Gallows Humour | Watty's 2023

The World's Worst Headache

Dungeon.

Stairs.

Teeth everywhere. Hands everywhere, everywhere.

Ugh, their head hurt.

***

"You should leave soon, Allsaint—"

"We should leave? You look like you haven't slept in a week."

"I haven't."

"This isn't the time for jokes."

"I'm not joking."

"..."

"I've always been sick, Callie, for as long as you've known me. That's what happens to people like me."

"So, what...? You were just going to abandon us? Slink off and die alone in your hole? That's a horrible plan! You're a horrible person."

"..."

"..."

"Cal?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't tell Mu."

"Yeah."

***

"How long have they been awake?"

"Dunno, hey sunshine."

True blinked slowly at the blurry faces of Eliza and Cal. They were beside the bath this time. Wedged between sink and tub. Someone else was in the tub. Drooling, but breathing. Radio had survived.

Eliza was saying something that swam between their ears uselessly. They would have killed for an Advil right then. Prying themself out of the corner, they gripped the rim of the sink and turned to examine the damage. Half their face was stained red. The epicenter, the remnants of their eye, had crusted shut. The lid sagged inward, all loose and floppy now that there was nothing underneath. They poked at it, hissed at the searing pain.

Reality burrowed under their flesh, maggots, bot flies, dredging up panic. Shit, they'd really done that, shit shit.

They smashed the mirror. Had to break something. It wasn't enough. They put another web of cracks in the glass.

Couldn't get their brain to restart.

Motion out of the corner of their eye—their only eye now—snapped up their attention. They watched the broken, grimy reflection of Radio shake its head and smush the heels of its palms into its eyes. They lingered on the tiny black stitches nestled among Radio's older scars.

"I hate them," they murmured, grinding their palms into the gritty sink.

Someone cleared their throat. True jumped, whirling to face the throat-clearer. They had to move their whole head to do it. No periphery on that side anymore. Icepick migraine pain lanced their skull from socket to base.

"Them?" Cal prompted. In spite of the splitting headache, they didn't miss the way his gaze darted from the shattered mirror to Radio. They felt like punching him for the implication. Felt like punching him to make their head stop hurting.

"The Faction," they clarified.

Eliza, rocking back and forth on the toilet lid, cracked a smile that included every one of her sharpened teeth. They jabbed a finger at her and forced words past their stiff jaw. Their own voice vibrated the inside of their head, unbearable.

"If you... talk... I'll kill you."

She batted her eyelashes at them, and mimed zipping her lips. Her too-bright eyes told a different story than her actions, but for that moment at least, she stayed quiet.

"Time to get up." The sooner they got out of the fungus house, the better. They very distinctly remembered Allsaint barging in and dropping them on their bullet wound yesterday. Bracing on the tub edge, they offered Radio their hand. It met them with a limp, uncertain grip. Slowly, because they were afraid of breaking it, they helped it to its feet.

A minute passed. And then another, and Radio blinked at the speed of molasses and tipped its head in the faintest of increments all around the room. Its grip still loose, and its other hand swinging lifelessly at its side while True's pulse climbed. That was not the look of someone alive.

"Radio?" they breathed.

It followed the sound of its name, black eyes lighting on True. At first, nothing. And then a glimmer of life seemed to return to them. Maybe that was too hopeful. It could have been a mushroom spore—who the hell knew what terrible feats of decay lingered in that bathroom—planting in its sclera. At the tail end of a very long, very unsteady breath, its brow crumpled and it grabbed their chin. Its grip clumsy and cold.

It blinked, this time not a slow one, and at once the mushroom-spore-glimmer had burst into a spotlight. The heat bored holes into them. Into their face. Into their missing eye.

With a lurch, it tore away from them, layers on layers of horror-disgust-panic-terror washing across its face.

Ouch. In the sting of its recoil, they let it slide out of reach. It hit the wall, bumped into Eliza, and pinballed back into them. Staggering under its weight and their headache, they managed to catch themself on the opposite wall and steady Radio at the same time.

"Let's get out of here," they said. Whatever Radio had to say about the state of their ugly face could be said outside the confines of the cannibal den. No matter how much it scraped at their raw emotions to see it look at them like that.

They tugged at their mask and looped Radio's arm over their shoulders.

"Where are you headed?" Cal asked. He was leaned back on the doorframe, his hands stuffed in his pockets, and for a fleeting instant True thought that posture fit him well. They wondered what he'd been before Linc got his hands on him.

"The first building I can find with a lot of locks and no windows," they answered. "And after that probably to gut that fishery."

The attack on the Civilian caravan meant they no longer had a reason to wait. The Faction obviously suspected something was up and had fired a warning shot. Well, warning be damned. If the last two weeks were any indication, True was spectacularly bad at heeding those. And if nothing else they were going to bury a knife in Otsana's heart for what she'd done to Radio.

Cal untucked his hands from his pockets. An old scar cut his left hand in two down the middle.

"Are you going to punch me again?" True asked with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

"No," Cal said, "but you might be interested in knowing we're meeting tomorrow morning to make a real plan of attack."

Real, they could've snorted, they had a real plan. March across the bridge and crack anyone who came near them in the skull.

"We?"

"Civilians, scavengers," he paused, grey eyes sliding over to Eliza for a moment before he added, "shadow crawlers."

They really snorted then, "and you're all gonna sit in a big circle, hunky-dory, and make plans together."

To his credit, Cal didn't take the bait. Though they were dangling it pretty close to his face.

"It's almost night anyway, you won't lose any time if you wait for the meeting."

True rocked back on their heels, glancing at Radio. It swayed on its feet, not really looking at anything now. Cal was right, they had to rest first. And checking out their options for getting into the fishery wasn't the worst idea.

"Fine, but I'm not staying wherever the caravan is." That was way too many people in way too small a space and they'd already seen how terrible the civilians' defences were. Sleeping out in the open. A shudder went through them, followed by what they could only describe as the sensation of a screwdriver being used to chip away the bone on the inside of their empty socket. They had the world's worst headache and none of this was helping.

"Your pack is with Suni."

Damn it.