A/N – Alright, so here goes. My first full-length slash story, so it probably won't get too graphic. I like letting people's imaginations take control to an extent wink wink.
Anyway, I'd like to thank all those that reviewed my two short story/vignettes All The White Horses and Passenger. This title is due to my newfound obsession with Tori Amos and her song by the same title as my story.
Criticism is appreciated, as is any form of feedback, but flames will be stored as heat for my cold Canadian winter.



China


In The Silence

Sirens echoed eerily in the distance of a darkening evening. Crickets chirped softly behind houses and kids laughed as their sneakers scuffed the asphalt. The air hung heavy and warm with liquid heat leftover from the peak of the day. It was all a typical night for Kai Hiwitari. Ever since The Outage, at least.

It had happened on a Wednesday, Kai reminisced as he shrugged into his worn denim jacket and slid a kitchen knife into the waistband of his pants. Another one, its exact twin, lay ready for his hand on the table. He didn't know much about the specifics of The Outage, only what his contacts could find out, but from what he did know it had come about courtesy of a virus. An electronic virus that had appeared out of nowhere and destroyed everything.

Kai snorted. Even to him, it sounded preposterous.

His hand clutched the knife as he made his way through the small, rundown house looking to extinguish any forgotten candles and close any gaping windows. His house, their house, hadn't always been so shoddy. Even after their parent's had died, Dmitri and he had taken good care of it. However, it'd been a week since Dmitri had left, his older brother leaving to obtain food and supplies that couldn't be found inside their empty city. It was too dangerous to leave their house unattended for very long so they had decided to leave Kai to look after things.

Well, Dmitri had decided. Kai hadn't been very happy with the idea.

The window in the bathroom closed with a snap as Kai dusted his hands off and picked up his knife from where he'd set it down. Looking in the mirror Kai wondered when it'd become so imperative to just survive that everything trivial had simply disintegrated.

The dim glow of a waxing moon lit the bathroom just enough that Kai's visage was barely recognizable even to himself. It wasn't the lack of lighting that led to this, though. It was the bags under his eyes and the grime on his skin. It was the defeat, the acceptance... the fear. He let his sticky forehead rest on the smooth surface and allowed a moment of worry for his only living relative. Well, the only living relative he actually wanted to be connected to.

If he were perfectly honest with himself (which was a rarity these days) he'd admit that he didn't know what he'd do without Dmitri. And that scared him. Even though the fear was hidden beneath layers upon layers of self-loathing and denial. His thoughts wandered carelessly to the night when he could've convinced the older Hiwitari to stay but hadn't. He supposed it was selfish to think of your own life before somebody else's, but it had been growing increasingly difficult to be selfless when his stomach felt like it was eating itself and his head was itchy from caked on dirt.

They had been sitting around the circular wooden table in the kitchen when Dmitri had brought it up. His short, spiky silver-blue hair glittering in the fading light of a waxy candle, his grey eyes staring at the table's surface as if it held the secret of life.

Then he'd started speaking. Saying how food was getting scarce, reminding Kai that they'd narrowly missed being killed by a few kids who'd decided to raid their house for supplies that the stores were desperately lacking. They'd thought the house was empty, abandoned like so many others, but they'd been wrong. It had cost all of the participants various cuts and bruises, Kai a sprained wrist, and Dmitri a black eye. The thieves had escaped with broken bones and a severe loss of courage.

Kai had watched carefully from across the table. The cards they'd been playing with were ignored and set aside as Dmitri finally lifted his head to look his younger brother in the eye. "One of us has to go, and I'm not letting it be you. You know that. I know I can trust you to take care of the house."

But the other Hiwitari wasn't taking the bait. He knew his brother wanted to make it seem like staying home was an adventure in itself. He also knew that that wasn't true. He tried to imagine his Dmitri taking on the city just to get out of this godforsaken place and get something to fill their stomachs and light their dark lives. Alone. He couldn't go alone.

"You can't go alone. With the wild kids in the streets? You can't take them on alone." His low voice had been soft and careful. They never spoke too loud nowadays. Not when the sound carried so far with the absence of cars, lights, and previously ever-constant humming of something electronic.

