《COLLAPSE》
r e t r o a c t i v e
2116 - Summer - A letter - Kettle and stove top - Night - The call of the blood - A plot - The fleshcrafter - The basement - Reality unraveling - Fear of death - Morning - Home.
Eoran Toriet spread himself thin upon the platform of the balcony that hung over the busy avenue, stomach down, sweat beginning to bead upon his brow. Mid-year found the seasonal heat especially intense as various fronts from distant land masses conspired to make the passing days as uncomfortable as possible.
It was, of course, the Ossa that were made to feel the worst of all the wright classes in Port Haven, an inequality whose foundation was equal parts economics and heritage. Due to the high rate of poverty among their population, many Ossans lacked the means to afford a necessity considered a luxury: artificially cooled air. The air conditioners they were able to purchase only exacerbated the situation¡ªthe greatest downside to the cycle of creating coolness was that the leftover heat was spat back out into the street hotter than it had originally been taken in. On the other hand, pride made the Ossan people obstinate.
Rather than seeking refuge, bloodwrights took to their stoops, balconies, and rooftops where they would lounge with feline disinterest, and from coal-dark pavement rose drunken striations of heat the shape of mirages. Eoran watched this natural phenomenon with an unfettered infatuation. He had always heard tales of hapless wayfarers receiving prophetic visions from breaks in the aether and couldn¡¯t help but wonder if the material world was about to impart upon him some great secret.
In a nutshell, this was Eoran¡¯s problem: despite his gregariousness, the fourteen year old boy had little interest in anything that existed outside of the fantastical perspective of his mind''s eye. He spent too much on the affluence of youth and had nothing to show for it aside from his clear conscience and the grey hairs such frivolity gave his immigrant parents.
The weight of adulthood had not yet crushed him but that did not mean it was afraid to threaten as much. Inside, through an open door and past a smattering of furniture, a schoolbook sat open on a low table, pages dutifully attended by a quickly passing breeze. It was a constant source of aggravation for his mother: that her youngest son was happy to let the wind be more well-read than him.
The balcony was adorned in a mess of laundry the Toriet matriarch recently hung, making bespoke drapes from the expert layering of loud and neurotic patterns. A hand stretched up to pull a lace curtain from the pins that held it and the boy quickly arranged it over himself as though it were a ghillie suit expertly tatted by a nana¡¯s needle. From between a pair of sheets blotted with the bright sigils of Ossa, a pair of black eyes spied on the crowded street below. A pair of older men were debating if the merits of house slippers warranted the recent fluctuation in their price. He tilted his head in half-committed consideration, but soon saw a pretty classmate across the way and waved. She waved back.
The echo of the apartment door slamming broke through the groggy haze of the white noise humidity vaguely qualifying as air. Loose hinges always swung that door in anger, always abused the frame it lived in.
¡°Oi, Eo!¡±
Kaden Toriet, eldest son of that old family, flung a stack of mail on an already cluttered countertop, bookbag carelessly dropped on the tile. A boy of nineteen, awkward and tall, bookish but with a brusque sort of charm nurtured by the boisterous nature of their homeland, Kaden went searching for his brother on the balcony. Dark hair that their mother swore up and down was too long whipped in the concrete breeze as Kaden, proud and nervous and nauseous, held up a letter with the insignia of the Augustine Institute emblazoned across the front.
¡°Eo, it¡¯s here.¡±
Found, the spy scrambled from his fort, leaving a lump of linen in his absence. His clothes were slathered in dust; gangly knees scuffed and midnight hair awry.
"Finally!" Eoran chimed betwixt the shaking of his shirt and the patting of his shorts. "Are you going to open it? Or wait? Do you think you got in? What if you didn''t? Kaden. How sick do you feel right now?" The inquisitive onslaught was given nary a breath in its delivery. Eoran ducked behind his brother to see if he could decipher anything from the letter against the backdrop of the afternoon.
"Huh, even the paper is intimidating." It was true¡ªthe paper was very nice.
