why the Reapers would want to keep him, his stomach began to churn to the point of making him sick. He'd already vomited before, the man assigned to bring him food and water had cleaned it up as Killian pushed against the farthest wall in an attempt to stay out of their way as much as possible. He was too stressed to eat or drink, the idea of it made his head spin and his body retch. He didn't want to take anything they offered him, there was no pride in having somebody treat you like an animal to care for. He wouldn't let any of them think he was accepting his fate, no matter how hungry or thirsty he was.

Gazing around the confines of the truck despite being blinded in the shroud of darkness, Killian hadn't slept for any of the days he was trapped. Exhaustion weighed at his body, he'd began to hear muffled voices at the back of his head, like spirits in the wind. Small pockets of colors lingered at the corner of his vision, only to disappear or move when he tried to focus on it. Sometimes the walls began to close in, or his chest began to tighten and made it hard to breathe. Waking nightmares plagues his daydreams, the image of his groupmates pinned to the ground, blood splattered onto the snow and Jasper's beaten body floated through his memories.

It was getting harder for Killian to focus on smaller details, like remembering his train of thought. He could no longer remember the features of his groupmate's faces, only a concept of what they'd looked like. He could envision Jasper's safe, warm blue eyes. He could recall Aubrey's curly, fiery-ginger hair. The memory of Darren's barely-smiles, Casimir's irritable frowns. But nothing more than small snatches here and there. Killian couldn't understand what day it was, the last thing he had eaten before being stolen away or even the smallest details of his surroundings. It was almost as if his brain had been wrapped in a soft layer of cotton, fuzzy and unfocused.

Then, the truck stopped. Killian half-expected to only station for half an hour or so like the Reapers usually did when they needed to take the occasional break or camp for the night. But almost immediately after they'd stopped, they inched forward again. The obnoxiously loud creak of unoiled hinges assaulted his ears and with a jolt, Killian sluggishly attempted to shut out the noise by covering his ears, but to no avail. It creaked, then stopped. The truck moved forward again, then stopped one last time. The creaking returned, then came to an end. Where was he? What had made that horrid racket?