Author's Note: Well I was going to put this up yesterday, but surprise! FF.net was down. Do'h! So here it is. And on another note, while suggestions are appriciated, this story is already pretty much planned out, plot-wise. In fact, most of this story is done, but many finished chapters have yet to be posted in light of editing purposes. I have little written summaries of each unwritten chapter pre-scratched out, so the plot is going to pretty much be that way. Thank you, though! Reviews are sincerely appriciated, as afore mentioned. You all rawk to pieces
"I've looked everywhere. He just wandered off." Nicole flopped onto the ground next to Terry miserably, head in her hands.
"He does that all the time, Nicole, that doesn't mean he won't be back." Terry assured as he placed a languid arm around her. "It's not like he's in any danger. Those things don't even notice dogs."
"I just wish I knew where he was. That's all." She explained, looking up briefly. "I don't want to be seperated…I don't want any of us to be seperated."
"I know."
"Last I saw him," Kenneth said as he came into the group, apparently trying to ease their concerns. "he was chasing after one of those damn weasel things. Came zipping right past me. To tell you the truth, I'm glad he feels the same way I do; those little fuckers are mean as hell."
"There, you see?" Terry looked back to Nicole. "He'll be back once he catches a few."
"You're right, I know, I'm just…"
"Worried, I know." Terry grinned slightly and pulled her into him.
"Where did Tyler disappear to?" Ana cut in, looking to the dying fire. There was now daylight, but none of them had slept.
"He went out to look for Chips." Terry said, pausing slightly.
"He's just out there…?" Ana's expression was discontented.
"Well he said he wouldn't go passed the beach. I think maybe he wanted to be alone." Terry replied. Despite his efforts to prevent it, he yawned, exposing a tiredness they were all surely feeling by now.
"We're runnin' low." Kenneth said from a few steps off, aimlessly prodding around at their rather exiguous supplies.
"Thanks for the update." Ana eyed him as he handed her a granola bar. She tried to keep the mood light, but all things considered, she knew that this was the worst of the group had ever been. The lowest in supplies, in the most desserted place, in bad health and high stress with no real promise and no definate hope that things would get better. They hadn't spoken in any kind of depth or reminisence about the events surrounding the Crossroads Mall (with the currently unknown exception of Terry), and Ana found herself straining just to remember what had happened. Not that she wanted to remember, but she wasn't willing to give up any part of her mind. She may have nothing else in the world, but if she lost that, she was no one. She may as well be one of them.
"Well I need to find him." Ana said, standing up.
"Chips?" Terry looked up.
Ana narrowed her eyes and snorted good-naturedly. "Tyler."
Terry chuckled nervously and scratched his head. "Yeah. Duh. Sorry."
She stopped for a moment, almost seeming to need to justify it to herself. "…Even if he wants to be alone, we can't leave him out there. Something could happen to him, he…he could lapse into another seizure."
The others looked up at her from where they sat, observing her jittery impatience that she had been pressing on as of late. Not that she could be blamed, however unlike her it was. "Okay, Ana." Kenneth shrugged.
She nodded, but hesistated before she turned away. They had looked at her so strangely…was it possible that she hadn't hid her feelings as well as she suspected? Perhaps they really could sense that she was breaking down, little by little. That between failing health and fading luck she was starting to allow herself despair, a prized enemy she had always managed to fight off before. How ironic that she was most nervous when they were most calm. She had seen truly the most atrocious and grotesque parts of humanity and the diseases that come with it. She'd seen the inside of a human being in more ways than she had ever thought possible, and watched them turn inside out while alive and screaming. But it was now that she was coming apart. When in a disaster, she didn't have to think, she need only act, but when there was nothing upon which to act…well, she was forced to think.
She didn't like this part of her. The part that was afraid of things, the part that felt like it couldn't handle them. It had been fine, up until now, to conceal that part and pretend it was not there, and if it was, that it had no control of her nor impact on her judgement. But the idea that the others could see it made her feel weak, like a crazy fool who was losing her credibility fast. She suddenly found herself standing on the beach, whereupon she began her journey to find Tyler.
What would they think of her now? Damnit, they used to rely on her, she used to be needed. She was a strong point in the group who held them fast together. And now she was falling away from them. How and when did that happen? Since Tyler arrived? Since they landed on the island? Since they had escaped from the mall? Or since Michael died…? All those long nights working in that hospital, getting to know patients, laugh and joke with them, watching them die the very next day. It was so much like life now; they were fine one moment and dead the next. But it was different. It was different in so many ways. As a doctor, those things didn't effect you, you got over them quickly and moved on. As a person, however, you never did.
She found Tyler sprawled out in the sand on his back near the edge of the trees, arms behind his head as he lazily gazed up at the clouded sky as though it were any average day. He looked peaceful, and it made her smile just slightly. For some reason, she had just expected him to look like a nervous wreck. Perhaps that was just because she herself felt that way… "Hey Ty." She greeted, looking down as he craned his head back to see her.
"What's up?" he asked, a curious kind of concern on his face. "You're not coming to give me bad news, are you?"
"No worse than usual." She said, folding her arms across her chest. "Just the obvious. Are you okay out here?"
"Hey, give me a surf board and this is paradise." He reasoned, looking down his body at an untied shoe.
Ana chuckled, glancing out at the water with the memory of crowded beaches. Full of couples, teenagers, excited kids, Luis and herself on a vacation once... "You surf?"
"No." Tyler waited for a moment, thinking to himself. "I always wanted to, actually. Just one of those things on the 'never to do list' we all keep. You know?"
She nodded. "I know. I had a couple…go sky diving, base jumping, all things I never seemed to 'find the time for'." Another odd hesitation. "…I'm not bothering you, am I?"
"No," he pushed himself up to a sitting position, staring up at her sincerely. "Of course not…You can, if you want to, though." He smirked.
Ana took his offer and sat down near him, lounging in a disordely fashion and no longer bothering to conceal her tiredness. Tyler, she had found, was a bit of an opptimist, and she needed the relief from the depression of reality. "How are you feeling? Your head bothering you?"
"I get headaches every now and then. I'm okay." He assured, brushing the sand out of his hair. "It just seems kind of funny after all this time…well even though it's really only been about a week…to have my color back."
"I guess it would be." She agreed, following his gaze to the swirling blue-gray tides, imagining what the world would be like all in monotone. Like perpetual Winter. She never did care much for Winter, the bleakness of it all. "I think I'd miss green the most. I don't know why. The lushness…the nature, I guess."
"Well I missed blue." He admitted, resting back on his hands. "The ocean…the sky. Those flowers down there that I never noticed before." He flipped a gesture in said direction.
Ana took a long glance at those flowers, realizing that they had also gone previously unnoticed to her. She used to love flowers; now they seemed to have so little importance. "You know what color I would miss the least?"
He smiled bitterly and looked back at her, echoing her own thoughts. "Red."
She turned her head slowly back towards the sea with a distant mourning as a million associations with the vile sheen of crimson crossed through her mind in macabre dance of memories. "Red."