𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐢𝐭
𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜
╚═══════════════╝
H E R
Patrick died that night.
He got sick and died. Just like that.
And when he came back, he killed. I didn't know how many and I didn't know who.
A dense fog of uncertainty enveloped me, shrouding my senses in a disorienting haze that muddled even the most basic of thoughts. Like a weighty anchor dragging me into the murky depths of despair, I struggled against the relentless pull of heaviness that threatened to engulf me whole.
With each labored step, I felt as though I were wading through treacle, left adrift in a sea of confusion and fear.
Seeking refuge from the tumult raging within, I stumbled upon the water containers, their cool surface offering a brief respite from the chaos that raged within. Yet, even as I sought to steady my trembling breaths and clear the fog from my mind, I found myself confronted by the harsh reality that clarity remained elusive, slipping through my fingers like grains of sand.
I dropped onto my haunches under all the weight and pressed my hands against my ears, as if to ward off some loud noise. Struggled to breathe. Eyes shut tight.
The waves were receding, leaving the shore rocky and sharp.
What if Mika died?
What about Lizzie?
Or Beth?
Carl?
Carl?
Carl. My stomach tightened and if I had anything in there, I would've vomited right then and there.
The last time we spoke, yesterday afternoon, I was mad at him. Over him taking some stupid photograph. Oh, God. I remembered the hurt in his eyes.
Carl was my friend. Maybe even a closer friend to me than Patrick. Was that anyway to treat him? Avoid him for the rest of the day? Made a point of having Lizzie sit next to me at dinner, leading him to sit with some counsel members? I had gone out of my way to be petty for absolutely no reason. And now, he could be dead. Dead and I wouldn't even know it.
Anxious energy crackled in the air, setting my nerves alight as I paced back and forth, a prisoner to my own restless thoughts. Should I return to the cell block and confront the aftermath of whatever calamity had befallen us, or should I continue to cower in the icy grip of fear, paralyzed by the unknown?
I was a coward, plain and simple, unwilling to confront the harsh realities that lurked beyond the safety of my own solitude.
My body had brought me here with a purpose, to seek refuge in the shadows, to shield myself from the impending storm that threatened to consume me whole. And so, I remained ensnared in the suffocating embrace of my own cowardice, unable to break free from its iron grip.
The prison was falling apart, just as Woodbury had, just as Montgomery had, just as the entire world had. I was going to lose everything all over again. Something I was unsure that I was emotionally capable of doing once more.
Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit—
"Eleanor?"
At that moment, Carl's voice was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
Not everything was lost.
I turned and there he stood, not twenty feet away. Living, breathing and heart beating. His face was one of shattered glass, stained red with misery, written with bewilderment at the tragedy.
Something snapped inside me. Allowing myself, for a moment, to feel. To care. And suddenly I could not stand the space between us, like a thick cord of piano wire was strung there. In some mutual fit of insanity, we both broke into runs, closing the distance by meeting in the middle.
"Patrick is dead." He told me, voice breaking at the end.
"I know-" Then the full impact of the predicament hit me. Patrick was dead. "-Oh, my God."
In a quick movement Carl reached out for me and I immediately fell into his sturdy arms, letting them hold me for the first time. He tucked my head beneath his chin and brought me close to his chest.
"That could've been Beth. Or Lizzie. Or you," tightened my grip around his neck and buried my face into his chest. The thought of losing this stupid, arrogant boy effecting me illy.
His whole body radiated warmth and he smelt like the air after rain. I can't believe I had never had him this close to me before, save for that fleeting moment in the hallway. If I could stay in this spot for the rest of the day, that be just fine by me. For something had clicked when we moved into each other's arms. It felt familiar and comforting, and I wondered why I hadn't hugged him before.
"I couldn't find you. I thought you were...gone." He muttered into my hair after a long time. "Everyone was freaking out. A lady was carrying her dead baby. Bloody people were screaming. It was bad, Eleanor. It was bad."
I had come out here to cower in fear after only seeing Patrick while he had faced the horrors of the entire massacre with his own eyes. I felt shame, truthfully, I had to have been a terrible friend. A weak friend. How could he console me when he had been the one to see it all?
