CHAPTER SIX - TIME'S UP
Brian lay on his bed staring up at the rocky ceiling above him. There were several cracks running along the surface that reminded him of the cracks that were currently threatening to tear his life apart.
He turned in misery to lie on his side, his eyes closing. Why had he not been there when B woke up? Why hadn’t B still been awake when he returned from his meeting with Darren? He had been so worried about him… B was so young and vulnerable. Brian wanted to protect him but he had been powerless when all he could do was sit by the boy’s side while he found his own path back to consciousness.
He wanted to cry in desperation. This was worse then when a lover cast you aside for something better. This rejection led to a much deeper hurt that burned every part of him and clutched at his heart with fierce fingers and claws that tore into it to force the cracks apart.
Everything bad always happened to him. He should have known that this would happen. Nothing ever seemed to want to go right for him lately. Maybe it would have been better if he had died when the house had fallen on top of him…
Brian coughed in the thick smoke as the flames rapidly covered the house. Above him he heard the creaking and saw the ceiling beginning to sag. It was falling apart. Soon there would be nothing here but rubble.
Sammy squeaked in his arms in pain and Brian tried not to think about the blood that covered the boy’s legs. Tears were running down Brian’s face as he held the boy close to him, feeling the movement as he breathed. He had truly believed that for one awful moment time had tricked him and snatched his precious Sammy away. Now he held him though he suddenly realised that Sammy would be okay and that Brian himself wouldn’t be. He knew it.
He’d already seen it.
B was almost ready to be born and that meant one thing: Time’s up.
For Brian that is. He was about to lose everything.
He hurriedly crossed through the smoke filled house, feeling Sammy’s hands clutched at his own in fear. He squeezed the hands back, holding them so tightly within his own. Sammy had grown so much over the past few years, but Brian wanted to see him grow even more.
He coughed again and then held Sammy out through the broken window of the house, gulping slightly as a breeze blew a mouthful of fresh air at him. “Take him!” he commanded to Darren. ‘Take him out of my life.’
Darren nodded and stretched his arms out urgently for Sammy. Brian held him tight once more in love before he handed him over to Darren. That would be the last time he ever held Sammy and there was not even time for a proper goodbye where he could tell Sammy how much he loved him. He had prayed that it wouldn’t be like this, but it was.
Sammy was snatched from his arms and Brian breathed a sigh in relief as he knew that Sammy would be safe now, even though his heart was crying at the parting. This was it. He knew it was. He had constantly been on the look out for death recently, knowing that it was going to come soon. He’d spent as much time with Sammy as he could and also he had made sure that he let his girlfriend know how much he adored her. Then of course there was the unborn child that she was carrying. B.
“I’ve got him!” Darren replied as he held Sammy protectively to his chest.
Sammy was safe.
Brian nodded and tried not to cry. “Go quick! The place is falling apart!” he shouted as he began to try and clamber through the window himself, even though he knew it was futile. He still had to try. Maybe somehow it would all work out.
Maybe…
Somehow…
Please…
He cried out as a shard of glass sunk and tore into his flesh and he pulled his hand away sharply. There was an awful groan from the house and he saw the ceiling above him beginning to sag even more. He frantically tried to pull his body through the window as the dust began to fall behind him to only be set alight by the flames.
“Darren! Help me!” he begged.
Last chance. Last chance to survive this…
But he wasn’t going to. Time had brought the hunter of death upon him.
His sleeve was caught on the window and there was blood everywhere leaking from his arm. He saw Darren running towards him as he tore his sleeve free. He was almost out… he was going to make it.
He gasped as he was almost out. He stared and saw Sammy sitting on the path. He smiled at him, wanting to hold him once more and let him know how proud he was of him.
There was only final crash that sounded in his ears before the world literally came caving in about him. He screamed, knowing in that instant that he had been foolish to think he could actually cheat time that had already carved his name onto its tombstone.
He screamed as the dust, dirt and muck fell into his mouth and heavy rubble came crushing into his stomach. Agony. Pure agony. He was being crushed and destroyed. The weak light of the dark sky was blocked and he was left in dusty bleakness. The pain was too intense and he could not even scream anymore. He wanted to scream Sammy and B’s name. He wanted their names to be on his lips when he died, but it hurt too much to even try to speak. He had never thought death could be this painful.
