JAMES
White noise danced in his ears. It sang with the endless pain in his chest. It intensified with meaningless moments. He coughed. Once. Twice. Unending. He rolled over onto his side, head burning when he brushed his fingers across the pillow, using his other hand to rub his chest to soothe the sensations. He shivered when the coughing fit subsided, and listened to the voices below. Words he failed to grasp through the walls.
He meant nothing.
James sat up and held his stomach. He sat there in silence and fought to ignore the hush of heat whispering through the shutters of the window. If I open them... Buildings crumbled to dust. Trees, crisp and burnt.
He never opened his window or the shutters. He left himself to the gentle light of the room which failed to calm him. Under the covers, he fiddled with the corners of the fabric, waiting for another unwanted visitor. She's going to resort to checking up on me more. What's the point?
His datacam collected dust.
His notepad, unwritten in.
All his stories. All his dreams.
Gone.
Warmth washed through his blood, and he shivered. Nausea blasted against his temples. She's going to give up sometime, right?
Nothing but a tree turned fireball, crumbling to wood bone, whose skin sizzled, blistered, and burned. Bloody moments frozen in his mind. James crawled closer to the edge of the bed, where Mrs. Falae placed a bucket after his last expulsion of seared images.
It never came back up.
He slumped into the pillow with a huff. He rubbed the bones in his fingers and pressed his cheek further into the mattress when footsteps sounded outside the door.
"James?" Mrs. Falae asked.
He found no strength through his pain to answer her call.
"Your condition is getting worse."
He ignored her.
"I'm having a doctor pay a house visit and to talk to you," Mrs Falae said. "James, I don't want to force you to take Medis, but it's gotten to the point that you're hurting yourself." Her footsteps inched closer to the bed. "I suggest you listen to what they have to say."
"There's no point," he mumbled, hoarse. "What would they talk about with me?" Embers laced through his throat and lungs. "Eastpoint? Don't care. Feelings? Don't care. Pain?" He turned over to glare at her. "You should've left me underneath that tree, and then I wouldn't be feeling it."
"You would've died, James."
James tucked into the blankets. "It's better than what you've left me."
He sat there and recalled every moment of his friends and classmates.
Jon. Katie. Yvonne.
His family.
Mom, Janie... Ava...
Tears swelled in his eyes.
Rayan.
Gone, save for Meryn, who refused to leave him too.
He took deep, pained breaths through his nose and waited for nothing. Stomach overturned, he flattened himself onto his back and returned to his staredown with the roof. Everytime he blinked, time sped past. James scowled and choked his blanket shield. Hands on his chest, his ribs caved in.
If I just pretend... If I pretend, if I ignore it... it can't hurt me.
I can't.
He stood on his useless feet.
He shambled out of the room he trapped himself in, clinging onto the wall.
One step in front of the other.
One step.
In front of the other.
Noiseless voices from the foyer downstairs sent a shiver through his spine. He brushed his arm against his brow then relaxed himself with a soft sigh. It rippled and tore as he peeked around the corner, where Mrs. Falae sat in the kitchen, with her hand against her compearl. He no longer cared to know what she discussed, so he went to the other side, creeping closer to his greatest hurdle. Rayan's old room — everything he never knew about Rayan. His fingers rested on the slider, and hesitation trapped him in the flames. One more check when footsteps sounded downstairs, he breathed deep and Rayan's door slid open.
Old pictures sat among the drawer pressed against the wall, where Rayan's I-Screen sat in the mess. Some floated to the ground from the wind of his entrance, to the floor where dust made its home, while on his bed, clothes and a single jacket were sent fly-away in someone's haste.
He crept inside with the silence of the manor, straight to the window where crumbled paper littered the ground. James knelt down to pick up one into his hands, unfolding it and smoothing it out. Concepts of graffiti Rayan sketched out along the trails. He put them to the side to grab the largest one, the Odaport skyline, with messy, scrawled edges, but for a moment, he recognized the angles when he held it in front of the window. Perfect in the imperfection, but Rayan tossed it to the side when several of his lines scrambled into sharp turns. Honestly... James sucked in his lips and shambled to his bed to sit on it, staring down at the incomplete sketch.
