PART 6: NIGHTCOLOURS
Kita strolled down the stairs, slowly. There was no need to hurry, no need to do anything. She thought about the disaster-dinner, and what she just said to Trojan. She wondered if he was angry. He certainly looked that way.
Kita wasn't bothered by it all. Not nervous, or ashamed, or sad, or anything. She just felt at peace; it was a lovely night. The full moon was a nearly orange circle placed in the clear, star-covered sky. It was nice and warm, but not too warm. It would've been a perfect night for a romantic dinner. Oh well. Kita didn't had any reason to feel bad, she guessed it was Trojan who was feeling bad right now. But Kita merely told him what was on her mind.
She walked into the cafeteria, her long dress flowing around her legs in an ocean of darkblue. Randy and Justine were both still up and awake, sitting at a table in the corner of the café, talking to eachother, as usual. Kita picked up the word 'kung-fu-moves' and guessed they were still talking about their fight against the gang of thieves. That story had already been told about a million times tonight.
Iz was also still sitting in the café. She had no one to talk to, but didn't seem all too eager to talk either. She had rested her head on her hands, and with a slight smile she watched Aaron, sitting at the other end of a table, drinking milk from a cup.
The milk had been brought from the new supermarket, the one Kita had been to with Zion and Scott, and the guy that had claimed the supermarket had gotten it from a farm. There seemed to be a lot of trading going on with farms outside of town around here.
The milk would probably already start to go bad tomorrow, so they had to use it all up now. Aaron was more than happy to do that, it was a nice replacement for the mothermilk Raja usually gave him. Kita wondered where Raja was anyway, she was never further than ten foot away from her kid.
Aaron looked up at her, not the least bit tired, even though it was already late. He curled his lips -with cute milk-moustache- into a smile for her. That kid was always smiling, no matter what.
Kita took place at the table. "Where's Raja?"she asked Iz.
"Oh, Raja had to take care of... something. Wouldn't know what she meant by that. Anyway, she asked me to watch Aaron in meantime. Say Kita... would you like to have children?"Iz asked, out of the blue.
Kita pulled up her upperlip in an automatic sign of disgust. Sure, kids were fun, when all you had to do was look at how cute they were and play with them now and then. But to have one of your own brats, who you had to feed, who would wake you up in the middle of the night, who would wet his bed, who would scream and cry, who would cause trouble and make a mess of everything, whose diapers you had to changed? No, kids were only fun when they weren't yours.
"Would you?"Kita asked Iz amazed.
Iz looked at Aaron again, who had gone back to sipping his milk, and a dreamy mist took over her eyes. "Maybe,"she said.
This came as a surprise to Kita, who had known Iz since she was ten. Iz's favorite hobby at that time had been to throw her sisters Barbies of balcony's and to poke their eyes out with electric drills, to bang in the heads of babydolls and cut them open and so forth. She was like some sort of student in a torturechamber. At school she picked on the first-graders and Iz had a habit of scaring the living hell out of her little sister. She had never seemed to keen on caring and mothering. Why did Iz brought this up now anyway?
Kita shrugged her shoulders under Iz's dreamy look, and started munching on an apple.
*
"What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. Here!?"Trojan asked Jax in a furious tone. The younger teen froze and his black eyes turned to the white floor in horror.
"Hey! I asked you a question, retard!"Trojan snapped. Jax opened his mouth, but was too scared to say anything. He couldn't stand screaming. Every voice was ten times louder and more vicious to him. He couldn't stand it when people were angry. Trojan of all people. He liked Trojan.
"You were spying on us, weren't you, freak?! What did you see? What did you hear? What, cat got your tongue? Say something!!"Trojan yelled. He felt rage take over his head, he didn't even know why. He was furious, it stabbed tiny needles of redhot anger in his mind, and Jax's silence got him even more annoyed, until he couldn't take it anymore.
Trojan didn't even know why. He walked over to Jax, and Jax winced. Trojan swinged his fist and hit Jax against the eye. The black-haired boy fell to the ground.
"Would you get lost, damn it!"Trojan yelled and he walked away, his angry, loud footsteps echoing through the hallway.
Jax got up in a daze, the world spinning around him, holding a hand against his painful face. In total awe, he watched Trojan leave. Then he stumbled back to his room.
*
/Never near me enough, never enough in my arms
I drink from you, oasis, lover, in the shadow of the palms
I'll be burnt to ashes here, by the wind I'll be blown away
Sweet rapture for eternity, forever I'll make you stay/
Dart drew Raja closer, felt her smooth, creamy skin, her gentle curves. She was perfect in every way. She only stopped kissing him long enough to sigh: "I love you."
*
Iz patted Aaron on the head. "Had enough to drink, kiddo?"she asked. Aaron nodded happily. Iz wiped off his milk-moustache and said: "It's getting late. You should be getting to bed, mister."
The word 'bed' seemed to make the toddler realise how tired he was all of the sudden, because his eyes started to fall shut and he yawned. Iz lifted him off his chair and carried him upstairs in her arms. Aaron was so adorable. It felt so nice to take care of such a warm, little creature that was not independant, that needed you. If she had a kid, she would want it to be like Aaron...
What was she thinking? What was all this baby-stuff all of the sudden? She never wanted a baby before... Hm, the lack of sleep was probably doing strange things to her head.