It was dark all about him and the air was dry. His mouth hurt from the dust he had swallowed and his head ached terribly. He tried to move but he was totally trapped. He desperately tried to wriggle his toes and found that they moved… just. He hadn’t been crushed yet. He was still alive…
But it was so painful.
He gasped slightly, but the air was full of dust and it only served to make his throat ache even more. He felt sick, but there wasn’t enough space for him to vomit.
He was dying.
He tried hard to keep his mind on Sammy and B, but above the love for them was the selfish fear of death and the screaming of all of his limbs in pain. He wanted death to come. He wanted death to take away this agony.
But he was so scared.
He thought of Sammy and his eyes became damp and clotted with dust. Never again… He was gone. Now even his memories of them would be obliterated when the darkness claimed his soul. Did God really exist? Would he be taken to heaven where he could look down and watch his family?
Or what if there was nothing but oblivion awaiting him?
He waited in the dark, the dust sticking to him and assaulting him as bad as the pain. His throat was terrible and he desperately wanted some water.
Maybe this was how he died. Maybe he starved to death alone in the dark trapped beneath the rubble.
Most probably he would suffocate. There was air for now but the air pocket would not last for long.
He waited, begging for death or unconsciousness to come quickly to relieve him.
Eventually a blackness did come and he was not so aware of the pain. His vision was filled with peculiar lights that shone and shimmered before him. Strange…
He saw himself cuddling Sammy and he saw the expression that had been on B’s tearful face when he had left him…
He thought he was dead when the light came. It was so sudden and so bright that he winced and gurgled in pain, his throat too sore to make any other sounds. His eyes hurt so much with the bright sunlight.
“You’re alive?” the shadow above him said coldly.
Brian did not move. Was he alive? Was he dead? Where was he?
He tried to talk, but his lips were so dry. His eyes flickered open but the daylight hurt too much and he whimpered in pain. He tried to open them again and the shadow shifted into the shape of a grey uniformed man that filled him with dread. He was not sure where he was… or even who he was… but this person, a person who should have been seen as a saviour, was only feared by a deep instinct.
He was suddenly prodded. “Up.”
He wasn’t sure if he could move, but he weakly clambered to his feet surprised that they actually held him. His chest hurt painfully and he knew that he had a broken rib or two, but he was standing.
Alive?
Or one of the walking dead?
“You’re young. You must be strong to survive that. I did not expect to find a survivor. You’re quite young,” the man commented. The words were hard to hear and all Brian was aware of was a harsh murmuring.
“Kill him,” another voice rasped. “Useless.”
“We need more mine workers! We kill too many! He’s alive and he could work if we fix him up! We need strong male adults to work, not children or ancient old women!”
The light was dazzling to his sore eyes and he dare not walk. Instead he found himself slumping to the ground.
“He’s going to die.”
“He’ll live. He can work for us now.”
He jerked slightly, unwilling to allow the memory to go any further. After his miraculous survival, he had faced seventeen years in the Gerai mines working as a slave. Even now when he slept he could sometimes feel the heavy weight of the rubble upon him and taste the dust that clouded the air. His chest had never been the same since and he knew from Nick that one of his ribs was twisted after having healed badly. He also found himself becoming terribly claustrophobic and these caves did nothing to help him.
“Bri? How are you?”
He turned and saw his cousin’s face peering around the doorway and rolled onto his side to face him. “Hey Kevin.”
“Have you spoken to B since what we discussed yesterday?” he asked tentatively.
Brian glared up at him in annoyance. “He’s still recovering from the fire and you want me to drop that bombshell on him?” he snapped. He had tried to avoid thinking about what they had told him. All he could think of was the sickening guilt that washed over him when he thought of B. He had woken up while Brian and the others had been talking of cutting his arm up…
“Look Bri, I know this is difficult but it’s urgent! Darren just got some intelligence to say that a group of Gerai on the move. We have to work on putting a stop to this base and we need the information in B’s chip. We’ll know what we’re dealing with then.”