¡°No more questions. I will fuckin¡¯ puke on you.¡± If Kaden had felt queasy before, the endless barrage of his youthful interrogation was sure to empty his body of all contents. ¡°Mom wanted me to wait to open it with her¡ªI don¡¯t think I can wait. What if it says no?¡±
It would break his mother¡¯s heart. This was the ticket out of the slums that the Toriet family had worked so hard for¡ªhis mother and father who worked long hours, multiple jobs so he could go to school, study hard. How many nights had he gone sleepless? How long had he attended night schools and exam preparations, paid for with the money he earned in the Llamella with his blood calling?
Kaden had always been the only Ossan in every classroom and library and academic opportunity that Amstedian kids took for granted. He was brilliant¡ªbut in the eyes of the majority, he was a sewer rat prodigy amongst average humans. A quaint anomaly, a novel concept, but essentially nothing groundbreaking. Nothing to really take notice of.
Someday, Kaden would make them take notice.
¡°What if it was all for nothing, Eoran?¡± Kaden¡¯s hands shook as he took the envelope back from his sibling¡¯s torrential energy.
"I''m just kidding, Kaden. Come on, stop. It won¡¯t be. Let''s take it to the kettle¡ªwe can pry it open, take a peek inside. If it''s good news, we''ll seal it back up and let mom have her victory. If it''s not, then your secret is safe with me. It never came, and we''ll disappear in the dark. Become drifters and never have to deal with the shame of you letting us all down." Eoran did not know how Kaden felt having him as a brother, but he assumed it was probably pretty miserable. Still, it was easy for the boy to tease because the sentiment''s source originated from a place of unabashed adoration¡ªhe had complete faith in his sibling, in the hard work that the older boy put into his studies and the effort expressed to see it through. If, by some cruel turn of fate, the Augustine Institute was not meant to be, then Eoran would give up everything and run away with him just as easily. He was a spectator to the glow of Kaden¡¯s tremendous ambition, always his number one fan.
The boy was already in the kitchen by the time he finished his proposal. Rushing water created a racket as it filled the old oxidized metal of the kettle. Eoran struck a match to light the stove.
¡°If mom finds out, she¡¯s going to kill us or I¡¯m going to have to raise you to adulthood on the streets and then you definitely won¡¯t get into college.¡± The older teen, somehow always patient despite the younger boy¡¯s hummingbird energy, was already starting to blow under the edge of the envelope. He teased up a corner for the steam to catch on. ¡°I¡¯d be the worst father.¡±
Kaden ruffled his brother¡¯s hair as they stood before the stove, watching and waiting for water to boil.
¡°I want you to try to get into that highschool I went to,¡± the elder imparted, quiet and serious in the comedown of their jokes. They were just far enough apart that Kaden was ever indulgent of Eoran¡¯s curiosities, his questions, his desire to learn. Even Eo¡¯s direct assault on authority when he couldn¡¯t have his way was encouraged, much to the chagrin of the mother that had to deal with all that disrespect and all that backtalk. ¡°You¡¯re smart, Eo. You just gotta study. Focus. And get mad. That school will piss you off so much, you''ll be getting straight A''s in no time."
A grumble shook within the confines of Eoran''s throat. Life was not a game and the youngest Toriet felt this truth tear into the security blanket of humors he gathered around himself. In an instant his lanky frame wilted, shoulders slumped, expression drab in the atmospheric shift of their new sobriety.
"Yeah, but I''m not like you, Kaden. I don''t have the stuff you have," Eoran said in a low voice shared between them only, flustered by uncertainty about himself and his future. "It''s not that I don''t want to do right by our parents, or even that I''m not willing to try, it''s just that..." He paused struggling to find the right word to express his thoughts.
"I''m just terrified. Not even about high school, but Augustine. Like, I know you''re scared to see what''s in that envelope, but you''ve worked so hard to get to where you are. You''re resilient like mom. How can they say no to that? Me, on the other hand, I can''t compare. Most days, I feel like I can see everything except for what''s in front of me. It sucks, but¡¡± Whatever conclusion his adolescent mind had been working toward was forgone.