I did not deserve to be consoled, yet I was afraid to release him. For one, I was partly embarrassed to have embraced him so willingly in the first place, especially after we had such clear unspoken boundaries, making me fret over the consequences. And two, I knew there was a great chance that we would never touch this way again and it had been so long since anyone had held me. So I clung to him like a small, plaintive child. Eyes shut tight, like maybe for a moment I could pretend we were somewhere else, in another life, and Patrick wasn't dead and summer wasn't ending and—
"It was hell." He said so quietly after a long moment had passed, breaking me out of my thoughts.
So much for make-believe. I must face reality. I was not a child, that was a luxury I could not afford, and I was a coward who did not deserve to be held.
I backed out of his arms and he released me without hesitation, as if the embrace had never happened. I ran the heels of my hands over my eyes, determined not to cry in front of Carl.
"He was sick." I said.
Carl didn't know. He hadn't sat with us for last evening's meal, due to my shallowness.
"Who?"
"Patrick." I looked at my sweater sleeves. "Patrick was sick. When he didn't come in at dinner, Mika brought him some soup. But he was fine yesterday morning."
"Do you think whatever he had is contagious?" His hand met my elbow, a fearful grab.
"His face was all bloody, like his insides exploded out of his mouth and eyes and—"
"We could have it. We've been around him all the time." Carl's eyes darkened and his fingers released their grip on me. "We could be sick right now and not even know it."
I thought back to a few days ago when Patrick and I shared a can of soda, how Carl didn't partake due to his pickiness against it being flat and a flavor he didn't particularly like, simple root beer, out of all things. But Patrick wasn't even sick then? I'm sure it was no big deal. I had taken sips off of teammate's water bottles back during my short spurt of playing soccer and that was during flu season. I didn't catch anything.
"No. We're fine. We're fine." I tried to reassure him but seeing him that worried made me feel like I was truly trying to reassure myself. I reached out to him again and he took my frozen hand between his two warm ones, holding me at a distance again. "We're fine."
I saw that little crack in the facade. The vulnerability leaking out, the weakness of himself that he loathes. He stayed quiet, chapped lips pressed together, trying to pull himself out of the rut of emotion.
"Carl?"
"Hm?" He hummed a response, trapped in thought.
My voice broke as I asked: "What are we going to do?" And I didn't have to explain myself.
My hand in his grip, he met my eyes then. He looked at me in a way he hadn't looked at me in awhile, the way he looked at me back in the secluded hallway. He couldn't stop the softness that overtook his features when his gaze became fixed on myself, a gaze that made me feel as if though I was something very small, very fragile. Something that needed to be cared for and protected. He looked selfless, which was not good. I had made a decision in that hallway, when I pushed him away, that we would not care for each other in such a way. We would not be selfless for each other. Being selfish kept you alive.
Carl seemed to be thinking the same thing.
Then he made his own decision in a split second.
Because then he did that thing. Made his face stoic. Void of emotion. Shutting me out. He released me completely, as if he had never touched me in the first place.
"They're going to bury Patrick. Let's make him a cross."
x-x-x-x-x-x
The council decided to quarantine all the children. Separate us to the administration building.
They made all the girls shower first.
Most of the younger ones ran around the large bathroom stark naked, oblivious to anything going on. I was afraid that one of them would slip on the wet tiles and crack their heads open or something. The older ones had the dignity to stay in their proper stalls and clean themselves off.
We needed to be completely decontaminated.
Once finished with my luxurious shower of freezing cold water while little girls rampaged outside the curtain with the upside of strawberry scented shampoo, I found clothes lying out for me generously by Beth.
Since my cell block had been closed off, my clothes and belongings were closed off as well.
She had set out a pair of jeans, a peachy colored sweater, and plain white underwear. They fit well, considering Beth was taller than me by only two inches. I pulled on my trusty combat boots and braided my wet hair into a simple plait before it frizzed out into a mess of untamable curls.
"Eleanor," Beth said over her shoulder as she helped button Molly into her shirt. "Are the clothes ok?"