Iz walked past Zion and greeted him. Zion nodded to her with a smile, and Iz giggled like a schoolgirl (only mentally, ofcourse) when she realised how cute he really was. Cute...? The last time she used that word was to refer to a member of a boyband, when she was eleven! 'Cute' was nearly as bad as 'dreamy'. What in the world is wrong with my head? Iz asked herself.
Iz walked past Darts room and froze to the floor in utter amazement for a second, when she heard the noises from that room. It wasn't hard to guess what was going on in there... And she recognized Raja's voice. Raja and Dart?!
"Guess Dart and Raja are throwing a private party,"she mumbled underneath her breath, trying not to laugh.
Aaron suddenly woke up with the words: "I wan' uh party!"
This caused Iz to laugh out loud and she rushed to Aarons room, to put him to bed, hoping no one heard her.
*
Jax sat in his room. A pounding of pain, like slow waves of an ocean, kept flooding through the leftside of his face. But he didn't pay attention to it, he hardly even noticed it. He was sitting, frozen in movement, thinking about what just happened.
Trojan. His mind put a picture together, and Jax could swear Trojan was standing in the corner of his room, hidden in the shadows. Right there, over by the chair... What definitely made Jax believe this delusion, was that he could aslo hear Trojans voice, spitting venom at him.
"The world hates you,"Trojan said. Jax simply nodded in agreement; that was true. He started to rock back and forth a little, comforting himself. He let the voice flow over him, taking in its word and destroying himself.
"The world spits on you and everything you stand for,"Trojans voice continued. "Why don't you do us all a favour, do something good for a change... You know, make the world a better place... And finish yourself off. That's what I would've done ages ago if I were as pathetic as you are. Are you so selfish you can't see how you totally disgust other people? Weak son of a bitch. Everything would be better if you placed a knife on your wrist, there where the skin is thin and you can see those fragile blue veins and..."
It just kept going on and on and on. Jax slowly covered his ears, but that didn't help; the voice was everywhere. Part of him. And it would keep talking. Talking until Jax finally gave in.
*
Iz lay little Aaron, who was already half-asleep, in his bed. His tiny bed had been moved into Raja's room from the child's ward of the hospital. Iz pulled the spotless blanket over the toddler with his thumb in his mouth, his blonde hair a mess. He was so cute, she couldn't resist temptation. She sang a lullaby until the big green eyes fell shut completely, then placed a goodnight-kiss on his soft forehead, under which his innocent baby-dreams were dancing.
Iz felt strange when she left the room. What got her into mothering all of the sudden? That was really not her style. Taking in the rest of tonight's event, she came to the conclusion that she had gone insane. Before you know it, she would want a child of her own.
Yeah, maybe with Zion.
Iz was totally stunned by her own thought. Zion?! What did he had to do with any of this? She hardly even knew the guy -well, for as far as you can not know a person when you're members of the same tribe. She never wanted a baby at all, and now all of the sudden she wanted one from Zion of all people?!
No. Just crazy thoughts. I need to get some sleep, Iz thought.
It was indeed late already. It surprised Iz that Aaron had managed to stay awake for this long. The moon had already completed half of her silver journey through the dark sky.
Iz imagined a silverwhite wagon in front of her eyes, pulled by pale horses, with a moongoddess in it... Iz loved to let her imagination get the best of her. She was short on concentration. Whenever she saw something interesting (something that might seem insignificant to the next best person) she couldn't help but fantasizing away about it, now matter how little it had to with what she was doing at that time. She had a tree in her head, fed by the world and all its amazing wonders, and every now and then a story or a myth would grow from it.
Iz imagined on about this moongoddess in her silver wagon, and gave her a name, she made up herself: Nayala. Maybe she would tell that story to Aaron. Or to her own child, someday.
Iz shook her head, again amazed and slightly disgusted. Get real, she told herself and closed the door to Raja's room, losing her view on the sleeping Aaron. Time for herself to get some shut-eye.
*
Trojan set in a corner of his room. He felt like he was hollow on the inside, and he couldn't recall to ever feeling this... empty. Emotions were terribly numb, and it's like the world, his room, was miles away from it, even though he was just sitting in it.
He thought about tonight's events, in complete silence. Just what exactly happened?
Kita's words, and how she left. She left with such an awfully nice look on her face, like she understood something Trojan didn't even know about himself. And god, was that ever damn annoying.
She left, without further ado, only leaving him one bit of advice: do some thinking of yourself. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Why couldn't she just spit out what she had to say, clearly, that would've been better than that idiotic babbling.
And gone she was again. Trojan wanted to go after her, because he had the feeling she would tell her friends something. Something bad about him. Something that had do with those things she had told him tonight. Trojan had already forgot what Kita had said exactly, and that made everything seem worse.
He had been so angry, then saw Jax on the hallway, and the sight of Jax especially nearly made his eyes roll back with rage. When Jax didn't say anything, it had made Trojan so angry he had punched him directly in the face, and then he had stormed off.
Five minutes later Trojan had already forgotten what it had all been about, and he was death-ashamed of himself. He promised himself never to lose control again, never again, not after that... incident at his last school.
'Incident'? his mind yelled in disbelief. You nearly killed somebody!
