As usual: *emphasis*
[untitled
snippet]
It was dark in the East. Not quite the deep pitch of
night, but a hazy sort of soft darkness. Hearrad was glad. Hearrad took it to
mean the morning was on its way. Or maybe had arrived.
It was hard to tell true day from dusk or dawn sometimes, when the haze was
especially thick.
It
looked like a perpetual twilight, the world. Hazy shapes appearing out of thick
fog and mist. Tendrils of vapor or smoke or perhaps something less pleasant
that would eventually steal one’s health twining about his legs and his person,
obscuring those he traveled with. A lonely landscape. Almost unbearably so, despite the relatively close presence of
those others. They didn’t seem like people in this haze. Didn’t seem like anything but rather sluggishly moving objects, no
more sentient than the bulk of rubble and once-vehicles littering the street.
Lumps of rust and rock that no one had found any use for.
Other
than that the city was lifeless, felt lifeless, even
if Hearrad was knew it was veritably crawling with vagabonds. He missed the
capital. God, he missed the capital. But at least they were on their way home
now. At least they weren’t still heading out. Out and out and out into this
endless sea of mist.
A call
came, sharp, traveling well in the fog, then was cut off as if the caller had
been surprised by the clarity of his own shout. As if he had
broken a silence that should have been preserved. They had all been
doing that. Had been doing it this whole damned trip.
The atmosphere of the dead city demanded whispers.
Hearrad
scrubbed at his shoulder. He wanted sunlight. Bright.
Warm. Staring through this gloom day after day was killing his eyesight. Had given him a headache that had been pounding away at the inside
of his skull for the past three days. He relocated the scrubbing to his
tired eyes. The call came again, softer, cautiously low, like someone talking
too loud on holy ground. It was for him.
“Here,”
Hearrad called, then repeated himself when it came out
as a croak.
“Anything?” It was Marak, sounding so hoarse himself that
Hearrad hadn’t recognized his voice at first.
“No.” He
was bored of his own answer. Bored of searching this dead
city for life.
“Odd,”
the voice said again, suddenly close. Marak was at his shoulder. Had been closer than he sounded all along. Hearrad didn’t
jump. Another thing he was bored of. Having his senses confused by the mist, by
the hidden skeletons of once-proud monuments. By the shells
of once-great dwellings. “We *know* there’s people here.” Marak
continued, searching the gloom with a dim greenish light. Hearrad found himself
staring at the beam where it lit up the vapor, and shook himself.
“I
know.” There was nothing else to say. Once, he would have wished for dogs, or equipment,
or *something*. Relying on his instincts seemed a tricky sort of battle plan.
Having everyone relying on them seemed the worst kind of stupidity. It was a
lot of blind trust in what Hearrad basically thought of as a
slightly more reliable than usual gut feeling.
“You alright?” Marak asked again, peering at him. Close
enough now that Hearrad could see him without losing his features to the
half-dark. He looked tired, eyes sunken in a drawn face. Shivering.
Maybe thinking that Hearrad’s similar misery might be
contributing to a faulty reading of the area.
“I’m
fine.” There was no point to argue. No point in repeating his old protests
about relying on him for things that he couldn’t possibly know or do. The
pressure and the fatigue were getting to him. Vaguely he remembered having more
confidence in himself and his rather undefined abilities when they’d set out. It
irked that Marak was questioning him. He couldn’t fight both their doubts at
once. He couldn’t ask Marak to trust him if he was questioning himself.
Couldn’t question himself if Marak was doing the same
instead of insisting he do his damn job and stop griping. They were both losing
it.
Both losing it when all those misty shapes trudging through the fog
around them were counting on them to fall back on. He was following
Marak’s light again, eyes drawn to that bit of brightness. He didn’t realize
until his foot caught on rubble and almost sent him face first into the cracked
road. “Damn.” The curse carried like Marak’s first call had. Hearrad winced at
the sound of it.
“We need
to get home bad,” Marak said, his voice holding something of a laugh. Teasing. Hearrad wanted his to shut up. Wanted to drift back
into that quiet day-dreaming almost-sleep he’d been trudging along in before
Marak had resurrected the same pointless discussion that had died the day
before, and the day before that. The extra energy it took to pay attention to
him was draining what shaky reserves Hearrad had. Now that he’d started, he
kept tripping over his feet.
“Turn
your damn light off, Mar,” he snapped, when his eyes wouldn’t leave it alone,
couldn’t ignore it, when it was the only color around. It was blinding him to
the numbing gray all around. Blinding him, period.
Marak clicked it off and the gray pressed in closer.
“We’re
not even almost home,” Hearrad sighed, even if they weren’t really all that
far. The end of this sort of journey always seemed to take forever. Always seemed to drag on and on and on. Each step seemed
like a greater impossibility than the one before. Somewhere in the mist someone
cursed softly, almost indecipherably, and then there was silence again.
~tbc/edited/scrapped