"Yes, they fit. Thank you." I was kind of worried about the lack of bra but it wasn't like I really needed one.
"Are you good?"
I looked up at her, almost startled by the question, by the heaviness of it. "Yeah, why?"
"No, really. Are you?"
The corner of my mouth twitched making me bite down on my lip to keep myself from displaying some ridiculously pathetic look across my face. "H-He was fine yesterday."
Beth stood, eyes on our shoes. "Someone said they saw you run from the block when everything started happening."
Now it was my turn to look down. Me: the girl who ran away, the girl who couldn't face anything. I hate myself for my cowardice. "I just-I didn't want to see it all... Patrick... Any of it."
"Losing people. It's so hard." Beth agreed. "I can't even imagine what it's like for you. Your parents, brother... Now your friend."
"It's okay-"
"-No, nothing about any of this is okay." Beth surprised me, we had never spoken so seriously before. "I can't tell you that I know what it's like to have gone through what you've gone through, but I want you to know that I'm here for you."
"...Beth." God, I was not good with sentimentallies.
"It just hurts my heart." And, God, Beth was too good at just existing. She looked at me with those soft eyes and her white-blonde curls falling over her shoulder as they dry from her previous shower, looking absolutely too perfect to dwell on this scummy earth. Beth was an angel, and I was this grubby little vermin. Her heart should not hurt for me. "I don't want you feeling alone."
I shuffled, pursing my lips. Not sure what to say.
"I just..." Then she sighed wetly. Ugh, I didn't want to see Beth cry. "Earlier, Carl was running through the block, calling for you... I just hadn't seen him upset like that since his mom."
My head lifted at the mention of Carl, of his actions. Hearing the depth of which he cared, worried. That was not good.
"I hate it when things change." She admitted. "I hate that this changes things. Just when we were finally in this groove of normalcy."
She was right. We had all gotten too comfortable, that's how you end up dead. Fate takes the rug out from under you and kicks you when you're down.
Things change when you least want them to.
I sighed, lifting my gaze from Beth to a bench further down, where Mika and Lizzie were sat huddled together. The older girl beside me followed my gaze, we watched a moment as Mika let out a shuddered sob and Lizzie patted her back.
Beth slowly turned back to me, head tilted down. "Their father died." She whispered.
Oh, God. "That's terrible." I shook my head, unsure how to express how I sad I felt for them. Both of their parents were now dead as well. Another set of orphans to add to the prison's growing list. "What—What do I say to them?"
Beth's eyebrows pulled together. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know, just... Like, what do I say to them?"
"Oh, well, what did people say to you when your father passed away?"
I thought a moment before giving a small shrug. "No one really said anything."
x-x-x-x-x-x
After we cleared out of the showers in order for the boys to take their turns, we headed to the administration building. The floors were covered in papers, scattered and cluttered about as all the office workers had left in, as I imagine, quite a hurry.
Beth swept out a room for everyone to lay out their jail-order blankets and pillows.
All the girls sat around, the younger ones playing some hand game that included a song while the older ones read from books they had brought along or braided each others hair. Beth and I sat side by side, making sure all was well. She had baby Judith on her lap who was cooing and playing with the buttons on her shirt.
It wasn't too long before the boys arrived, all rowdy and shaking out their wet hair. I noticed Carl was omitted from the pack.
Beth seemed to have noticed, too. "Where's Carl?" She asked a younger boy with curly hair, Luke.
The boy shrugged. "Still at the showers."
Beth sighed and dismissed the child. Then she turned to me. "Would you mind going and getting him? Please?"
"Why?" I asked, not thinking it was a very good idea.
"Because I honestly am starting to have serious doubts that he's even there and that he is actually off somewhere he's not supposed to be and getting himself into trouble." Oh, big sister Beth.
I nodded, assuming the job as her co-babysitter, and I headed back to the showers, my footsteps echoing through the corridor until I was pushing open the bathroom door.
"Carl?"
I was met with silence. Had I missed him? Was he already making his was back to the administration building? Or had he decided to do his own thing as Beth had worried about?