Trojan recalled to the last month at his school, and he couldn't remember exactly what had gotten him so angry -he NEVER seemed to be able to remember what got him angry- but he flew at another student in a rage, punching him. Even when the boy was already unconscious, he wouldn't stop. Luckily, there were others to make Trojan stop. The unfortunate boy was in a coma for nearly three weeks, and Trojan would've been shipped off either to jail or the mental institution... but then the virus broke out.
Trojan now realized perfectly well why Zion gave Dart the job of chief of security. Dart was in perfect, absolute control of his emotions. Trojan secretly envied him. If he wouldn't left to cool down somewhere, could he have killed Jax? Well, he could've at least made his injuries a lot worse.
Trojan tried to remember why he hated Jax so much at that moment, that he punched him down. Why did his memory always fail him at times like this?
He should go apologize to Jax. But something just stopped him, some fierce, violent, nameless hate, that laid hidden somewhere in his mind -buried in his mind, quickly covered with as much soil as could possibly be found. And know Trojan didn't know how to dig it up again, even though he wasn't sure if he wanted to.
What was buried there, brought forth a ghost, that, as ghosts do, only came at dark times, mumbling unclear messages, and never showing itself clearly. If Trojan would dig up what lay hidden, would the ghost find peace? But how was Trojan supposed to know what was buried anyway?
Why did his memory fail him at times like these?
*
/A Queen of Snow
Far beyond compare
Lips attuned to symmetry
Sought her everywhere
Dark liquored eyes
An Arabian nightmare...
~ Cradle of Filth- Her Ghost in the Fog/
Kita strolled out of the hospital, through the opened automatic sliding doors, that would never work again. She lingered in front of the hospital, letting the slight breeze that was carried from the sea run through her ebony, golden-striped hair.
A beautiful, clear night. A full moon and a velvet sky over which the sky's fires were spreaded. Kita's dark eyes locked with one of those stars, shining brightly like Christ was reborn.
A falling star would be nice. If you saw a falling star, you could make a wish. Kita would wish that the world wasn't such a strange, cold and awfully complicated place. Maybe she would wish to be a little child forever. Innocent, blessed with ignorance -like Aaron. Aaron would soon have to grow up, forced to mature at an unnatural age, to face the horrors of this world.
Kita remembered how uncomplicated everything had seemed when she was five, and didn't know of anything. And now that she was grown-up -a tottering senior citizen of eighteen, she thought, and this made her snicker- it all seemed so... weird.
Like she was really just living a dream. A dream in which everything seemed distant, unreal, not the slightest bit realistic. Like you could just leave your body any second and fly to a the Mount Everest, where you would throw a teaparty and be joined by some celebrities. Weird.
She remembered a Chinese philosopher who once said: "I dreamt I was a butterfly, doing exactly what a butterfly did. Then I woke up, and I was a man once again. Now I don't know if I'm a man that dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly that's still dreaming he's a man."
Interesting, really. Kita's life felt much like a dream, and she was wondering if someone, a girl in the real universe, was now laying in her bed, sleeping soundlessly, dreaming how her parents died, along with all the other adults, from an awful virus, and how the children started to form tribes, and how she lived in nature. Maybe the real her was laying in a coma now, for three years maybe, and all those years she had been dreaming about this world. Or maybe she was insane, she was now really in a isolationchamber, babbling about viruses and tribes, and it would all go over as soon as they gave her some Thorazine...
Where did she get crazy thoughts like this? God knows. She was definitely not a shallow person, just because she was beautiful. No, she loved to think about things. And sometimes she would come up with the strangest, but somehow logical things. She wouldn't have done bad as a philosopher.
*
A young man watched the perfect silhouette from the shadows, gasping in amazement. The flawless face. The dark, mysterious eyes. The black hair with hints of flaming brass. He had seen her before, and had delighted in spying upon her whenever he had the chance. Today she had been with a group, looking for food, and he followed her throughout the whole city.
Surrounded by her tribe... She had always been surrounded by her tribe... But not now. Now she was all on her own. Now he could do whatever he wanted. Tear the veil of grace, like he loved to do to those picture- perfect girls that would normally tell him to get lost; he could make her cry, her harlot mouth opened in a scream of pain. He loved it when they screamed. And she would undoubtly be the most beautiful one. He could imagine her face, an avalanche of pearl, of ruby wine.
She was alone now. The whore he hated and loved, since he had seen her entering the city. She was his.
*
Nightcolours. The night wasn't just black, it had plenty of colours. To Kita, philosophizing the stars, it was frostblue. To Iz, looking at her ceiling while slowly falling alseep it was mystwhite. To Raja, laying drowsily and unimaginably happy in the arms of the sleeping Dart, it was gold. To the dreaming Aaron it was a whole variety of happy shades of yellow, red and blue, in a candyparadise.
To Jax it was crimsonred. The violent understream, rapidly flowing through his mind, wildly, accompanied by thunder, dragging away everything on the sides and destroying what had been carefully build up, had gone from the passive grey and black to an active shade.
Jax took up the scalpel. The blade flashed in the light of moon, throwing sparks of silver reflection through the room. Jax had left his body. He sat, crawled up like a foetus, in a tiny shaded corner of his mind, and let the violence take over.