Dmitri had sighed then. A slow, careful sound. Tired, weary, too old for one so young. His eyes became shaded and suddenly Kai wished he hadn't spoken, even though he had known his concerns were valid. The adults, the parents and elderly, had simply vanished. The children had gone feral, wild, psychotic. They roamed the streets in gangs, broke into houses for food and anything they could use as weapons or just fancied, and they viciously attacked any that they came across.

"I wasn't gonna go alone," Dmitri had scowled, suddenly evasive, "I was going to take Garywith me. He said he needed some stuff for the others, anyway." Kai nodded. Gary was a member of the White Tigers; the only gang the Hiwitari's kept in touch with. One of them was a common contact of Kai's.

He hadn't said it. He had refused to say it, but his older brother had known anyway and his had face softened. Dmitri's features weren't as pretty as Kai's, with more of the rough edge reminiscent of their father, but he seemed almost luminous as he smiled then, in an attempt to abate Kai's concern. "Don't worry, Kai. You know I'll be back. I don't trust you to leave my room intact for too long."

Abruptly a shadow had come over his face. "But if it takes me more than a week ... well, don't stay around here, you hear? There's no use of a house if you can never leave it, is there?" He had attempted a weak smile with it faltering almost immediately. A week's worth of food was all they had left then, a week's worth of raisons and cereal, a week's worth of dry pasta and nuts.

There had been the inevitable awkwardness later, when Dmitri was leaving and Kai wasn't sure whether he should hug him or ignore him. He opted for neither.

And then there was seven long days of nothing, absolutely nothing. Reading by daylight, soul searching by moonlight, questioning when his brother was going to return at all hours of the day. He ate the remaining food slowly even though his stomach craved more. He could hear the wild screeches of the children wandering the streets at night and it chilled his blood. They were truly animals, having reverted back to their untamed, primitive form.

There had been little to do but wait. There were no ticking clocks, only the sound of howling wind against dusty panes of glass. No metallic hum of a television or computer, just the dripping of wax down the side of a leaning candle. The minutes went by with an annoying non-chalance. Kai had never before felt the all-encompassing boredom that came from living in an era relying on electricity, yet having none.

His thoughts had run on invisible wires, criss-crossing with the slightest push in any direction. Thoughts on food led to thoughts on love led to thoughts of worry and depression. His eyes became accustomed to the same old things during the day, and the nights dragged by with little sleep and even less positive emotion. He became lost in a sea of nothingness.

Until day seven.

And it had dawned bright and early, harsh light leaving nothing to the imagination, with Kai alone on his bed and alone in his house. It was the day Kai had been dreading and waiting for with painful anticipation. Now was the time of action. Now was the time of getting out of the house. He'd finally started thinking that maybe Dmitri did have the better deal in all of this, being able to act and not wait around without purpose.

Back in the present, Kai realized that the night was creeping ever closer and that he'd wasted quite a few good minutes of twilight that he wouldn't get back. He was running on a tight enough schedule as it was, he didn't need useless reflections of past days to make him lose even more time. He knew to leave at twilight, return after the moon had set. It wasn't quite full yet, but he couldn't wait the four days it would take to get it that way. He had to go now.

Pushing himself away from the mirror, Kai grabbed his knife and twisted his hips to double-check on the knife he'd tucked into his pants. Once assured both were fine, Kai took one last look at his tattooed face in the mirror and abruptly took off through the house, locking the door behind him and pocketing the key even though the lock would be of little deterrence to the animals around.

With one last look at the house he was leaving behind, perhaps forever he'd later learn, Kai gave only a short chuckle. Months ago his only worry had been how to get through school without killing all the annoying little children that crowded the hallways and, more importantly, his personal space. Now he was wondering how the hell he'd make it with no allies in a city gone crazy.

Weird how life works.


A/N 2 - Sorry for the messed up tenses. I'm working on a computer (my own! Yay! But alas, with no Internet) with a very old version of Microsoft Word and I didn't realize how much better the newest one is. It's a bit of insanity. It thinks 'realize' should be spelled with an 's' instead of a 'z'. I don't know, but it's weird. If anyone likes this I'll have the next chapter out (barring all terrible problems that may, but hopefully won't, arise) next week/this weekend.

And yes, I realize this started off rather slow. It will pick up, I just had to get some explanations down and set the mood. PS – MF? Hey, where've you gone?!