Eighteen Weeks After: A Short Story

Part III

I watched the slop drain from the ladle and splat in the bowl before me, the earthy aroma sinking into my nose and causing my tongue to swim in saliva.

"Rabbit," he scooped some of the thick soup into his own dish before setting the pot back over the blistering coals, "I caught it this afternoon. Set some traps around the place. There's hardly anything out there though," the chair creaked against the hardwood floor of the tiny cabin as he tugged it aside and dropped his body opposite mine, the small timber table separating us as we sat over our steaming meals, "everything's been obliterated."

We lapsed into an awkward silence with minds consumed by the reality of the words that fell from his mouth, but the thunderous roars of famine that rolled in my stomach were enough to draw my attention back to the piping hot stew that rested below, its heavenly scent wafting through the room and caressing the walls of my nose until finally I couldn't resist.

The sharp cramps of hunger that clenched tight in my stomach were enough to override any manners I'd accumulated before our world was consumed by dust and death, and instantly the tough chunks of forest animal drowned in scalding brew were scorching my mouth and gliding down my throat. The numbness that set into my cheeks and tongue were disregarded by the agony that squeezed my gut as my starving limbs begged to be nourished.

"You might want to take it slow," I barely spared the boy a glance as I shoveled another heaped spoonful into my greedy mouth and downed my third cup of water since he'd invited me into the small, shabby lodge. The place smelt of pine and simmering soup, with the trace of burning firewood, and was made up of just a main floor and a second room I could only assume was connected to the closed door on my far left. It was warm – cozy – the low fire crackling in the background.

"Else it'll just come back up. Trust me," he smirked. I hadn't realized the warmth that seeped from his dark brown eyes before then. They were the deep chocolate of a chestnut, enclosed by a halo of even richer roasted cocoa, with concentric rings of caramel swimming in the mesmerizing pool of rich honey. Of course, each of those things I had only seen in the world of my dreams, the earth we lived in long robbed of their existence. But sitting across from him in that room I was sure that those very eyes were a colour so purely stunning even my imagination could not possibly have conceived their beauty.

He looked at me a long while, and I tried to avoid his curious gaze as I struggled to rein the pace of my rampant feast. He reminded me of an inquisitive stray. One for whom you wished you could spare some food, but wouldn't dare approach in fear of the possibility it may bite.

Either that or you were too afraid that once you shared a mutual trust your heart may not want to let go.

"How did you end up this far out anyway?"

I set my glass on the table and moistened my chapped lips out of habit, the sensation of fresh water against my tongue still eliciting a magnificent sense of relief that flooded my exhausted body. I couldn't meet his stare of steady scrutiny. Already I knew this boy was like a book. The kindness and vulnerability that leaked from his two brown eyes were overwhelming.

"The tunnels," I hastily debated the length of detail I wished to disclose to a boy who was no more than a stranger, "there's a facility up north. They're letting people in."

"You heard too?"

I nodded, swirling my spoon in the cooling stew in an attempt to avoid his gaze. It went quiet, and I knew the both of us were lost in a sea of our own thoughts. I was sure that if I raised my gaze I would be able to translate the precise train of analysis and rationale that was running through his mind behind those deep eyes.

Meanwhile my own gears were busy ticking over the brief wave of vulnerability that had rushed over me and flooded my heart in the middle of the woods only hours earlier. I had let him hold me while I cried. I had let myself be helpless. Weak. I didn't want his heat to comfort me. I didn't want the beating in his chest to fill me with hope. I didn't want him to pick up the pieces that had fallen apart so long ago. I didn't want his arms around me. I didn't want to be fragile. I didn't want him to see me; to see the broken mess I was, to see the helplessness that bled from my stare or the shattered fragments of life that clung to my soul and protruded through the surface of my skin, fending off anyone who dared come too close.