Jax could never really explain why he did this. Maybe because to him the world was so confusing, his whole mind became a chaos, a river that flowed over, thus destroying everything, causing pain. And Jax had to do something to get rid of that pain. He wasn't like Trojan, he couldn't just throw his anger and confusion into the world outside and punch someone a black eye.
Trojan... Jax looked into the pale mirror above the tiny sink in his room. Jax through the looking glass scowled at him, just as pale as he was, with the strange purple and brown colours around one eye. Trojan had every reason to hit him; Jax had been overhearing their conversation. Spying on them. It was a bad thing of him, but then again, he couldn't do anything right. It was in his nature to always do the wrong thing, displease others. Destined to fail.
The pain on the inside whirled around, flowing through his head until there was no reasonable thought, no real thought left. Until his movements where like that of a robot, until all life and presence had left his eyes and they went scarily matte, until he appeared perfectly, eerily calm, like people are when they're losing it.
Jax never liked in, when his mind just seemed to leave his body. He needed it back, he needed to feel again, cause pain on the outside to smother the strange pain on the inside, the pain that seemed to come out of nowhere with absolutely no reason and started spreading like a virus, like fungus, until his mind was insanely empty.
Jax had done this before. He had already discovered this in... what, sixth grade? And even before that he already had ways of hurting himself when things got too complicated. It wasn't like he got a kick from it, like he enjoyed it. He needed it, because he feared that if he wouldn't, he would lose himself completely. That mind, thaughts and memory would be like a computerfile deleted. That he would finally be lured into the dark void.
Jax didn't like the idea of non-existing. That's why he was terrified of death, because, just imagine that there was really nothing after death, and that Jax as a person would disappear, forever...? But, on the other side he longed for it, because life, for some odd and unexplainable reason, was also unbearable. It had been unbearable from day one, problems that seemed tiny had stacked up, and now the slightest things drove him to the edge.
The edge... He had been there before. That was also a thing he was scared of. He was scared of death, but the thought was also appealing. What if he would just lose control one day and kill himself? So for now, to keep control just a little bit, he needed the cutting. He had to preserve a bit of himself. He couldn't lose control completely.
Totally calm, Jax brought the scalpel down. He wasn't freaking out. Screaming or crying. He just knew what had to be done. And after this, things would be okay again... for a short time. Zion, for as far as Jax knew, was the only person that knew of it (Jax wasn't aware of the fact that Kita once saw his scars). Zion had told him not to do it anymore. With the best of intentions ofcourse, he made sure not to let Jax come near anything sharp, but Zion didn't know what it was like... Zion believed Jax hadn't injured himself for a year, and believed he kicked the habit, but the leader that was usually aware of everything was totally wrong on this subject.
Jax brought the sharp edge to the pale skin of one of his lowerarms, that was a map of pain. A battlefield really, every scar a landmark representing some event Jax had experienced as horrible and unbearable, like life was horrible and unbearable for him. Sometimes he told himself not to complain so much... but he couldn't help feeling how he felt.
Jax let the scalpel balance there for a second. It hadn't been hard to find the blade. Entire examinationrooms and operationrooms full of it. A hospital; stuffed with sharp things. They had to stay at a hospital of all places. Jax smirked, it was actually kinda funny.
Jax let the scalped slide over his arm slowly, nearly gracefully. He just had to let it slide, these things of surgeon steel were awfully sharp. At first there was just a thin, long gap in the skin. Then it slowly turned pink. Then slowly it turned red, and dark vermillion drops started to run down, very slowly. It always ran slowly, this dark blood.
Jax remembered how Zion used to be interested in the ancient Egyptian knowledge, when he was much younger. He had read something to Jax, about how the Egyptians were great doctors. They thought that the clear-coloured, bright blood (that which came from artery's) was the blood of happy emtions. The darker, slower blood was that of the dark, bad emotions and hate.
Man, those Egyptians really were smart, Jax thought as he watched the dark crimson run down slowly.
Jax already felt he started to return a little. He felt a stinging pain from the cut, but it didn't feel like pain to him. At least, he didn't consider it to be, for him it just meant he came back. But it wasn't enough yet. Faster now, losing his patience, Jax attacked his arms, drawing more violent lines on a cruel artwork. And it worked. For him it did.
*
Kita sat on a little bench, right in front of the hospital. More than half of the tribe was already sleeping, but Kita didn't feel tired. She just couldn't tear her dark gaze from the sky, just as dark. The moon that graced it, a cold portrait. For some reason it made Kita think of all the men she had, and how none of them really pleased her. /So haunted is my silent heart... dreaming only of the Moon.../
And then, all of the sudden, she heard it. A gasp and a sigh, definitely human. Kita looked over her shoulder quickly, but the source of this noise was nowhere to be seen.
Kita shivered and suddenly noticed how cold it was, especially because she was sitting there in her thin, sleeveless dress. She decided, even though that gasp was probably just the wind, it was time to go back inside anyway.
She got of the bench, and the sliding doors of the hospital (that didn't slide anymore) were a mere fifteen feet away. Yet she never made it to the door. Out of nowhere, something struck her down, sending a jolt of pain through her head and shutting off her view. She had already lost consciousness before she fell to the ground.
