Earthbound (Slow Updates, Sorry Guys)

Chapter Seven- Looks Like Rain

It smelled. The smell was like rotten food and mold mixed all together. I could barely see as the stinging tears filled my eyes and my nose began flaring. I could taste it on my tongue.

For the past hour the tunnel had only been occupied by me and the rats, but now, for some reason I could feel something watching me. I kept turning around, hoping to catch a glimpse of something. At this point, hearing and seeing whatever is there is better than hearing and not seeing it at all.

I held the front of my jacket closed and shifted my bag to the other shoulder. I hadn’t stopped for hours and as expected, I was beginning to feel the results.

My legs felt like jelly. To my left were stairs leading up to the real world, the world I left behind, or the one they took from us; that is a more suiting explanation for why I was down and not up. They took my home and my life, everything… away from me. I threw the back pack off to the side and dug out a granola bar. As the taste of chocolate and peanut butter filled my mouth I realized, I was starving. I tore into the package and had eaten the entire thing in a breath.

I paced myself with the water, sipping involuntarily would guarantee me dying from dehydration. A little overdramatic? Maybe.

“I want you,” I said staring at the second granola bar. Its perfect green wrapper taunting me to rip it open, to take one bite… just one bite, you know you want it Will.

“No!” I growled and shoved it back in my bag. Just as I began to feel better by saying no my stomach cursed me out with moans and groans that echoed through the tunnel.

“Sucks I know, but what about tomorrow? If I don’t get out by then we’ll have nothing,” I said tapping my stomach. I sighed. “I’m losing my mind.”

“No Will, this is normal, you talk to yourself all the time,” I said combing through my hair with dirty fingers.

“So all I’m proving is that I haven’t been normal for a while?” I sighed again, rubbing my hand over my face, contorting all my features.

“Basically.”

I could feel a lump rise in my throat. I didn’t realize how true it was until I said it out loud. I wasn’t normal. My life hadn’t been and never will be normal. I’m crazy, I talk to myself, my family is mutants and now I am going on some wild chase to find one myself.

I leaned my head back against the wall and instead of talking to myself anymore, I counted the bricks.

“One, two, three, four…” I blinked. “Five, six, seven, eight… too many.”

I closed my eyes and let the dark swallow me up.

***

There was a noise off to my right that jolted me awake. I looked around for a moment before rubbing my eyes and grabbing my things. It must’ve been night time because behind the makeshift barrier it was all dark. How long had I been sleeping? I brushed off my jeans and straightened my shirt. I could feel the dirt rubbing into my scalp as I pulled my hood on. I could just imagine what Jeremy would say seeing me, get that hood off your head, you look like a freaking hoodlum.

I had only been walking for an hour before I heard that noise again; the sound of a skipping pebble or the scuffing sound of a shoe accidently sliding against concrete. I paused and listened. My ears strained to hear anything that was out of place, but all that was there was the sound of my own heart racing and a rat scurrying under a soggy box. I took a step then listened again.

What if someone had seen me leaving? What if they followed me?  I turned on my heel a jogged to the next set of stairs and that’s where it hit me.