The words were a flood of sentiment but if there was anyone who Eoran could be honest with, it was his brother.
¡°Hey, c¡¯mon Eo.¡± The older boy wrapped an arm around the youth, pulling him from the flood of his thoughts, the riptide of his own self-doubt. ¡°Everyone¡¯s brain is different. Someday you¡¯re gonna look and when everyone sees the thing that¡¯s right in front of them and they can¡¯t take their eyes off it, they¡¯re going to need you to see all the things around it to bring them back to their senses¡ª¡±
The wind-up whistle of the kettle interrupted Kaden¡¯s words and he swiftly turned the heat off before the upstairs and downstairs families started yelling about the racket, telling their mother they were inconsiderate boys, heating up the building making tea on such a hot day.
"We''re standing upon the precipice of our futures, Kaden," Eoran said with a mortal severity that clashed with his puerile vigor. "This is make or break for us."
There was a symbiosis between them that surpassed innate bonds of blood. Kaden''s younger brother may have always lingered in his shadow, but Eoran very much used his sibling as a barometer to gauge the various expectations of him. If Kaden did not make it into the school, then there was certainly no way Eoran would get in. But, if his brother did triumph in the face of Port Haven''s systemically mandated adversity, Eoran would have to start taking things seriously. He felt this possibility to his core, suddenly, as if really experiencing the ineffable weight of a seemingly insuperable trial and their parents'' pressures to succeed for the very first time.
The boy took a bracing breath. He looked to his brother and asked: "Well...?"
Letting the rising steam creep under the lip of the envelope, that dark eyed boy and his blood like a lure, knuckles close to blistering, pulled the letter free from the envelope.
¡°Dear Mr. Toriet,¡± Kaden read, his voice shaking. ¡°Upon reviewing your application for admission to Augustine Institute, the admissions council was torn. It is with rarity that a young wright with utility such as yours finds the tenacity and willpower to pursue a higher calling with The Expressionists, and even rarer for such applications to be submitted with high marks, community service, and letters of recommendation from any of the schools that Augustine typically recruits from.¡±
Perhaps the hopeful scholar was reading ahead just slightly, his hands beginning to tremble as he paused at the next indent.
"Ugh, I hate these people!" Suspense aggrandized Eoran''s frustration. Left hanging, the boy raised his hands; shook them expectantly in Kaden''s direction. "Kaden! What does that even mean!"
¡°W-we¡¡± Kaden could barely form the words, the final result of so much effort, so much sacrifice heavy like an executioner¡¯s weight on his chest. He could barely breathe through the clearing of his throat. He applied force to round the depths of his voice around the words. ¡°We¡¯re pleased to inform you of your admission to The Augustine Institute.¡±
Kaden¡¯s shock was an anchor that rooted him to the stun, agape in silence.
Thrilled, Eoran covered his mouth and screamed victory into the echo chamber of his hands. It was impossible for the older boy to know that the mind of his sibling was already piecing together the attributes of what would grow to be a scheme. It was impossible for the Toriet children to know that this glimpse of success was the beginning of the end.
¡ù
Later that night, when the hours of the day before and the day to come merged into an epoch of timelessness beneath the darkened sky, Eoran took to the stoop outside of their building. The sound of the neighborhood quelled in the hangover of celebrations lauding Kaden''s achievement and the distant roar of vocal confetti fell scattered between shadowed alleys and the dingy buildings that formed them. The day burned but now its absence ushered reprieve. A breeze made mischief with a plastic bag, sending its possessed form tumbling down the drowsy thoroughfare.
Eoran perched upon the first step of the landing. His squat assumed an anuran form, head low, legs akimbo like some pitiful gargoyle. He followed the bag until it led him to his brother; it passed, but his stare lingered.