Kita strolled down the stairs, slowly. There was no need to hurry, no need to do anything. She thought about the disaster-dinner, and what she just said to Trojan. She wondered if he was angry. He certainly looked that way.
Kita wasn't bothered by it all. Not nervous, or ashamed, or sad, or anything. She just felt at peace; it was a lovely night. The full moon was a nearly orange circle placed in the clear, star-covered sky. It was nice and warm, but not too warm. It would've been a perfect night for a romantic dinner. Oh well. Kita didn't had any reason to feel bad, she guessed it was Trojan who was feeling bad right now. But Kita merely told him what was on her mind.
She walked into the cafeteria, her long dress flowing around her legs in an ocean of darkblue. Randy and Justine were both still up and awake, sitting at a table in the corner of the café, talking to eachother, as usual. Kita picked up the word 'kung-fu-moves' and guessed they were still talking about their fight against the gang of thieves. That story had already been told about a million times tonight.
Iz was also still sitting in the café. She had no one to talk to, but didn't seem all too eager to talk either. She had rested her head on her hands, and with a slight smile she watched Aaron, sitting at the other end of a table, drinking milk from a cup.
The milk had been brought from the new supermarket, the one Kita had been to with Zion and Scott, and the guy that had claimed the supermarket had gotten it from a farm. There seemed to be a lot of trading going on with farms outside of town around here.
The milk would probably already start to go bad tomorrow, so they had to use it all up now. Aaron was more than happy to do that, it was a nice replacement for the mothermilk Raja usually gave him. Kita wondered where Raja was anyway, she was never further than ten foot away from her kid.
Aaron looked up at her, not the least bit tired, even though it was already late. He curled his lips -with cute milk-moustache- into a smile for her. That kid was always smiling, no matter what.
Kita took place at the table. "Where's Raja?"she asked Iz.
"Oh, Raja had to take care of... something. Wouldn't know what she meant by that. Anyway, she asked me to watch Aaron in meantime. Say Kita... would you like to have children?"Iz asked, out of the blue.
Kita pulled up her upperlip in an automatic sign of disgust. Sure, kids were fun, when all you had to do was look at how cute they were and play with them now and then. But to have one of your own brats, who you had to feed, who would wake you up in the middle of the night, who would wet his bed, who would scream and cry, who would cause trouble and make a mess of everything, whose diapers you had to changed? No, kids were only fun when they weren't yours.
"Would you?"Kita asked Iz amazed.
Iz looked at Aaron again, who had gone back to sipping his milk, and a dreamy mist took over her eyes. "Maybe,"she said.
This came as a surprise to Kita, who had known Iz since she was ten. Iz's favorite hobby at that time had been to throw her sisters Barbies of balcony's and to poke their eyes out with electric drills, to bang in the heads of babydolls and cut them open and so forth. She was like some sort of student in a torturechamber. At school she picked on the first-graders and Iz had a habit of scaring the living hell out of her little sister. She had never seemed to keen on caring and mothering. Why did Iz brought this up now anyway?
Kita shrugged her shoulders under Iz's dreamy look, and started munching on an apple.
*
"What. The. Hell. Are. You. Doing. Here!?"Trojan asked Jax in a furious tone. The younger teen froze and his black eyes turned to the white floor in horror.
"Hey! I asked you a question, retard!"Trojan snapped. Jax opened his mouth, but was too scared to say anything. He couldn't stand screaming. Every voice was ten times louder and more vicious to him. He couldn't stand it when people were angry. Trojan of all people. He liked Trojan.
"You were spying on us, weren't you, freak?! What did you see? What did you hear? What, cat got your tongue? Say something!!"Trojan yelled. He felt rage take over his head, he didn't even know why. He was furious, it stabbed tiny needles of redhot anger in his mind, and Jax's silence got him even more annoyed, until he couldn't take it anymore.
Trojan didn't even know why. He walked over to Jax, and Jax winced. Trojan swinged his fist and hit Jax against the eye. The black-haired boy fell to the ground.
"Would you get lost, damn it!"Trojan yelled and he walked away, his angry, loud footsteps echoing through the hallway.
Jax got up in a daze, the world spinning around him, holding a hand against his painful face. In total awe, he watched Trojan leave. Then he stumbled back to his room.
*
/Never near me enough, never enough in my arms
I drink from you, oasis, lover, in the shadow of the palms
I'll be burnt to ashes here, by the wind I'll be blown away
Sweet rapture for eternity, forever I'll make you stay/
Dart drew Raja closer, felt her smooth, creamy skin, her gentle curves. She was perfect in every way. She only stopped kissing him long enough to sigh: "I love you."
*
Iz patted Aaron on the head. "Had enough to drink, kiddo?"she asked. Aaron nodded happily. Iz wiped off his milk-moustache and said: "It's getting late. You should be getting to bed, mister."
The word 'bed' seemed to make the toddler realise how tired he was all of the sudden, because his eyes started to fall shut and he yawned. Iz lifted him off his chair and carried him upstairs in her arms. Aaron was so adorable. It felt so nice to take care of such a warm, little creature that was not independant, that needed you. If she had a kid, she would want it to be like Aaron...
What was she thinking? What was all this baby-stuff all of the sudden? She never wanted a baby before... Hm, the lack of sleep was probably doing strange things to her head.
