Eighteen Weeks After: A Short Story

Part II

It's funny. After being on my own for so long, I'd almost rid myself of the concept of ever being in the presence of another human being perhaps for the rest of my existence. I was on my own. The cold grasp of loneliness had become a sensation natural to me.

Never would I have imagined pausing frozen across from a boy who stood in surrender, locked in place against my knife point with his arms raised above his head. Never would I have imagined the deafening thumps of my heart that pounded fierce in my chest and threatened to send me crashing into a storm of hyperventilated breaths. Never would I have imagined the tears that threatened to pour from the floodgates that begged to burst with the churn of emotions that assaulted me from my core. Never would I have imagined the trembling and overbearing frailty that ran through my limbs at the thought of loneliness being a familiar concept no more.

Yet here I was.

"Kael,"

I couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Hell, I could hardly breathe. He was standing right in front of me. A boy. Kael. His eyes were wide, but not with fear. I took in the dirt that looked as though it were permanently engrained on the palms of his hands, and the filth that clung to his torn pants and loose shirt. For a moment it crossed the path of my thoughts as I wondered how it was his limbs weren't shuddering in the bitter chill of the night.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he inched his arms closer to his sides and I nudged the tip of my knife forwards, startling them back into submission. The warning of brawn I attempted to display was futile though, because the tremors that tormented the steadiness of my hand inched their way to the hilt of my knife and buried themselves in the blade, and I knew he could see it too.

"Are you okay?"

What a question. My breaths quickened. My pulse raged. My vision blurred.

A boy.

I felt the warm tears sting my eyes.

"What's your name?"

I couldn't answer. What was my name? Had I really spent that much time on my own? Had who I was eighteen weeks ago already been buried in the ruins of what was once the world I knew? Who was I? Would I ever find her again? The girl who sought the flame amongst the darkness; the girl who never once failed to smile at any stranger that spared her a glance as she clung to her mother's sleeve while they hurried through the perilous streets; the girl who always would comfort her sister while the outside world roared with the flare of conflict during the earliest hours of the morning. Was she still there? Was she still me?

"I have food, water," he swallowed again; "you can have some if you like."

I wasn't listening. My mind was elsewhere. Really it had been lost in the never-ending trails of nowhere far before I stood in the company of a boy who was mere inches taller than I. I couldn't look at him. I couldn't breathe. All of it blurred together. I fought to suppress the sob that lodged itself tight in my throat. Breaths jagged. Heart thrashing.

I wasn't quite sure what it meant to be alive anymore. Did being alive mean fighting for survival simply because you were weak and malleable at the hands of your instincts? Did being alive mean continuing to push and fight even months after you had sworn to give up? Did being alive mean grappling for the last of your strength merely for the persistence of the human race? Or did being alive mean feeling? That cord of union that bonds people by the hearts; that sense of compassion and togetherness?

I didn't know anymore. I hadn't been alive for months.

Not until I was yanked back to life by the boy in front of me.

It was like I was seeing the world in a whole new colour – none of it felt real – and in that moment it crossed my mind that maybe being alive was being together. Maybe it was knowing that you weren't alone. Maybe it was that small spark of hope that lights up the darkest chamber of your heart at the exact moment you begin to think it's all over. Maybe it's everything I've been missing.

I hadn't realized I'd dropped my hand to my side until I heard the dull thud of my knife against the leaf-ridden earth. The familiar sting of tears burned my weary eyes, and it wasn't until he took a tentative step forwards and raised his hesitant fingers to gently graze my shoulder that I was jolted back to reality.

He was here.

And I wasn't alone.

Maybe I was finally alive.

He took me by the shoulders with a cautious tenderness, his hands nearly curled completely around the circumference of my bony arms, and his voice was soft and low amid the rustle of the leaves as they danced in the wintry gust of wind.

"Are you alright?"

Then my gaze met his, and no longer could I battle the surge of the river as it burst and rushed to accompany the fusion of emotion that bled from my eyes. I felt his warm breath fan across my tear-stained cheeks, and his dark eyes brimmed with a sea of feelings I couldn't even begin to decipher before I was tugged to his chest, strong arms cradling me in a firm embrace as we stood as one amongst the wilderness of night.

Instantly my arms found their way around him, and I held him to me like a candle in the night, the tattered fabric of his shirt grasped tightly in my fists. My tears stained the material that shielded his shoulder and my feet ached to shift under my restless weight, but neither of us dared to move.

He smelt of wood and smoke, with the trace of the scent of a hard day's work, and the filth and grime that coated our skin and stale clothes meant nothing as we clung to each other with everything that was left of our hearts. His arms were firm as they fastened me to his thin body, and I wrapped my own tighter around his waist while I wept.

Strangers. That's all we were to each other. Never in our lives had we met; never in our lives were we aware of the other's existence, yet here we were. The desperation that seeped from the grasp of our embrace was enough to assure me that I was okay. I wasn't alone. And neither was he.

For eighteen weeks we had fought.

And now we stood, united in nothing more than the sheer strength of humanity.

It was like nothing I had ever experienced before: the intensity and dire need that latched onto me in that moment. It was a feeling so profound one could only hope to find the words that would define it. The warmth of another human being was seeping through my skin and fusing with my own. His chest rose and fell with each rough breath, and the heavy beat of his heart set the rhythm of the song between us.

I didn't want to let go. Not ever. The sensation of a life held in my very own grasp was one too precious to release. Forever will the moment we held each other for those long seconds that stretched into minutes that felt like hours be rooted in my memory.

For too long I had been alone. For too long I had forgotten what it was like to hold another person; to be hugged; cradled; seized by the grip of someone close.

We were broken, but the clutch of another human being was all we needed to be reminded of why we fought for so long to survive.

Author's Note

There you have it! Part II. Thank you all a million.

What do you guys think of Kael so far?

Are you enjoying the journey?

Thank you heaps for reading, and don't forget to let me know what you're thinking and if there are any improvements you feel I could make.

Eden