It's dark when Peter wakes up, and for a moment, he thinks that it's always been this way. He thinks he never left the bunker, that everything was just an elaborate dream. But he knows that's not the case. All around him he can hear it, rustling and shifting, like a room crammed full to the brim of people. Peter's used to seeing in the dark, but his eyes have been adjusting in the past days, and he can't see as well as he used to. He scans the room, finding every square foot of floor occupied by a sitting form of a despondent person. Even his own head was resting on someone's lap until just recently.
It's a scene Peter is familiar with, and his heart beats so fast it hurts almost as much as his splitting headache and dry throat. For a second he wonders if everything was just a dream, and he's still in the bunker. Any momentthey will walk through the door, and Peter knows what they'll want. He tries to sit up fully, and his head pounds like it's been cracked with a hammer, and Peter doesn't know where he is or who is with him or how to escape.
"Just stay still, it will go away in a second."
The voice doesn't sound aggressive, rather its soft in a way reminiscent of the caretakers back in the bunker, tired and hushed, but Peter's already let his guard down too much, and he knows that nothing good came of it. He remembers the last time he woke up like this. Everytime they came, there was one less kid left. He remembers the caretakers who held them close and comforted them in soft words. That is, right up untiltheycame for the caretakers. He remembers well they way they were betrayed. "Wait! Please! Take her instead! Please!" The shaking girl who was shoved into the arms of the monsters, betrayed eyes staring at the one who held her moments before, her screams as she was dragged away.
Peter never saw her again. But even sacrifice couldn't save the caretaker, the kids that scattered from her reach and hid and fought, and eventually she too, was dragged away. Peter knows he can't trust anyone with that tone. He jerks away, despite the voices warning, backing until he hits another back, and hears a soft gasp of a woman, and arches away, unwilling to touch her. He's trapped, he realizes, on all sides, no where to go and no way to run. He's shaking, and tries to calm himself. There's a door, he can see it, and there's stairs near it, but no one is trying to escape or break it down, and Peter knows there must be a reason for it. He doesn't want to find out.
He's very, very scared, to the point he wishes he'd never left the bunker, that he'd gone back there instead of staying with Alfred and Jet. Because Peter knows what happens to children in this world, what the Monsters do to them, and he can only hope that that his captors are more hungry than they are bored, and maybe he'll die quickly. Not that they could kill Peter, but maybe, if they think they have, he'll have a chance to escape before something more awful is done to him, before they find out that Peter isdifferent.
So Peter curls into himself and stays still until the headache begins to fade, listening to the tell-tale shuffling and rustling and breathing in of many other people, and tries to focus on breathing so he doesn't think about what might happen next. After a period of time that was probably only a few minutes, but felt closer to hours, his headache begins to lessen, and Peter raises his head to scan his surroundings for a hope he doesn't Have.
"Are you feeling better?"
It's the same soft voice Peter heard before, And he starts, fighting his instincts that want to run. The voice seems to know what he's thinking.
"Hey, it's going to be alright."
Peter wishes he could claim he'd never heard such a bald-faced lie before. But he has, and he knows how "alright" ends. He's not the only one who thinks that, and somewhere in the dark, a disgruntled voice snaps back.
"Shut up you idiot! Stop fucking saying that!"
Peter finches at the abrasive voice, but the soft-spoken person trying to encourage him is unaffected.
"It's true!" He insists, "My brother is going to come free us! It's what he does."
Peter's not felt this skeptical in a long time. Unless the stranger's brother works miracles, Peter doubted they would be saved. Another stranger in the dark, closer than the first, echoed this sentiment.
"What's your brother do then? Is he God?"
The soft spoken person actually chuckles at this, like it was a funny joke and not a sarcastic comment in the moments before death.
"No. He saves people. He's always been like that."
His response doesn't grant him any more support than before.
"Shut the fuck up about your damn brother! Heroes don't exist, and he's not fucking coming! Just stop it!"
Peter can't help but agree. It's been a long time since the world fell apart, and everyone Peter knew was gone now. There were no "heroes" to save them then. Not the ones who were eaten, beaten, wasting away or worse. Not for them. Peter knows better than to believe in a fanatic's hope. There were lots of those, in the beginning. It's how they survived, for a while. Everyone, even before the bunkers, had found something or someone to believe in, and Peter had seen how they clung to that hope, even until their own death. But in the end, no God, no Government, no scientists, no Family, no one came for any of them.
Even Peter, at one point, had been waiting, believing in something he can't remember anymore. The reason he alone stayed in that bunker and didn't try to venture out, risking everything for a chance at life instead of slowly wasting away and dying with the rest. Peter had been waiting, once, for someone or something he didn't remember. He'd felt like he'd promised, a long time ago, to wait. Had someone else promised to come for him? But years after years passed, and Peter had forgotten why he was waiting, only that he was waiting, that he needed to be there. Even when the once rambunctious bunker filled with children had turned to a dark and silent place with only him, Peter waited.
But Peter had already given up on waiting. He'd left his blind faith behind when Alfred and Jet stole him from the bunker, when he chose to go with them. So Peter only hums a wordless response to the chatty stranger, hopeless eyes hidden in the dark, hoping the Stranger will take a hint and stay silent. The stranger shifts closer to Peter, Whispering words with absolute confidence.
"It's okay, I promise."
Then, even more an unbelievable promise than the one Alfred and Jet made to Peter.
"Even if he doesn't come, I'll save us for sure, so don't worry."
Peter wishes he was still naïve enough to believe in promises like that.