"Carl?" I asked again, louder this time.
"Uh, y-yeah?" He replied from the back of the room.
I sighed, content with knowing he was just fine.
"We have to get back to the administration building. Hurry up," I walked towards the direction his voice had come from.
"Gimme a second." He called back, his voice echoing off the tile.
I passed the last stall and turned into the large alcove lined with benches and curtained shower stalls.
"Beth thought that you had, like, run off to get in trouble or something." I told him as I approached. "And I was, like, why would he do that? He already saw everything that had happened, he wouldn't go back. I mean, I didn't say that out loud—" Stupidly, I looked up as he was coming out from behind the plastic shower liner.
I stifled a gasp when my eyes met with Carl's bare back. Luckily, he had a pair of jeans he was just zipping up.
"Sorry, El," He turned to me, totally careless to his pale shirtless form as he then wrung a plain gray t-shirt between his hands. Water droplets clung to his skin, clotting up in the hollows of his collarbones and dripping from his eyelashes.
I made an effort to keep my eyes on his, but my eyes flashed down for half a second.
Carl was particularly thin yet somewhat built. I supposed all those days playing farmer had paid off and something to be proud of. I did notice the ledgendary scar. A spot of puckered pink skin just below his rib cage on the right side. I had heard the story about a dozen times, but never from the actual source which made me wonder what Carl's take was on the subject.
He quickly threw the shirt over his head, rolling the hem down over his torso.
I wanted to slap myself when I felt a twist of disappointment.
He took notice of my peach sweater, his eyes flashing down just as mine had moments before. I quickly crossed my arms over my chest and he just as hurriedly pretended that he hadn't been looking.
"Alright, off to the administration building?" He layered a flannel over his tee and pulled his orange duffel over his shoulder.
"Yeah. What took you so long?" I asked as we fell into step together.
He glanced over at me a moment. "I was, uh..."
"You were what?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"It was sort of difficult showering in a room full of little boys who think its funny to pull aside the curtain and smack you with their towels when you're unsuspecting."
"Aw, that's rough."
He shrugged one shoulder and looked down to hide his smirk. "Well, I was the one who started it."
I rolled my eyes.
"Those little kids worship me. Maybe I should've started being social earlier. Then I could have my own little army of Carl minions."
There he went again, being an absolute boy and I had to remember that he was truly fourteen even if he only chose certain times to act like it. And he chose then of all times and I wondered what had gotten him into such a playful mood considering our friend had just died, and then I realized it was because he was trying to make me feel better.
Carl was an enigma, a puzzle with pieces that refused to fit neatly together. One moment, he was impulsive and unforgiving, his actions driven by raw emotion and instinct. Yet, in the next breath, he could be kind and funny, his laughter ringing out like a beacon of light in the darkness.
I found myself drawn to the complexity of his character, intrigued by what lay beneath his rough exterior. There was a depth to him that defied explanation, a well of emotions waiting to be tapped into.
As I pondered the depths of his heart, I couldn't help but wonder what other secrets lay hidden within him, what more I could uncover about the boy who had captured my curiosity and refused to let go.
I was pulling back his layers, I tried to think it was coincidental but truth is I was doing it purposely. I wanted to know what was underneath all the facade, despite knowing there was a reason he buried it all down in the first place.
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A/N: it's official I can't wear my hair up anymore gugh
also yes hi i am ur author i see u reading we both know u have ur opinions on this book so share them idc what u say just say it i give u content GIVE ME SOME CONTENT BY COMMENTING DONT BE SELFISH
hehe ily random reader pls comment and vote it takes like .3 seconds and this book took YEARS 😤👌
edit: also CARL WAS C R Y I N G in the shower!!! OKAY?????? YALL WERE ABSOLUTELY WILD IN THOSE COMMENTS I S2G WHY WOULD HE BE DOING ~the other thing~ LITERALLY TWO HOURS AFTER HIS FRIEND BRUTALLY DIED ??? LMAOOOOOOOOO and i was literally an entire child when i wrote this i seriously doubt i knew what ~that~ was at the time yall crack me up tho
edit: ai bringing the book to life