Peppermint And Gunpowder

Chapter Twenty-Two: I'm Not Real

"Just relax," Olivia whispers, brushing a strand of hair out of my face while an orderly fiddles with an IV bag. "Everything will be over soon."

The orderly with emotionless eyes and white scrubs push a needle into the IV, into me. I stay silent.

This morning, Olivia came to our room with an attendee carrying two trays of food--toast with ample butter, water for me and orange juice for Gracie, and two small bowls of strawberries. I don't remember the last time I saw strawberries, fresh or not. They just weren't there any more. There was many things that just weren't there anymore--fresh fruit, assorted meat, sweets and candies, peppermint... things that were never seen in the Zones.

They were just gone.

But there the strawberries were, in a little bowl on the right side of my tray, opposite to the glass of water, bright red as if they were picked this morning.

My head begins to feel foggy, my body lethargic. Everything slows, it feels like my blood has slowed to a mere crawl.

"You're alright," Olivia whispers. "The medicine is taking affect. You'll be alright, you're just tired now. That's what the medicine's supposed to do. It's just so we can observe your health in its unconscious state." She smiles weakly. "You'll be fine, you won't feel a thing."

To weak to even respond, I blink once. Twice. Three times.

A subconscious code, three flicks of motion. Three simple flicks of motion.

The last time I saw this code, these three flicks of motion, was when I gripped Poison's hand as he was being supported by Kobra's weight and shoulder as blood dribbled down his chin and his words slurred together.

My fault.

I do not know how many days we've been here. Days, weeks--or merely hours? I do not have a window in my room, no way to observe the systematic rising and setting of the sun and moon.

Though how little or long I've been here, I realized one thing: How much I miss home.

But home is not a place, it's a people.

It isn't the little loft-like apartment at the old factory, it isn't the Trans-am, it isn't Dr. D's radio broadcasting system. It isn't a place.

It's wherever Poison is, where Kobra is, where Jet, and Gracie, and Ghoul, and Bandit, and Dr. D, and Show Pony is. Wherever they are, no matter where we are, is my home.

And I never realized how much I miss my home.

Ghoul's witty comments, Jet's logical thinking, Kobra's quietness and unblinking eye, Poison's smile.

I miss falling asleep in Poison's arms, and waking with his smile and the morning bird.

There is no morning bird here.

The morning bird is a beautiful bird, a bird never seen but heard. Everyone hears the morning bird, even if they don't realize at the moment it's the morning bird.

Nobody knows what the morning bird looks like. Does she have ebody wings, dark as night? Or white wings, soft as a cloud? Does she have crimson, or royal blue?

I don't remember the last time I saw a bird.

I push the thoughts of the morning bird, of home, of fresh strawberries, and move to watching the steady drip, drip of the IV bag. I follow the tubing to a white square on my arm, covering the needle. The clear liquid flows through the tubing from the IV bag to my arm, into my veins and into my blood.

"Try and sleep," Olivia's words are clear against the fog. She now sits in a folding chair, the seat covered in crinkly plastic, cracked in many places and indented slightly from years of use. I hadn't noticed she'd moved.

I do not want to sleep, not from some drug administered through tubing sealed by white cotton.

"Don't fight, please." Olivia says. "It might mess with the results. Just sleep."

I do not want to sleep. Attempting to shake my head in resistance, it merely bobs to the side, flopping weakly on the pillow stinking of chemicals.

"Just sleep, you'll wake in a few hours." Is the last thing I hear, the last of what I assume are Olivia's words, before the drug wins the fight and darkness says hello.

I stand in the middle of a room. A dark room, windows covered in grime and dirt and spray paint. In the corner, tousled bedding on many mattresses lay unmoving, with bodies sleeping. Two of the beds with threadbare blankets is empty, two of the people are not where they should be.

I walk to a door, closed but a light within shines. Someone coughs, a hacking cough. They sound like they're choking.

It does not take long for me to realize where I am, who the people are; I am home, in the old factory, with the boys and Gracie.

Walking away from the door and single light, I watch the beds. I crouch on the floor, observing the sleeping figures of the Fabulous Four.

Jet lays with one arm tossed over his eyes and one leg propped up, his hair tousled.

Kobra lays beside him, arms wrapped tightly around his chest and lips parted slightly.

Ghoul is the final in line, sprawled out across the mattress, threadbare blanket of dark green fabric bundles around his waist.

Gracie is on the opposite side of Jet, between him and where Poison is supposed to be. The two leaders protect the child, even in sleep, as they guard two sides of her bed. She curls on her side, hair pressing to her face and pillow, as she holds tightly to Kitty.

The last two mattresses are empty. Poison and I's mattresses have no bodies, no souls to warm the sheets.

Someone coughs again, and my attention is pulled from the sleeping bodies and empty beds.

My hand hovers above the door handle, shaking and trembling. Would the people inside notice?

I open the door.

Two people sit on the edge of the bathtub; Poison and I. They do not look up, merely continuing on whatever they do.

The woman who is supposed to be me, shaking in thin bedclothes, dabs a wet washcloth of water and soap on the blood falling from Poison's mouth.

He coughs again, and more blood flies past his chapped lips. Now blood lingers on his hands and chin, and on my hands and the washcloth, his and my shirt. He bites his lip, mumbling apologies.

"Don't apologize," I want to say. I want to scream it at him. But I don't.

Instead, I walk past the woman who's supposed to be me and gently press my hand to Poison's shoulder.

He does not react, does not pay my hand any mind.

They are figments of my lucid, drug-induced sleep. They are not real.

Or am I not real?

Everything plays as it did, nothing out of place but me--are they real, and I am fake? Am I some hallucination from whatever was in the IV bag connected by tubing and covered by a white square of cotton.

My breathing is heavy, my eyes water. I lean against the bathroom door, praying for a way out.

And around me, everything continues.

I want to scream, want to cry out, but I can't. I can't.

Everything runs, my mind races in circles, my breathing picks up speed, and I don't know if I'm crying or not. Everything becomes too much. Too loud, too quiet, too fast, too slow--too much.

My legs give out from under me, my head bangs against the door.

Everything goes dark, but everything continues.

I'm not real.