"Hey Kaden," he said after a moment that wasn''t so much thoughtful as it was intrinsically preparatory, "Remember when I was six and dad took me to see Nana Rettka so she could see what my utility was because the blood stuff wasn''t really working, and she said I had the gift of taking? I was thinking..." The pause was ripe with a sedition that was enriched by the punctuation of an erratically flickering street lamp.
Immediately suspicious of his junior¡¯s tone, Kaden Toriet, first generation of his family to attend a college at all nevermind the Augustine Institute, strolled up to the stoop. He stopped in front of the baby gargoyle he called a brother, both hands in his pockets. The teen¡¯s ears were red from a bit of celebratory drink he¡¯d not been able to refuse from Uncle Enji and the three Aunties he called wives from the far end of the block.
Kaden¡¯s gift was his father¡¯s gift and his grandfather¡¯s gift. Utility, as they called it here. The call of the blood, their father would say when they were children. He would always tell them the old tales, the parables that decorated the walls of those now forgotten temples, left in ruin by scavengers and artillery. To call the blood is our family¡¯s birthright, it is how we send our prayers to Varonian. To pull the sacrifice from the body of our enemies, to send the viper like a messenger to Orin so that our bodies do not falter¡ªthis is old Varaket.
Their mother, on the other hand, was always of the earth, tempering the fables their father spun with her constant reminders to work hard, to always question. There are no Gods waiting around for your sad snakes to hiss, Kirut, she would say in turn, always hard, ever frugal. It¡¯s been a century since a sacrifice was made and we still die, husband. Your stories, they scare Eo¡ªlet them rest, ah.
Kaden couldn¡¯t help but smirk at his brother¡¯s nervous energy, his excitement crackling like the firecrackers still shooting off on the next street over. ¡°What were you thinking, Eoran?¡±
¡°So I have pretty much no chance of getting into Augustine without help, right? I¡¯m not talking about the kind of help you got either, where people just give you more homework and books to read.¡± Schemes were always couched in explanation¡ªthat was the crux of the sell. A small finger beckoned the older boy nearer, making the picture the child was presenting complete, a peddler of word-based wares, secrets among the shadows encroaching on their stoop-space that night.
¡°I need real help. If I can see the work before I have to do it, then maybe I will have a better chance of understanding it. Right? Well, I was thinking you could maybe¡ switch an eye with me.¡± It was the most Eoran had ever asked of his brother. He was already beginning to show signs of crumpling under the pressure instilled by the great expectation of their parents. ¡°So that I can learn better.¡±
So that he could game the system better.
Kaden almost acted like he didn¡¯t hear the request. His shock at such an idea left him without an expression in the lamplit dark, his long hair like branches of the black barked trees that peppered the Ossan landscape but had difficulty taking root in Amstead¡¯s clayless soil. The teen came to sit next to his younger brother, squinting into the street.
¡°Have you thought about this? Really, thought about it? If anything ever happens to me, what happens to you?¡± Kaden shook his head. ¡°We have to talk to Nana if you want to do this. You know I¡¯ll help you in whatever way I¡¯m able, but if mom and dad knew you were putting your gift at risk for a shot at Augustine, if they knew I was letting you, they¡¯d skin me alive.¡±
¡°What good is the gift if I can¡¯t use it to help me when I need it the most?¡± Eoran watched Kaden to see if his reasoning was taking hold. ¡°Of course I¡¯ve thought about it. I¡¯ve been thinking about it this entire time. You think mom and dad value some natural ability over all the risks they take and energy they spend to even just give us this chance of success? I can¡¯t let them down, Kaden. I know it¡¯s cheating, but it¡¯s the only shot I have.¡± The younger boy rose from his perch, impetuous; ready.