Iz walked past Zion and greeted him. Zion nodded to her with a smile, and Iz giggled like a schoolgirl (only mentally, ofcourse) when she realised how cute he really was. Cute...? The last time she used that word was to refer to a member of a boyband, when she was eleven! 'Cute' was nearly as bad as 'dreamy'. What in the world is wrong with my head? Iz asked herself.
Iz walked past Darts room and froze to the floor in utter amazement for a second, when she heard the noises from that room. It wasn't hard to guess what was going on in there... And she recognized Raja's voice. Raja and Dart?!
"Guess Dart and Raja are throwing a private party,"she mumbled underneath her breath, trying not to laugh.
Aaron suddenly woke up with the words: "I wan' uh party!"
This caused Iz to laugh out loud and she rushed to Aarons room, to put him to bed, hoping no one heard her.
*
Jax sat in his room. A pounding of pain, like slow waves of an ocean, kept flooding through the leftside of his face. But he didn't pay attention to it, he hardly even noticed it. He was sitting, frozen in movement, thinking about what just happened.
Trojan. His mind put a picture together, and Jax could swear Trojan was standing in the corner of his room, hidden in the shadows. Right there, over by the chair... What definitely made Jax believe this delusion, was that he could aslo hear Trojans voice, spitting venom at him.
"The world hates you,"Trojan said. Jax simply nodded in agreement; that was true. He started to rock back and forth a little, comforting himself. He let the voice flow over him, taking in its word and destroying himself.
"The world spits on you and everything you stand for,"Trojans voice continued. "Why don't you do us all a favour, do something good for a change... You know, make the world a better place... And finish yourself off. That's what I would've done ages ago if I were as pathetic as you are. Are you so selfish you can't see how you totally disgust other people? Weak son of a bitch. Everything would be better if you placed a knife on your wrist, there where the skin is thin and you can see those fragile blue veins and..."
It just kept going on and on and on. Jax slowly covered his ears, but that didn't help; the voice was everywhere. Part of him. And it would keep talking. Talking until Jax finally gave in.
*
Iz lay little Aaron, who was already half-asleep, in his bed. His tiny bed had been moved into Raja's room from the child's ward of the hospital. Iz pulled the spotless blanket over the toddler with his thumb in his mouth, his blonde hair a mess. He was so cute, she couldn't resist temptation. She sang a lullaby until the big green eyes fell shut completely, then placed a goodnight-kiss on his soft forehead, under which his innocent baby-dreams were dancing.
Iz felt strange when she left the room. What got her into mothering all of the sudden? That was really not her style. Taking in the rest of tonight's event, she came to the conclusion that she had gone insane. Before you know it, she would want a child of her own.
Yeah, maybe with Zion.
Iz was totally stunned by her own thought. Zion?! What did he had to do with any of this? She hardly even knew the guy -well, for as far as you can not know a person when you're members of the same tribe. She never wanted a baby at all, and now all of the sudden she wanted one from Zion of all people?!
No. Just crazy thoughts. I need to get some sleep, Iz thought.
It was indeed late already. It surprised Iz that Aaron had managed to stay awake for this long. The moon had already completed half of her silver journey through the dark sky.
Iz imagined a silverwhite wagon in front of her eyes, pulled by pale horses, with a moongoddess in it... Iz loved to let her imagination get the best of her. She was short on concentration. Whenever she saw something interesting (something that might seem insignificant to the next best person) she couldn't help but fantasizing away about it, now matter how little it had to with what she was doing at that time. She had a tree in her head, fed by the world and all its amazing wonders, and every now and then a story or a myth would grow from it.
Iz imagined on about this moongoddess in her silver wagon, and gave her a name, she made up herself: Nayala. Maybe she would tell that story to Aaron. Or to her own child, someday.
Iz shook her head, again amazed and slightly disgusted. Get real, she told herself and closed the door to Raja's room, losing her view on the sleeping Aaron. Time for herself to get some shut-eye.
*
Trojan set in a corner of his room. He felt like he was hollow on the inside, and he couldn't recall to ever feeling this... empty. Emotions were terribly numb, and it's like the world, his room, was miles away from it, even though he was just sitting in it.
He thought about tonight's events, in complete silence. Just what exactly happened?
Kita's words, and how she left. She left with such an awfully nice look on her face, like she understood something Trojan didn't even know about himself. And god, was that ever damn annoying.
She left, without further ado, only leaving him one bit of advice: do some thinking of yourself. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Why couldn't she just spit out what she had to say, clearly, that would've been better than that idiotic babbling.
And gone she was again. Trojan wanted to go after her, because he had the feeling she would tell her friends something. Something bad about him. Something that had do with those things she had told him tonight. Trojan had already forgot what Kita had said exactly, and that made everything seem worse.
He had been so angry, then saw Jax on the hallway, and the sight of Jax especially nearly made his eyes roll back with rage. When Jax didn't say anything, it had made Trojan so angry he had punched him directly in the face, and then he had stormed off.
Five minutes later Trojan had already forgotten what it had all been about, and he was death-ashamed of himself. He promised himself never to lose control again, never again, not after that... incident at his last school.
'Incident'? his mind yelled in disbelief. You nearly killed somebody!