“You’re asking me to risk his life!” Brian yelled as he sat up. “This is no minor operation or anything! He might die! I can’t make that decision quickly and it’s not something I want B to have to think about while he’s recovering from the shock of the fire and attack!”
“All right,” Kevin said gently. “Just calm down.” He crossed over to sit beside Brian on the bed. He studied his cousin for a moment and Brian coolly returned the gaze trying to figure out what was going through the older man’s head. Brian had used to be able to read him like a book, but now after so many years apart he felt like a stranger. Most of the people here treated him like a stranger. He wasn’t the Brian they had known. He wasn’t the Brian B had known and loved.
“There’s something else isn’t there?” Kevin said softly. “Why are you here instead of being with B?”
Brian turned away from him, his eyes closing in anguish. He wanted nothing more than to sit by B’s bedside and listen to him breathe and be reassured that he was alive. “He doesn’t want me there,” he said softly.
“You’re his father! Of course he does!”
Brian rolled his eyes. Kevin thought he understood the situation so well but he knew nothing. He could not figure out why there was such a difference between B and Brian. Unlike B, Kevin saw him as being identical to the Brian he had once known. He did not seem to acknowledge the haunted change that had taken place and clouded his eyes with a permanent melancholy.
“No Kevin, he doesn’t,” Brian said bitterly. “He wanted me there when he woke up for the first time and I wasn’t there because I was in your meeting. I sat by his side permanently when he was asleep and when he whimpered and cried out I held his hand. He doesn’t know I did any of that. He probably thinks that I don’t even care. He thinks I wasn’t there.”
“Then show him you do care.”
“What by asking him to risk his life so that we can see what the Gerai his in his arm? Sure, that will really make him feel loved!” he replied sarcastically. “B deserves more than that.”
“You should be with him,” Kevin said, refusing to allow his tone to become angry like Brian’s.
“He doesn’t want me there. I arrived when Sammy was tucking him up asleep. I sat with him and when he did wake to find me there, he pretended to fall back to sleep immediately. He didn’t want to see me.” He had waited anxiously for B to awaken again, desperate to explain why he had not been there the first time, but B’s eyes had opened and then he had yawned, said he was ‘tired’ and closed his eyes again. He had been shunned from the boy’s life.
B hated him.
Brian’s heart had crumpled and he had been forced to push back tears as he tenderly tucked B into the blankets. He tried so hard, but everything he did was in vain. Everything always went wrong.
Maybe he just wasn’t destined to have a happy family, but God he would do anything for one.
It hadn’t seemed all that far away when B and Sammy had rescued him from the mine, but fate has a cruel sense of humour. He had cheated death and salvaged his life, but his happiness had already seemed to be buried beneath the earth in a cold, cheap coffin.
He turned away from Kevin to his bedside table with the photographs upon it. Nick had given them to him since most of his own had been destroyed in the fire. There was one of B and Sammy, one of the very old photographs of Sammy and Brian and one of all three of them together when they’d had a picnic together. Brian had been younger then when he visited out of times and everything had been right and perfect that day. He would give his life to have just one more day like that.
The final picture he picked up and gazed at while one finger gently rubbed over the child’s face. He was no more than three years old as he gazed up at the camera with big, green, wondrous eyes, curious as to what was being done to him.
Kevin placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll work out somehow, you’ll see.”
“How?” Brian murmured still staring at the picture and trying to imagine what it would have been like to scoop up the baby B into his arms and cradle when he was crying.
He glanced down at the picnic photograph with the three smiling faces. He could still recall that day when they had behaved like a family. He treasured that happy memory now. It was the only thing that made a tiny part of him still cling to hope. Maybe things would turn out that way…
Kevin could not answer him.
Brian slowly placed the photograph down where he would be bale to see it when he lie back to sleep that night. All he had ever wanted was a family, but everything was determined to tear it apart.
“Sit with B. Show him that you’re determined to work this out. I’ll have a word with Darren and don’t worry about telling about the chip yet. Juts try and make things up between you.”
Brian hung his head. He did not know how to anymore.