Left inside a half-life

Irradiated insides

These memories

They never leave

-

「Lycas Heel」  

I can't hear the noise. I can't hear anyone's voices. I hear nothing. I'm simply staring at her. Too shocked to the core I couldn't move my body. 

My gaze lowers down to the pathetic beaten door. All because of those things—black, elongated spikes-like appendages— that are slowly worming inside her backside. Everything about her is becoming unfamiliar to me.

Scars appeared on her arms. I haven't seen them before. They are bleeding. Bleeding her own sleeves. Bleeding with her own blood. Her head sways. Eyes rolled white.

Her body crumples to the floor.

The shock is gone, suddenly shaken off from my body.

I know this is because my foot suddenly steps forward before the other, rushing like someone is about to drown in the water. Something strong and wild is hammering inside my chest. A word that correlates with 'screaming' runs through my nerves. Whatever thoughts I had just a minute ago were thrown out into the ditch, and all I wanted to do is to stop her blood from squeezing too much out from her.

I think the boy reflects what I'm feeling inside since I don't exactly know what to express, what to feel. But he didn't do anything. Just that his eyes are roaming around Aglen and looks helpless.

Even I don't know what I was doing, except that my arms just know for a fact that I should carefully carry her in my arms and rush her into something that could fix those injuries before...

For once, I'm not too afraid of blood. Instead, I'm more afraid how her cuts are losing too much of it. Much more afraid how little she has left in her.

Much much more afraid what that meaning suggests.

"Okay, that may look really bad, but it's not lethal." The Chief is looking at her wounds, already standing in front of us without my notice. He's calm, making me wonder, especially with all that he said to calm me down, didn't at all make me feel at ease.

With effort, I pull out the pistol inside my hoodie while still holding onto her then hand it to the Chief.  "Keep the gun for me." I don't want it with me. I think that's the reason why. 

Like a magician with a sleight of hand, my pistol swiftly disappears inside his coat. We run out of the door without a second thought about the locked room.

Forgetting has become a habit I always welcome. Usually, it's not easy to do. But now it's effortless because I'm sensing cold dread somewhere far away. And the halls, usually full of people, of footsteps, and of laughs, is now unbelievably empty.

-

I'm sure it didn't take forever to find our way into the halls but I feel impatient and restless not seeing the comforting block of sign that says on the door, "Medical Clinic"— until it did but still didn't feel relieving at all. We've come to a fair route that's supposed to have more than a couple of people walking through— or running through. But there was no one around.

"Easy," The Chief warns me as if he's the one carrying Aglen around; which he didn't. I put her on the bed next to where Ashe was, being very careful with the wounds on her arms, although a part of me screams to hurry up. Just when I gently set her down, the Chief shoo me outside the cubicle. The last thing I see was him and the boy working together as one to nurse her scars.

Weird scenario. Not to mention, I feel something weirder, like self-disappointment as I left them alone.

Completely had nothing to do with that little operation though, I go over to the patient area to grab some water. Like what ice packets can do to heal a lumpy bruise, I figured drinking something cold helps the throbbing pain in my head in a similar effect. There's this lingering, cold dread weighing my soul.

I head to the toilet to scrub off the blood on my hoodie with water, hand soap, and towel papers. I go back to the water dispenser, grab for two and head back to the cube, guessing they're done bandaging her for ten or so minutes. I place one on the table next to the bed and then hand the other to the boy. He'd gone through a bit of some threatening barks by the Chief and maybe tensed the whole time he was helping out, I thought he might need it. 

He snatches the cup from my hands and he quickly gulps them down to the point he's choking himself.

"Hey, why didn't you get me one too?"

"Get one yourself, coach," I say, earning me a dull glare and a playful pout from him. Deep inside, I appreciate him being childish even though it does not fit him. Sometimes, although not admitting it at his face, I feel better by his crude jokes too.

But, even still, the cold dread never leaves me be.

I sigh. "Fine, fine. Be right back."

When I come to, Cine is also standing in front of the water dispenser, getting another cup to fill based on how she's compressing her wet lips. She filled her cup all the way with cold water, making me wonder if she's also having trouble with her head— surprising for someone who thinks like a philosopher— or also feeling the cold dread as me. By how she looks, it could be both. So there's still something human in her. Just almost.

"How's with Ashe?" I ask. I don't know what's going on with Ashe, but Cine's exhausted face worries me to worry about Ashe too.

"Fine," she says. Quick even for replying with one word. Not convincing enough with the hard, melancholic look on her face. I can't tell if she was lying or not, though.