Trojan recalled to the last month at his school, and he couldn't remember exactly what had gotten him so angry -he NEVER seemed to be able to remember what got him angry- but he flew at another student in a rage, punching him. Even when the boy was already unconscious, he wouldn't stop. Luckily, there were others to make Trojan stop. The unfortunate boy was in a coma for nearly three weeks, and Trojan would've been shipped off either to jail or the mental institution... but then the virus broke out.
Trojan now realized perfectly well why Zion gave Dart the job of chief of security. Dart was in perfect, absolute control of his emotions. Trojan secretly envied him. If he wouldn't left to cool down somewhere, could he have killed Jax? Well, he could've at least made his injuries a lot worse.
Trojan tried to remember why he hated Jax so much at that moment, that he punched him down. Why did his memory always fail him at times like this?
He should go apologize to Jax. But something just stopped him, some fierce, violent, nameless hate, that laid hidden somewhere in his mind -buried in his mind, quickly covered with as much soil as could possibly be found. And know Trojan didn't know how to dig it up again, even though he wasn't sure if he wanted to.
What was buried there, brought forth a ghost, that, as ghosts do, only came at dark times, mumbling unclear messages, and never showing itself clearly. If Trojan would dig up what lay hidden, would the ghost find peace? But how was Trojan supposed to know what was buried anyway?
Why did his memory fail him at times like these?
*
/A Queen of Snow
Far beyond compare
Lips attuned to symmetry
Sought her everywhere
Dark liquored eyes
An Arabian nightmare...
~ Cradle of Filth- Her Ghost in the Fog/
Kita strolled out of the hospital, through the opened automatic sliding doors, that would never work again. She lingered in front of the hospital, letting the slight breeze that was carried from the sea run through her ebony, golden-striped hair.
A beautiful, clear night. A full moon and a velvet sky over which the sky's fires were spreaded. Kita's dark eyes locked with one of those stars, shining brightly like Christ was reborn.
A falling star would be nice. If you saw a falling star, you could make a wish. Kita would wish that the world wasn't such a strange, cold and awfully complicated place. Maybe she would wish to be a little child forever. Innocent, blessed with ignorance -like Aaron. Aaron would soon have to grow up, forced to mature at an unnatural age, to face the horrors of this world.
Kita remembered how uncomplicated everything had seemed when she was five, and didn't know of anything. And now that she was grown-up -a tottering senior citizen of eighteen, she thought, and this made her snicker- it all seemed so... weird.
Like she was really just living a dream. A dream in which everything seemed distant, unreal, not the slightest bit realistic. Like you could just leave your body any second and fly to a the Mount Everest, where you would throw a teaparty and be joined by some celebrities. Weird.
She remembered a Chinese philosopher who once said: "I dreamt I was a butterfly, doing exactly what a butterfly did. Then I woke up, and I was a man once again. Now I don't know if I'm a man that dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly that's still dreaming he's a man."
Interesting, really. Kita's life felt much like a dream, and she was wondering if someone, a girl in the real universe, was now laying in her bed, sleeping soundlessly, dreaming how her parents died, along with all the other adults, from an awful virus, and how the children started to form tribes, and how she lived in nature. Maybe the real her was laying in a coma now, for three years maybe, and all those years she had been dreaming about this world. Or maybe she was insane, she was now really in a isolationchamber, babbling about viruses and tribes, and it would all go over as soon as they gave her some Thorazine...
Where did she get crazy thoughts like this? God knows. She was definitely not a shallow person, just because she was beautiful. No, she loved to think about things. And sometimes she would come up with the strangest, but somehow logical things. She wouldn't have done bad as a philosopher.
*
A young man watched the perfect silhouette from the shadows, gasping in amazement. The flawless face. The dark, mysterious eyes. The black hair with hints of flaming brass. He had seen her before, and had delighted in spying upon her whenever he had the chance. Today she had been with a group, looking for food, and he followed her throughout the whole city.
Surrounded by her tribe... She had always been surrounded by her tribe... But not now. Now she was all on her own. Now he could do whatever he wanted. Tear the veil of grace, like he loved to do to those picture- perfect girls that would normally tell him to get lost; he could make her cry, her harlot mouth opened in a scream of pain. He loved it when they screamed. And she would undoubtly be the most beautiful one. He could imagine her face, an avalanche of pearl, of ruby wine.
She was alone now. The whore he hated and loved, since he had seen her entering the city. She was his.
*
Nightcolours. The night wasn't just black, it had plenty of colours. To Kita, philosophizing the stars, it was frostblue. To Iz, looking at her ceiling while slowly falling alseep it was mystwhite. To Raja, laying drowsily and unimaginably happy in the arms of the sleeping Dart, it was gold. To the dreaming Aaron it was a whole variety of happy shades of yellow, red and blue, in a candyparadise.
To Jax it was crimsonred. The violent understream, rapidly flowing through his mind, wildly, accompanied by thunder, dragging away everything on the sides and destroying what had been carefully build up, had gone from the passive grey and black to an active shade.
Jax took up the scalpel. The blade flashed in the light of moon, throwing sparks of silver reflection through the room. Jax had left his body. He sat, crawled up like a foetus, in a tiny shaded corner of his mind, and let the violence take over.