James raised his head to the window again and placed the sketch on Rayan's pillows. Hands against his warm blankets, tears slipped down his cheeks while he longed for autumn.
What's the point?
He rubbed his brow with the edge of his hand and tried to pretend.
But there was no point.
His fingers found Rayan's jacket, and he tugged it into his lap to rub his fingers against the leather hems. You would've been warm if you brought this. He thought to no one, then brought it closer while everything echoed and rang in dissonance. Everyone screamed around him, and he pressed his face into the jacket to run from the terror he had at his back. What happened, Ray? He smothered his sob into the jacket. Campfires hushed out their tasteful, sweet embers into his nose. He pressed his cheek into the deep, comforting dark and dug his heels in.
"James?" Mrs. Falae's voice jolted him out of his nuzzling of the jacket, back into the cruel reality. He turned back to her, swallowing the rest of his tears without a chained connection to another half. He held on tight to the jacket when Mrs. Falae joined him at the side of the bed with a deep frown. "Someone's here to talk to you."
The jacket slipped out of his fingers and rested on his lap. "There's no point."
"I want you to talk to them anyway," she said and left the room.
He waited. Frustration grew with the ticking time, and he snapped around when a familiar newcomer came in.
Aelius Matthey.
"Hello, James," he said with a smile. "How're you feeling today?"
James ignored him and brought his feet onto the bed to tuck closer into Rayan's jacket, holding onto autumn's last breath. "I don't know why you bothered coming here." He folded his arms and protected his shield. "I told her I didn't want to see anyone, or talk to anybody."
"Mrs. Falae is concerned about you," Aelius responded. "Meryn's worried about you too. I found some free time, so I'm making a house call."
James frowned at his friend's name — the other survivor. He avoided Aelius' gaze, full of the life he no longer had. Forced upon him by the dragon-headed figure within the ash. "So?" James bit. "What do you want?"
"Well..." Aelius sat beside him. "I just want to talk to you."
"I thought I said I don't want to talk," he spoke into the jacket.
"We don't have to talk about what happened if you're not ready for it."
Words choked tears into his throat, but he eyed Aelius. "She called you to force me to take Medis, didn't she? Can't I still refuse?" He left the safety of his last connection. Everything spiralled out of his hands, out of control until his time was up. "I don't want Medis. I don't want to talk to you, or anybody." Frustration sent him into a retreat from the bed, but he held tight onto Rayan's jacket, unable to let go for once. "No one did anything! I wasn't allowed to go back! It should've been me who identified them! You made a mistake! Both you and Mrs. Falae!"
"And what mistake do you refer to?" Aelius asked.
James groaned and dug his teeth into his tongue as he took shelter back into the collar of the jacket. Water dripped down his cheeks.
Aelius whispered, "Trust me, James. You didn't need to see that... and I wish I had made a mistake in identification, but I know I didn't." He leaned back and eyed the I-Screen. "Have you been watching the aftermath reports?"
"What would be the point of that?" he dodged Aelius' question. "I know what happened. Pirates attacked Eastpoint and massacred everyone." Waves of disconnection cracked the walls, and he rested his nose into the back of hte jacket, to ground him into focus. "They... killed everyone."
Aelius tipped his head. "Only if you let them."
James clenched his fists and fought the urge to shove Aelius when he tugged an instrument out of his belt. "Mrs. Falae asked me to give you a once-over. I'm not here to do anything else if you don't wish for it."
"I was already looked over at the hospital."
"Consider me a second opinion." Aelius held his hands out in surrender. "I want you to recover." His smile softened. "If you want, I can bring Meryn over to visit you."
"No!" James snapped, and anger tore through his heart when Aelius refused to flinch from him. "I don't want to see him!" He turned his back on the doctor. "He should've left me. He should've gone to the relief camp himself." He hugged the arms of the jacket, and stepped back when Aelius got up with the instrument in hand.
"If that's what you wish." Aelius stopped. "At least let me check you over. Mrs. Falae reported you were experiencing emesis..."
"I don't speak doctor."
Aelius grinned. "Vomiting."