¡°Besides, if I ever do lose my utility then that¡¯s probably for the best. Then people will think I¡¯m just a foreign piece of trash instead of a bloodwright piece of trash.¡± The words were blasphemous to the Ossan culture that had raised him. To speak ill of one''s gift, to think of it as something so easily disposable, a thing that one would be better without, was akin to spitting upon the graves of every single ancestor in a line. Eoran was being careless with the double-edged sword life had given him¡ªin Amstead, and its main metropolis Port Haven, the difference between the two classifications ascribed to Ossans were enormous. Foreigners were annoying; bloodwrights were dangerous.
More than anything, Eoran¡¯s safety was paramount. To secure Eoran¡¯s future at Augustine was, to Kaden, something that would ensure future success, future happiness, future pride. Lips pressed together in thought, Kaden¡¯s steepled fingers were a testament to his stance that rose and fell like a sine wave.
Kaden could¡¯ve been their parents in this moment. Told Eoran to keep his eye, to focus up and work hard. He could have told him all the stories their parents told them both before¡ªabout hardship, about trouble, about failure, about pain. He could have been responsible, he could have made the choice that was, objectively, better.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
But instead, Kaden chose to be the elder brother whose duty was always to protect his younger brother: no matter the cost.
The bloodwright prodigy, heir to the Toriet¡¯s bloodwright burden and their archaic blood God of mercy, closed his eyes and sighed. ¡°What do I need to do?¡±
"Keep track of the blood," Eoran replied bleakly, briefly looking back to his brother as he started down the road. "Just kidding, I already scoped out a place. Follow me."
The feasibility of scooping out one''s eye with a grapefruit spoon was part of a much, much earlier stage of contemplation the boy had run himself through. Its cancellation came just past inception¡ªEoran, inept at his own anatomy, knew that there was stuff connecting his eye to his head but he wasn''t sure how much there exactly was, or if he had the wherewithal to endure its severing without waking up the entire neighborhood. So, while the parties celebrating his brother had been raging during the dying breaths of day, Eoran had been out hunting; searching for just the right back-alley surgeon cum body-modder who''d be willing to see things from the youngest Toriet''s precise (and precarious) perspective.
The path he took was convoluted, but calculated to be the shortest. Eoran possessed an uncanny grasp on the geography of the urban Ossan landscape in which they lived. He knew exactly which avenues to prioritize over others, depending on the amount of sketch contained therein at any given point of the day, and the shortcuts employed to connect them. Their destination was not terribly far away from the family¡¯s tenement. Eoran skittered through the darkness as though he was allergic. He didn¡¯t want to lose his brother, but any abatement of pace would have been a chance for him to catch cold feet.
Rounding the last bend, they were spat onto a street whose window-lined walls were violently splashed neon, chromatic cascade emanating from a single source: a parlor, in the dead middle of that dense assemblage of buildings, whose services fit for public consumption were touted by the frenetic collage of glowing-gas signs. Eoran ducked inside.
¡°Shit, kid, you do not give up,¡± the pretty brunette behind the oblong counter commented without looking up from her magazine. Following a barely perceptible tilt of her head, she shouted into a space obfuscated by a black velvet curtain, ¡°¡ORIKA! HE¡¯S BACK.¡±
The owner of that place was lumbering and loud. She emerged from behind the curtain and sat meaty knuckles atop her wide hips. The bend of her arms highlighted muscles that seemed too large for a simple tattoo and piercing artist. A wifebeater, combined with a long, scrolling epithet in Ossan script wrapped around a bulging bicep suggested that maybe she enjoyed some sort of wrestling or martial arts on the side.
¡°Damn. I didn¡¯t expect you to actually bring your guardian,¡± Orika said, eyes lifting to meet Kaden. ¡°You okay with this? He¡¯s not holding you hostage, is he?¡±
Kaden looked at his younger brother in alarm, stunned that he¡¯d managed to accomplish so much in the brief time between the letter opening with their parents and the celebrations of his Augustine admissions. If Eoran applied the same capability to his schoolwork, maybe he wouldn¡¯t need Kaden¡¯s eye to begin with. ¡°No, I¡¯m not a hostage.¡± Not having much background or necessity for flesh crafting, he¡¯d only ever been to these sorts of places when there had been accidents¡ªthen his father usually came and, after a time, it was Kaden himself who came to call the blood back. The teen stepped forward, standing tall. ¡°Orika, right? I called blood for you a few years ago, didn¡¯t I? A fight broke out at the Llamella and you were fixing someone¡¯s face.¡±
Kaden warmed a little to the shop, having a bit more bearing now that he remembered where his family stood in this room.