Jax could never really explain why he did this. Maybe because to him the world was so confusing, his whole mind became a chaos, a river that flowed over, thus destroying everything, causing pain. And Jax had to do something to get rid of that pain. He wasn't like Trojan, he couldn't just throw his anger and confusion into the world outside and punch someone a black eye.
Trojan... Jax looked into the pale mirror above the tiny sink in his room. Jax through the looking glass scowled at him, just as pale as he was, with the strange purple and brown colours around one eye. Trojan had every reason to hit him; Jax had been overhearing their conversation. Spying on them. It was a bad thing of him, but then again, he couldn't do anything right. It was in his nature to always do the wrong thing, displease others. Destined to fail.
The pain on the inside whirled around, flowing through his head until there was no reasonable thought, no real thought left. Until his movements where like that of a robot, until all life and presence had left his eyes and they went scarily matte, until he appeared perfectly, eerily calm, like people are when they're losing it.
Jax never liked in, when his mind just seemed to leave his body. He needed it back, he needed to feel again, cause pain on the outside to smother the strange pain on the inside, the pain that seemed to come out of nowhere with absolutely no reason and started spreading like a virus, like fungus, until his mind was insanely empty.
Jax had done this before. He had already discovered this in... what, sixth grade? And even before that he already had ways of hurting himself when things got too complicated. It wasn't like he got a kick from it, like he enjoyed it. He needed it, because he feared that if he wouldn't, he would lose himself completely. That mind, thaughts and memory would be like a computerfile deleted. That he would finally be lured into the dark void.
Jax didn't like the idea of non-existing. That's why he was terrified of death, because, just imagine that there was really nothing after death, and that Jax as a person would disappear, forever...? But, on the other side he longed for it, because life, for some odd and unexplainable reason, was also unbearable. It had been unbearable from day one, problems that seemed tiny had stacked up, and now the slightest things drove him to the edge.
The edge... He had been there before. That was also a thing he was scared of. He was scared of death, but the thought was also appealing. What if he would just lose control one day and kill himself? So for now, to keep control just a little bit, he needed the cutting. He had to preserve a bit of himself. He couldn't lose control completely.
Totally calm, Jax brought the scalpel down. He wasn't freaking out. Screaming or crying. He just knew what had to be done. And after this, things would be okay again... for a short time. Zion, for as far as Jax knew, was the only person that knew of it (Jax wasn't aware of the fact that Kita once saw his scars). Zion had told him not to do it anymore. With the best of intentions ofcourse, he made sure not to let Jax come near anything sharp, but Zion didn't know what it was like... Zion believed Jax hadn't injured himself for a year, and believed he kicked the habit, but the leader that was usually aware of everything was totally wrong on this subject.
Jax brought the sharp edge to the pale skin of one of his lowerarms, that was a map of pain. A battlefield really, every scar a landmark representing some event Jax had experienced as horrible and unbearable, like life was horrible and unbearable for him. Sometimes he told himself not to complain so much... but he couldn't help feeling how he felt.
Jax let the scalpel balance there for a second. It hadn't been hard to find the blade. Entire examinationrooms and operationrooms full of it. A hospital; stuffed with sharp things. They had to stay at a hospital of all places. Jax smirked, it was actually kinda funny.
Jax let the scalped slide over his arm slowly, nearly gracefully. He just had to let it slide, these things of surgeon steel were awfully sharp. At first there was just a thin, long gap in the skin. Then it slowly turned pink. Then slowly it turned red, and dark vermillion drops started to run down, very slowly. It always ran slowly, this dark blood.
Jax remembered how Zion used to be interested in the ancient Egyptian knowledge, when he was much younger. He had read something to Jax, about how the Egyptians were great doctors. They thought that the clear-coloured, bright blood (that which came from artery's) was the blood of happy emtions. The darker, slower blood was that of the dark, bad emotions and hate.
Man, those Egyptians really were smart, Jax thought as he watched the dark crimson run down slowly.
Jax already felt he started to return a little. He felt a stinging pain from the cut, but it didn't feel like pain to him. At least, he didn't consider it to be, for him it just meant he came back. But it wasn't enough yet. Faster now, losing his patience, Jax attacked his arms, drawing more violent lines on a cruel artwork. And it worked. For him it did.
*
Kita sat on a little bench, right in front of the hospital. More than half of the tribe was already sleeping, but Kita didn't feel tired. She just couldn't tear her dark gaze from the sky, just as dark. The moon that graced it, a cold portrait. For some reason it made Kita think of all the men she had, and how none of them really pleased her. /So haunted is my silent heart... dreaming only of the Moon.../
And then, all of the sudden, she heard it. A gasp and a sigh, definitely human. Kita looked over her shoulder quickly, but the source of this noise was nowhere to be seen.
Kita shivered and suddenly noticed how cold it was, especially because she was sitting there in her thin, sleeveless dress. She decided, even though that gasp was probably just the wind, it was time to go back inside anyway.
She got of the bench, and the sliding doors of the hospital (that didn't slide anymore) were a mere fifteen feet away. Yet she never made it to the door. Out of nowhere, something struck her down, sending a jolt of pain through her head and shutting off her view. She had already lost consciousness before she fell to the ground.