James squicked at the recollection in his haze of flames. "What about it?"
Aelius sighed, but his calm expression never faltered. James scowled, stomped his foot against the abandoned sketches, never finished. He slammed himself down on Rayan's bed. Anger breathed fire into his heart and intensified the pain while Aelius got to work. Time escaped his grip while Aelius took his blood, and he groaned when Aelius handed him a golden capsule.
"I want you to drink this," he instructed. "The biodegradable nanosprites remain in your lungs. This ingestive cream will ease further physical symptoms and get them to work further to heal the damage." Aelius poured it into a cup and pushed it with more insistence into his hands. "I'll also recommend you to a Medistherapist—"
"No."
"It's a recommendation, James, not an order," Aelius said with a smile. "You need to talk, though. Hiding in your room for days on end won't do you any favours." He nodded at the cup. "Take it."
James longed to throw it away. "What if I say no?"
"If I'm honest, I think Mrs. Falae has reached her limit of being told no," Aelius said with a mischievous grin.
I never had any control.
"Everyone wants me to do everything," James said and the jacket slipped off his lap. "I don't want their help." He put the cup to the side. "What if I just want to go to sleep one day and never wake up? Am I not allowed that choice?" Tears fell down his eyes, but he let go of his final protection. "None of them got a choice. One day they were alive and the next..." James rubbed his eyes. "Why can't you just let me make my choice?"
Aelius studied him, something ancient within the browns. "And yet, you wake up anyway."
"I don't know why I bother," James grumbled.
"You could try to find a reason," Aelius suggested. "As difficult as that is."
James huffed. "How would you understand?"
"Maybe I don't," Aelius said with a shake of his head. "These are my own words I can give to you."
James grabbed the cup. "All of it?"
"Yes. I'm also adjusting your dosage."
James scowled down at the sparkled liquid, and chugged it. Empty of the pointlessness, he handed it back to Aelius, who smiled at him. "You need to give yourself time, James. It'll stop hurting."
"It won't."
Aelius stopped at the door, then gave him a gentle, almost understanding smile. "I was referring to the physical pain, James."
His words tossed him off his guard as Aelius disappeared into the corridor and the door shut behind him. Resentment crashed against his heart as he grabbed the sketch of Odaport, digging his fingers into the center. Flames drove him to drink the Medis. James sat back on Rayan's pillows and waited for the eventuality as he rested his arm outwards, and the sketch slipped out of his fingers to scatter to the floor, full of Rayan's viewpoints of a beautiful world.
It took a few hours, but it was predictable.
Mrs. Falae stepped into her son's room. "Aelius was telling me you took some Medis."
James leaped from the bed. "I didn't want help!" he snapped, causing her to stop. "Why won't you listen to me? You're almost as bad as my dad!"
Mrs. Falae raised an eyebrow. "All of us have to draw the line somewhere, James. I don't want your health to take a downwards spiral any further." She put the bowl of soup in her hands onto Rayan's small desk.
"This is my life!" he snapped, and she refused to crack. "I am not your son! I will never be your son! I didn't ask for you to save my life! I didn't ask for you to go through all these hoops! This isn't the Strike Forces where you can order me around!"
Fiery flames blinded him in the artillery of rage. He wrestled for control, and swung.
Rain washed the embers.
Mrs. Falae snapped into action. Her hand grabbed his forearm when his momentum carried him past her. Her other arm wrapped around his elbow, and James choked when she turned him around and held him in a tight grip. Unable to breathe, he grinded his jaw into nothing as she moved him towards Rayan's bed, and dropped him into its embrace.
"Really, James?" Mrs. Falae questioned. "What were you going to do afterwards?"
Her reaction, inhuman. Her strength, even more so.
Or... I'm just that weak and meaningless...
Mrs. Falae smiled down at him. "Not even close. You're going to have to be better than that if you want to hit me."
Time slowed into near clarity.
James hid in Rayan's blankets to smother the smile crawling on his lips of cracked stone. It brought endless black holes and disjointed his own mind. He waited until she left, and he longed to hear white noise.
His strength, powered by anger and fury, washed away into a river of tears as he sobbed into the final lifeline.