Orika''s expression softened from that of a butcher appraising the cuts of meat before her, to one of friendly recognition. As she stepped around the counter, she smiled, lips parting to show big lines of ivory teeth interspersed with reconstituted and slightly malformed shards of metal.
"OH YEA! Yea, yea. I remember you now!" Her giant hand slapped Kaden''s back fondly, oblivious to her power. "Ay, Lep, check out this guy right here. Remember me talking about him? Skinny guy with the long hair? The pretty one?"
Stolid eyes, radiantly lavender and thickly rimmed with kohl, briefly peered over the top of the magazine she was reading before retreating. "¡Uh-huh."
"Phew, I can still see it clear as day. That kebab skewer jammed into that one guy''s neck, that other guy¡¯s face all out of order. You were a lifesaver¡ªnot to me. Them, haha!" It wasn''t that good of a joke, but Orika seemed to enjoy it. Her arm looped around Kaden''s shoulders to drag him toward the back room. Eoran followed.
¡°So your boy tells me that you guys are looking to switch an eyeball,¡± Orika continued, leading them past rooms marked private, down a cinder block-lined stairwell illuminated by a red bulb suspended from a crimped, half-exposed wire. ¡°I can do that for you, no problem. You know, it¡¯s funny, at first I thought he was trying to hustle me, but I guess he was being honest. Said that you were being shipped away and he couldn¡¯t stand the thought of losing touch. I get that, being alone¡¯s tough¡ª¡±
¡°Hey, come on!¡± Eoran protested, like there was some vulgarity in revealing his methods despite the underlying truth at the heart of his persuasion. Orika just laughed again.
The bottom of the stairwell was blocked by a metal door and unlocked with a key quickly retrieved from a pocket in a field of many, patchwork storage dotting the utilitarian fabric of her loose-fitting pants. She held the heavy door open for her customers but let it close with a slam¡ªa crisp and sobering sound that sharpened the air in that pre-op period. Inside was sparse, but gave the appearance of being adequately supplied for the tasks the fleshcrafter performed. There was a gurney, a couch, and a light that, when lit, nearly seared pupils more accustomed to the darkness preceding its glare. It was less frightening in sight than sound¡ªbasement surgery just had an inherently malicious ring to it.
¡°Sit,¡± was the woman¡¯s command. ¡°Any questions or concerns before we get started?¡±
Kaden laughed at Eoran¡¯s protest, his story out now. He¡¯d have to remember it for later, the admission worth at least a week of teasing when they were recovering. The genuine hospitality Orika extended to the elder Toriet boy was enough to quell any trepidation he felt in regards to getting his eye spooned out and replaced with a younger, newer model.
¡°Is it going to hurt him?¡± Kaden¡¯s primary concern was for Eoran, after all. ¡°And the recovery time¡ªis it significant?¡± Directly translated: Would their mother be beating the living shit out of the both of them for desecrating their bodies later?
Orika spoke above a fanfare of clatter, the opening movements of a brisk preparatory symphony. "Oh, it''s going to hurt you both but that''s the nature of what you guys signed up for. The procedure¡ªheh,¡± said as if she had never considered the formality of the term prior to that moment, ¡°itself won''t take long, but trading eyeballs is no simple thing for a body to undergo, you know? Even though you''re related, the matter is still foreign." She hammered the lid of a jar against the edge of the counter she worked on, frustrated by its lack of cooperation. However, sated by its punishment, Orika turned and folded her arms across her broad chest.