I decided to leave her alone and head back into cubicle when Cine says something that freezes me in place. Not that I have to stop because she was telling something to me. What she just said surprises me so much I spilled a bit of the water I had on hand.

Something clogs inside the top of my throat, giving me a hard time to drag my words out. "How did you know about that?"

"My boss. He told me everything. He thinks that whatever happened to you is connected to what just happened to all of us right now..."

"It's not like it's any of your business, is it?"  

I never knew Mister Squinty-Eyes to be nosy. Though I get that our situation makes it the reason she or anyone needs to know everything even if it means spilling all about my past life, I wouldn't admit that. Of all people I'd like to hide those things from, Cine is the very, very first. My partner is not supposed to know. I don't want her to know. 

How she reacts to my statement, all I heard from her was silence.

With my back on her, I shake my head, in a gesture I made it clear I'm disagreeing with her. "Lay off."

Cold water drips from my hair, wetting my face. 

Dubiously, I look down at the cup of water I carried on hand. Definitely didn't somehow splash it to my face. Where did this water come from?

"Is it cold?"

Facing Cine, she had her empty cup of water pointed at me. The cold water wetting my back paled from the way she looked at me. 

"It's-it's cold," I stammered.

"Then your brain functions as normal." She crushes the cup she was holding. "To me, I felt too that it is my business as when you felt the water on you. It's not just you but we were involved, for some reason. Don't just tell me to lay it all off, Lycas."

-

I entered the cubicle, only to find The Chief not inside.

"He just left," The boy explains as I step inside. "Said that he's going to phone someone. And-um, are you okay? Your back's wet."

"I drank too much water it excretes on my back." I drop the half-filled cup of water on the table a little too hard.

"I...I don't think that makes any sense but okay."

Facing the boy, I straddle on a chair, my chin resting on my folded arms. The cold metal of the chair's backrest pricks my skin but... ha, this is nothing compared to what happened earlier. A regret that will forever mark my heart.

No, I should focus. Keep my priorities straight. Aglen first, before sorting things out with Cine, if that's still possible.

But the way she reacted coldly (literally) from pushing her off, I doubt it.

Damn it, I hate how I'm good at torturing myself. Strike a conversation. Come on, I've done it before.

"So, you know Aglen?" This could be another regret that will forever mark my heart.

The boy sheepishly grins at my first question. At least, he didn't find it weird or anything. Good. "Yeah, ever since middle-school. She saved me from those kids who bullied me every morning. She beat them off like it was nothing."

"That, I know so well," I say, recalling a memory from my past. For once, I didn't mind digging a memory from my head. "She... can throw a book." Hitting me in the face by the spine without cracking the book open in mid-air... like she had done the practice in real-life situations.

More the things I don't really know about her. The same thing how I didn't know about the black things on her, or that she wasn't human in the first place.

Well, I would've probably laughed at that if she ever told me long ago. But if she did, maybe, just maybe, things would've been a little easier to handle right now.

Now almost everything fell out in place, I'm seconds away to head-plucking from all the insane things happening at once. I'm tempted to blame her for not telling me. Or vent at her that I'm not even fit enough to be trusted.

Really. I can't believe that she never trusted me.

The boy cracks up a soft laugh, slapping me back to reality and the clinic. "I was there! You were wobbling like a bowling pin, bro."

My eyebrows hike up at the 'bro' part, but first; "You know me?"

"Of course! Well, I get to know you better because of Aglen."

"From you visiting her often..." My ears feel hot for a reason I don't know what. "... she tells you about me?"

"No. She already told me about you a long time ago." He shoots me a disappointed look along with a soft smile, making me wonder. "I guess you don't remember me at all, do you?"

Well, I've met a lot of people before and I chose to forget about them. Maybe he's one of them too. "To be honest, not a freakin' clue, sorry."

"I was the kid you saw on the stairs."

Frowning, at first, I don't know what he's talking about. I went through a lot of stairs more than I can count. Tripped a few times too. So it's not really a good place to remember things.

"In college, from that night, don't you remember? I was the one who told you that Aglen was in trouble."

That last part, that last sentence, did make me remember something. And they're a lot of them.

I remember having an impression that he was too young to be in the college department, perhaps a fresh-out-of-his-diapers-teenager. I had already forgotten what his face looks like, except for his bluish eyes. I should've paid attention to his bluish eyes. Though, bluish eyes in people are common nowadays.

You, he had called out to me.

Me, I remember myself replying. I also remember my voice being not caring at all. There was something else in my head that time.

They're taking her somewhere!

