Everywhere I went I was alone, even when I wasn't. Alone and on my own with the enemy everywhere I turned. I never let my guard down. I would carry out Zack's orders even though it meant being alone all the time. Being alone was better then being back at Manticore. I'd do anything to stay free. I'd be alone forever if it meant never having to go home.
I felt dirty, like I couldn't wash enough. I was surrounded and engulfed by things I was taught to hate and despise, it made me feel unclean. I slipped back into the living shadows, longing and trepidation at war in my heart. It won't happen again. I'm a soldier, damn it. I just need to keep a grip on things. I will never again approach a normal, no matter what the situation. The last one I approached thought I was playing some make believe scenario out when I asked them what their designation was. I'm better off alone. I hate this place. Cold. Desolate yet teaming with vermin. We'd been taught that poverty was a weakness but I'd never really understood it. How could a monetary sum dictate weakness? We had never had any money or possessions, yet my family was the personification of strength. Everywhere around me people were poorer then I was but they seemed happy as long as they weren't alone. I hated being alone but necessity dictated that I was. I wasn't like them.
Fear of open spaces or of being in crowded, public places like markets. Fear of leaving a safe place. I had all of them. I was content simply to stay where I had been the last time I had seen Zack. He told me to stay in the area and I would not disobey a direct order. I might have had a tendency to be sarcastic but I'd never put myself into danger intentionally. Zack had told me to stay where he had left me, he didn't give me explicit instructions. What if I left or moved to far and he couldn't find me when he returned? That was unacceptable. I may have been alone but I couldn't stand if he thought that I had deserted him. I would have enjoyed a full military occupation of the world after the pulse… somehow an armed guard on every corner with a pistolisedAK-47 assault riffle in full riot gear and camouflage would have made me feel more secure then this randomness did.
Mother and Father were abstract concepts to me. Zack had implied I might find a Family to stay with, a foster family. This didn't work out for me. Mother and Father. Matriarch and Patriarch of the Family unit. I had lost my family, bothers and sisters were people lost, dead, gone, taken. Mother and Father I assumed were like the Tac. Leader and C.O. of the family unit but nothing I needed or longed for. I longed for my siblings, not strangers to be close to or force some fabricated unity to. Family was something I had lost a long time ago, some forever like Eva, Jack and Avi; and others simply to the unknown. Both were just as bad scenarios. I was beginning to think I had lost Zack to the same fate as well… it had been too long since I'd seen him. I never strayed too far, for too long from where he had left me here. I wanted to be close by when he came back.
My hair had grown shaggy, down to my ears, just short of covering my barcode. I had tried to have it removed, actually had it removed. It took an eternity. Dermabrasion, where skin is "sanded" to remove the surface and middle layers; and then Cryosurgery, where the area is frozen prior to its removal, just to be sure. The dermatological surgeon removed the tattoo from the back of the neck of a girl no older then eleven. It took a lot of persuasion and a whole lot more in monetary sums. I made up some lack luster story about wanting a gang tattoo removed because there was a threat on my life, not far from the truth and the guy took pity on me and actually decided to do the second sitting a week later free of charge. I could field strip a rifle in 15 seconds and reassemble it in less time in the dark, but this necessary evil I had a hard time doing alone.
Alone was actually easy to do on the dark solitary streets in the middle of the night. When cold darkness seeped in all around you and no one noticed another street rat punk kid. Someone had called me that when I darted in front of their car on my way back to my alleyway after the trip to the guy who took off my "tattoo". The darkness welcomed me because it was no different from daylight to my eyes and we had always been taught to blend in with the shadows. It seemed all the vagabond population, all of us street dwellers were travelers lost with no home to return to. Squatting was an opportunity missed because it was a tactical risk I could not afford to take. Roaming with no set goal, no mission, no destination, and no roles. It was a pointless existence that forced one to strive to survive and stay strong in the struggle. I had a strong necessity to just keep on the move but never stray far from the last point I'd seen Zack. Two years was a long time… Darkness becomes customary and comforting, a companion to one who dwells in the shadows and almost never needs to sleep.
I eventually fell to the demon. I may hardly ever sleep but when the need hits me I crash and burn. I'd been feeling like crap and my hands shook like Jack's when I took the time to pause and study them. When I crash and burn I'm down for the count for at least eight hours. I never felt to comfortable letting my guard down for that long, most of the time three or four hours at a time kept me operating at peak performance with small cat naps. This time was different. This time I didn't want to sleep but fatigue won out. This time I didn't need to sleep. Infact I had slept only two days ago. There was this guy another street dweller who I was semi comfortable with living at the start of what had become my alley. He was sure no friend or confidant, I was a loner by necessity, I couldn't afford the weakness of friendship. He allowed me to let my guard down long enough to sleep because he promised to look out for me. I trusted him because he had eyes like Zack's, a smile like Zane's, and a bit of Krit's sense of humor. He was young, twenty or so, and had some sort of military background but no knowledge of Manticore. I had brought back food for both of us and as we ate and kept up a lively banter about our latest excursions and adventures, which really didn't amount to much of anything, the demon snuck up on me from the shadows. My full stomach allowing me to slip into a world of unconsciousness that I didn't even see coming. My eyes shut with the surprise and force of the slamming door on a solitary confinement cell