Talker – Chapter Eight: Small Talk
Author's note: Okay. Sort of short, rather a prelude to the next scene of events. Thanks for the reviews!
Tyler set himself away from the group, within a satisfactory distance that he would not be spoken to but also close enough to keep an eye on. After the conversation that had taken place hours before, he said nothing, sitting to himself and resting his throbbing head down into his arms. Though Nicole had apologized to the group for her breakdown, she had refused to approach him personally, but whether that was out of embarassment, fear, or a general disliking for him, he did not know. Still, he remained dettatched through it all, and gave few things a second thought.
It was because of this that he wasn't bothered when he was virtually ignored by the others. After all, he had gotten much the same treatment with Tom. Not that he would blame them for their apprehension. And as it stood, the group hung silent and scattered all the same. His arm did not bleed through its bindings, but his fingers were growing cold and he could not seem to warm them. His head spun through torrents of pain and dull buzzes of numbness, breaking his focus. It seemed to him that very little time had passed, though his world now darkened and the pale gray sky became a blackish void above him. He shivered.
It was then that he felt the hand on his shoulder, and so unprepared was he for such an unconsciously tender gesture that he leapt away from it.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." Said Ana, quickly withdrawing the hand.
He stared up at her for a moment with a breath of relief, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "No, I-I was just thinking."
"Just wanted to see how you were doing out here." She informed, eyes falling onto his arm. "Everything okay?"
"Sure." He said instinctively, flexing the fingers as if to prove himself.
She took her eyes away from his arm and gazed back over her shoulder at the rest of the group. None of them looked at each other, all sitting in silence and staring off to nowhere like they didn't know anyone else was there. "I'm sorry about what happened earlier. It wasn't your fault, you know." She said, not meeting his eyes to see his response.
"Nah, don't worry about it." He assured, scratching his head.
"Well she didn't mean any of what she said, it's just that…we all lost someone. And we don't understand you."
"Really, it's okay." Tyler said, standing with a good amount of effort. As he got to his feet, he swayed and almost fell over, but Ana snatched him by the front of the shirt and yanked him back up. "Uh-hah…whoah. Sorry." He chuckled warily, pushing himself up straight.
"Are you sure you're okay?" she released him and checked him over with her eyes. "Was there anything you needed?"
He stopped for a minute and looked down in thought, seeing the dried blood coating his shirt. "Actually…if you don't mind…" Ana waited. "Well I had a question."
"Go ahead." She nodded.
"You said that you…that you were a doctor, right?" he met her gaze, squinting slightly as a ray of setting sun struck his eyes.
"Is something wrong?"
"Um…it's my eyes, I-I think, anyway." He swallowed. She seemed uncomfortable. Was she going to have to be the one to tell him that his eyes weren't the same anymore?
"Yes?" she continued anyway.
"It was just a few days ago. I woke up and I was…color blind. Just like that. I was sort of hoping you could tell me something about that. Any…reason it would happen?" he shrugged hopefully.
Her eyebrows raised a little and she looked like she was lost in thought. It took her some time to search back in her memory to being medical student, trying to pull her knowledge back from the edge of being discarded when it had no longer mattered. "And the color's completely gone? There's no traces of red or blue or anything else?"
"No, it's gone." He said, holding a gray hand in front of his face. "Just black and white."
"Has it ever happened before?"
"No."
"What about the rest of your family? Do they have any history of it? Here, sit."
He obeyed, sitting back down on the fallen tree husk he'd been secluded to. "Not that I know of. My grandmother was blind, but I don't think that's the same thing. She was in an accident."
"And did you hit your head?" she put her hands on the sides of his head and began to examine him.
"I don't remember. I guess I could've. Everything's kind of a blur…"
"Let's see…" she bit her lip, checking for any kind of bruising. "Have you been sensitive to light lately? Nauseous?"
"Mm. On and off." He agreed, looking down at her feet.
"Like achromatopsia. It's pretty rare…I've only ever seen it show up through heredity." She gently pushed down on the side of his skull near his temple, seemingly disturbed. "Here…there's a depression. Tyler, you should remember if you'd been hit like this."
"I don't remember very much of anything besides the last four or five days." He admitted.
"Well this wound's been here for at least a week or more…" she sighed an removed her hold, sitting down next to him. He felt relieved somehow. He hadn't really expected her to be able to help him, just to be able to identify this problem. And she had, so for this he was grateful. "Um…let's see, well sometimes this kind of thing can just go away on its own. It could clear up in a few days, or it might take months or years. Otherwise, as far as I know, there's no cure."
"Oh…that's…good news I guess." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I mean, I thought that it was permenant for sure."
"Don't get your hopes up. It might be." She suggested, brushing some sand off her pant leg.
"Yeah…"
For a while, they sat in silence, two mere strangers with nothing in common save for the will to live and a similar location. It was a feeling they were both used to. Ana had been forced into former strangers' lives back at the mall, obligated to either get to know them and like them or go out of her mind. Tyler had only ever known Tom as nothing but a stranger, given that he offered so little of himself. But life clings to life, and in that sense, they had both learned simply to draw comfort from the presence of another human life, no matter how undesirable.
Tyler was glad to be with these people, even if they didn't trust him. They still made the attempt at a forgotten civillity, and that alone made him feel at ease. Whatever the case, none of them were as unpleasant as Tom had been. But he had to wonder if it was selfish to feel good about anything in these circumstances. He took a glance at Ana and smirked to himself, stretching out one of his arms in front of him and sighing.
"Could be worse." He said.
Ana turned to him, confused eyes searching for a justification behind those words. Here sat a man that had been infected with an, until recently thought, undeniably fatal disease who was now suffering from fever, color blindness, malnourishment, dehydration, the loss of every loved one he had ever known and now sat on an abandoned island with few means of a pitiable survival in a dead world with the words, "could be worse" falling from his lips. She didn't understand such emotional immunity.
Tyler smiled sheepishly and shook his head, flipping his hair from his eyes with a jerk of his neck and tossing up a hand. "Could be raining."
Ana's eyes widened, and before she could stop it, she felt laughter shaking her sides. Both of them fell into a fit of muted chuckles, the mood of severity crumbling, each reveling in the fact that for the first time—in much too long a time—there was something to be laughed at. Even if it had a semi-morbid underlying theme.
"Ana." Came a voice, and both sat up straight to face the speaker.
Ana's smile immediately vanished and she looked up at Kenneth, almost as though she felt guilty about being anything but serious. "What's wrong?"
Kenneth let out a breath and glanced over at Tyler. "The both'a you, come back to the group. There's somethin' we should talk about."