That was enough information for me to dart down the stairs I remember stumbling from. I ran as fast as I could outside, knowing I'll find her in narrow alleys somewhere. I don't know what I was thinking, but it rang true to me. My heart sinking even deeper the more I rehearse any horrible possibilities. Though, I found myself seeing something else that I would never have expected.

I force myself to fade those abstract things from my head before it continues to run further.

"That...that was you, huh." 

Damn, my throat is getting dry again.

"I didn't know what to do, except to tell you." He looks at me apologetically. "I was scared of what I'm going to end up seeing."

"You made the right choice." I mean it. "I don't blame you for that."

He grabs his own wrist. His shoulders tensing a little. "But still, I feel really guilty. I pushed it all to you."

"Don't be. You're just a kid."

He looks offended. "I'm already a mid-teenager."

We choose to be silent for a moment.

He starts again, looking at me with apparent curiosity on his face. "Could you... could you tell me what you actually saw? Even she isn't telling me about it. Please. I don't mind the details."

I didn't give him my reply right away. My hands clench on my forearms. "It's better for you not to."

"Why not? Is it that bad?"

"Because he saw them all dead."

We flinched at her voice.

I turn, and see Aglen already awake and sitting up on the bed. She's staring at her bandaged arms carefully like she did not know what's wrapped in her wounds. I'm surprised I didn't see or hear her moving at all.

"You're awake," says the boy, a smile showing relief, but then changing a look as if he regretted smiling. He frowns, looking sad and confused at the same time. "They were dead?" he echoes, giving me the urge to punch his sad but curious-as-a-cat face.

She didn't seem to hear him or care that he's worried. I don't remember her being like that. But then again, I don't remember her eyes being like that either. She casts those at me like she's glaring into my soul.

The cold dread becomes twice worse inside.

"You know who killed them, right?"

"Really?" The boy, unfazed and puzzled, look at me as well, shooting me a look that he wants to know the answer. "Who did?"

Just like that, an image escapes from my head.

I remember the stench— the blood thickening and oozing on the asphalt. Their bodies—my friends— twisted in a way their muscles and bones and organs poking out in hello.

I remember trying not to vomit and forgetting the dark sensation in the pit of my stomach as I ran away without mentioning what I have seen. Things went hazy, dizzy, blurry... very blurry to me. Like I don't know myself, where I was going, what I'm supposed to be doing.

Those images kept on flashing before my eyes and more as I had to face them in my dreams as I sleep. Distracting myself was easier, so I keep myself distracted. Distraction is the key. Soon enough, they're fading away from my memory. I had to forget. Forget everything that I've seen and everyone that I've met. Anything and anyone that reminds me of that night.

Miraculously, I managed to graduate from college. And before I knew it, I became a part of the Chief's organization and work there as a part-time garbage-man, enjoying the art of hearts and frogs and other origamis I could think of before they were cut into tiny little pieces. But there are times I find myself arriving at the university I was in. Heading inside the library, looking around, walking around, until the librarian will kick me out for curfew. It took me long enough to realize I was searching for her. Aglen. 

And I find her. Right here. "What happened to you?"

"Ask that to the people who made me." There's so much hate in her blazing eyes. "Whoever made me."

-

How long was I staring in the air? A minute? Several minutes? An hour? I can't tell. My mind doesn't run like a clockwork anyway.

I only pick up my phone, which now I remember I had in my pocket because it's vibrating. I just have to tap a button and place it on my ears, not wondering why the Chief is calling when he's near the place, "All of you, leave the place immediately."  Or that his voice is strangely low and urgent.

"Why?" I ask. Flat.

"Just do as I say, Cas. I'll relay all that I saw to Clay and fish him instr—shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit....!"

Little by little, my focus is more to the Chief. "Coach, where are you?"

"Just go!" he yelled as if he's in pain. "Now!" 

He hung up.

A shuffling makes me look behind to the curtains. They sway, signifying someone had just left. Turning back, the boy is still here, but now standing only barely. And, she is not here anymore.

The boy is tearing up. I can barely hear him speak. "She did...?"

I walk up to him or dragging my feet to get near him. "Hey, I know it's hard, but the Chief told us to leave this place, right now. Thinking about it will do nothing for us. She—she must've known that too. We have to move if that's the only thing for us to keep distracted." Like I always tell myself; Distraction is the key. "Let's keep distracted, okay?"

He's biting his lips, blinking back tears.

We share the similar pain. But he still has the chance to turn around while he's young and I want to help him before he turns out like me.

A strange thing to say about myself. I don't really know what it means to be like me. I just wished I'm in someone else's life right now. Just anyone's, really.

"Okay. But... where to?"

Just not my own. Anything but my own.

"I think," I reply to the boy after a moment. "He's telling us to go outside."