"Since you have the blood, I imagine the healing process might be quicker for you. Not sure about the little one, though. Might help that he''s getting some of your blood with that eye¡ªyou could probably help him out when it''s all said and done. There will be bruising, there always is. Full sight will probably return once the connections have had time to get used to each other again. I can link them up, but I can¡¯t exactly make them talk. It''s a gamble, but that''s life, right?" She smiled exuberantly.
Lep, from upstairs, entered a moment later. Her arms were wrapped around a lunch cooler full of ice.
"That it? You guys ready?" Orika looked to both in turn. Eoran swallowed hard, then nodded.
Kaden, as far as a teenager going into a random basement selected by his fourteen year old brother to have his eye gouged out by the pluckiest fleshcrafter in Port Haven, managed not to look phased. If this was what Eoran wanted, no, needed to find stability in his life, to realize the immigrant dream their parents had trained into them before they could even walk, then what was a little pain?
A little pain was nothing for a lifetime of success.
¡°Thank you Orika,¡± the blood caller said as he sat where he was directed. ¡°That sounds fine. Your hospitality and discretion is incredibly appreciated¡ªI wish I could tell you just how much this means to me and Eoran.¡±
"Yeah, well, don''t get too moony. It''s not for nothin''." Orika did have a business to run, afterall. It seemed a minor few details of her and Eoran''s earlier conversation remained undeclared. She moved behind the boys and placed her hands upon their shoulders. Lep sat the cooler on a bar cart-turned-surgical stand, wheeled it to collect the necessary tools Orika previously gathered, then parked it in front of where they were staged. Glass and brass filled the valley formed in the space between the Toriets'' knees.
The fleshcrafter''s assistant was an infinitely more restrained individual. She quietly doled out a diaphanous liquid into two jars and held them to each boy''s nose. When Eoran lifted a hand to take it, she gently chided the young boy. "Nope. You''ll spill."
His hand retreated to take Kaden''s instead.
Lep kept her eyes alternating between them. She cooed, "Relax. Breathe slow. Breathe deep."
The liquid smelled like a mockery of candy. It was a machination of convalescence, a gateway made from compacted molecules commixed to form a synthesis of slumbersome vapors. Its bottle was brown but the label had been removed. Now, it only wore shreds of ghastly chalk, the aftermath of its glaringly obvious clandestine acquisition.
"Relax. Slow. And deep."
The edges of the room wavered, uncertain about the laws of their geometry. They were made cold by the spectrum of light hovering above them like a dying sun, a supernova burning through the concrete atmosphere of the basement sky.
"Relax slow and deep
The world was sinking in upon itself, swallowing itself into the slow weight of its own deep core and slowly relaxing into the deep tides of the chemical hypnosis" fighting to take them into the, absence of slow soundscapes and the impermanence of deep planate. angles the nothingness of existence lurking just beyond their world of, colors and warmth and slow and deep and relax eddied the asseverations of a clarion call too deep to be retrieved from the militant night
making their bo n e s
colla p s e sl o w
an"d
rel a x a nd ,
re,
a
l"
ax
e
q
u
iesc
ence to the artificial sleep came. Consciousness relented.
Orika laid the boys down and pulled a stool on wheels over with her foot to sit. Once Lep adjusted the light above so she could better see, the work began. It was quick, but bloody, a series of sacrificial slices upon the tips of her fingers made so she could better sew the pair back together. The eyeballs squelched as they were pried and severed from the viscous home of their former sockets, they slurped as they were slipped into the moist confines of their new homes and attached on the far side of each ocular moon. The spilled blood was a product of communal indiscretion, gathering hair into wet tufts, beading into plashes on the grimy tile floor.
And then, a short time later, it was back to the realm of the living.
Eoran woke, groggy and still heavy and hurting more and more as the vapors continued to fade. He was greeted by the blushing blue of a new dawn. They were moved to a run-down recovery suite of sorts so the girls could attend to the mess, an empty private room near the front of the shop. He rubbed his forehead, his cheeks¡ªgently. Flakes of dried blood clung to his fingers.
