Deliquesce

Chapter 25: Black

Warnings: We are past the point of no return with the warnings

Song: "All Gone (No Escape)" By I dunno, from The Last Of Us Soundtrack

A/N: Merry christmas and happy new year you guys! I'm feelin good vibes for 2016.

We left in silence.

There were no cheers. No celebrations. No thankful back-pats and relieved laughs.

Uncertainty hung in the air like a thick cloud. Cold, grim, uncertainty.

My hands were in my pockets. Not because I was cold- the adrenaline that had been rushing through my body kept me from feeling it. But because I didn't want to see the dried blood on them. My fingers rubbed together obsessively within my jacket, I could feel the blood rubbing off and forming little balls. It was a mixture of mine, and the people that I killed today. My hands had been cut. My arms were bruised and cramping. My leg was still bleeding and my entire body ached with exhaustion.

I was behind the rest of the group, Wonka walking next to me, pushing his bike beside him. His movements were tense, somewhat robotic. I had a feeling he was just as confused about our situation as everyone else was.

The question now was… what the hell do we do. I knew they weren't going to go back to the factory. I didn't know if I would either, to be honest. What he did was an accident, but I couldn't ignore it all together. I still wanted to be with him. Just walking beside him sent guilty little pulses of electricity through my body. Maybe it was selfish to feel that, and to want to keep feeling that. Maybe the prospect of losing him that had been an extremely real possibility not even an hour ago had made me want him even more. It's strange when you realise that in the handful of people that are alive now, there is only one thing we have in common. It's not that we kill, that we hide, or even than we want to live. There are bound to be exceptions to that rule. The one thing that makes us all alike is that sense of desperation that seeps into every thought we think, every action we take. I could feel my mind cling to every thought of him, clutching it tight and not wanting to let go. I could feel my heart ache in ways that are too painful to describe as a positive thing like love, and yet that is the only place it could possibly stem from. Maybe I was desperate for him, and the prospect of losing him did scare me. It scared me to death. I wanted to punch him for pulling what he did back there, wanted to push him off a cliff and run back down to catch him. I wanted to tell him that I hated him, and then kiss him in a way that would make me a liar. I wanted to say a lot of things, but I didn't.

I look over to him. He stared straight ahead, eyes not even moving. Almost a bit too focused. We reached the end of the field within the hour. No one had said a word. I cleared my throat as we stepped onto the road, looking over at him again. He still stared pointedly in the same direction, even more focused now. I narrowed my eyes. Was he trying that hard to ignore me?

We walked up the street slowly. The group looked exhausted. I saw bruises on Briley's neck. I guess they weren't treated too well in the time they had spent there. I closed my eyes and hoped nothing had happened to her. We were almost at the end of the street now.

"Wonka.." I began.

"Sh." He replied immediately, still staring straight ahead. I stared at him, eyes wide. He started walking faster until he was ahead of the group. He disappeared around the corner.

"The fuck is your problem, Wonka?" I yelled out to him. We turned the corner too.

Shit.

"Get back!" Wonka shouted, and I felt the full force of his hand against my chest before stumbling back onto the ground. My world rocked and shook when my head collided with something hard. White exploded behind my eyes and dizziness clouded my head for a second. I looked up.

There were too many.

Hunter plunged straight into battle, followed by Jackson and Valeriya. Our best fighters. Even if they hadn't been injured and exhausted, they wouldn't have been able to fight their way out of this. Spencer went running too, after a little hesitation. He was cynically smart, an average fighter, and so I had no idea how he could rush into that situation without addressing the fact that he was as good as dead. The others had egos too big for their own good, and a reason for it. They could fight and have a slim chance of running for it. He had no chance. No, he knew that.

Wonka, the most dangerous of us all, was shouting at them to run. I shook my head. My vision wouldn't stop swimming. Everything was rocking and swaying. The motorbike. All that noise.. no wonder they were all gathered here. No wonder Wonka was quiet and tense, he must have realised.

I picked myself up from the ground, still dizzy. My feet were like lead and my mouth was like chalk.

Wonka had run into the thick of it, slashing down zombies while screaming at them to run. Why weren't they running? He was throwing those candy bombs like mad. Some of them smokers, some of them actual explosions. I didn't know what was going on. The ground shook. I saw Calvin and Brandon fleeing.

I took a step forward. No, backward. My eyes searched for the rest of the group, half of them were running and half of them were hesitant.

Another boom and another shake. Was it a smoker or an explosion? I didn't know. It was all blurry at this point. Everything was blurry. Except for a figure in the center, all too clear against the background of destruction, who whirled around. I saw his face, beautiful and terrified. His eyes which had been focused a split second ago widened and he stumbled forward, hand reaching out to me.

I heard it before I felt it. A muted crunch followed by agony. A tall figure running out of the smoke and towards me.

And then

everything

went

black.