¡°Eoran,¡± the older boy groaned, flaking blood off his jaw, lethargy still keeping his fingers heavy, arms weak. ¡°Mom¡¯s going to fucking murder us.¡±
Even now, the bloodcaller was more concerned about their next hustle than he was about his own pain, his own temporary blindness¡ªeven though that was of extreme concern to Kaden. How was he going to go through his time at Augustine with one eye? He couldn¡¯t be Ossan AND a pirate. The juxtaposition would be too much to bear.
¡°Are you okay? We need to figure out what we¡¯re going to tell mom and dad.¡±
¡°Yeah...¡± Answer, agreement, commencement of another grift; it was all the same to Eoran in his current state. ¡°Uh... do you think they¡¯ll notice we¡¯ve been gone all night? Kaden, if she comes at me from the side, I¡¯m toast.¡± The younger boy lifted a hand to map the edges of his absent periphery.
¡°Yes I think they will notice that we have been gone all night,¡± Kaden replied flatly, trying to decide on the phrasing of the eulogy that would be engraved upon his urn. Kaden Toriet, almost a scholar until he was murdered with a kitchen cleaver for violating curfew while recovering from impromptu basement surgery. ¡°We can... blame trenchants. Or one of the uncles. They¡¯d cover for us, right?¡±
Eoran leaned back, pressed his disheveled hair into the wall. A few stiff strands caked with blood and sweat crunched audibly under the weight of his skull.
¡°I think it has to be a trenchant,¡± Eo reasoned, ¡°I don¡¯t trust any of the uncles, ¡®cause you know one of them is just going to get super drunk and spill it to the whole neighborhood. It gives them the upper hand, where if¡ if we escaped from a trenchant then maybe mom and dad¡¯ll just be happy to see us. Our lives are worth more than some injuries, right?¡±
¡°But why would a trenchant mess with our eyes? How do we explain the fact that we might be half blind now, both of us?¡± Kaden¡¯s words were low now, the vibrant red of his nerves candid on his face. He was going to have to give up nearly all of his savings to pay for this operation too¡ªhow would he explain THAT to their mom?
¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± Eoran said, resignation both appending itself to and exacerbating the lugubrious haze he struggled to emerge from. He closed his eyes, although in actuality the action was more singular, and thought through the assiduous pain that thrummed throughout a whole half of his face. He refocused (poorly).
¡°It was a fight. Maybe they just kept punching us in the eyes. Or they punched one of us in the eye then pushed us down some stairs when the other one tried to stop them? You ever see someone and you just want to hammer their face in? Something like that. If we start rumors as we¡¯re walking back, then the story practically will make itself. People can¡¯t keep anything to themselves¡ªthe neighborhood¡¯ll do the work to make the story true.¡± Eoran turned his half-blank sight to his brother. ¡°I could probably take a few more bruises. Can you call blood like that? Can you make bruises?¡±
¡°I¡ yes.¡± The young scholar would continue to be perplexed by his brother''s forethought¡ªbut fear made men out of boys. Or at least made them scramble to cover their tracks as best they could. Producing a matchbox full of needles from his pocket, that darkened youth pulled himself from the recovery bed. Kaden pulled a needle from his pack before he put the matchbox away, poised to draw his blood: to call the bruises, to color their skins. ¡°It''ll hurt a bit. Are you ready?¡±
¡°Yeah.¡± Eoran picked himself up off the floor and stumbled the short distance to his brother. He was in too deep to say no to a little more pain now.
Hands shaking, Kaden pricked his finger, a fine drop of blood forming in the grooves of his fingerprints. They sat there, hunched, the blood caller murmuring the old prayers their father had taught them as he turned his brother''s skin yellow and purple from their story¡¯s violence, turned his own wrists the color of rope burns. They were like ancient storytellers, drawing evidence of their mythology upon their skin to prove their belief, their existence, an offering to a God that traded in blood blisters and welts.
Eoran sat quiet as he was contused even if his expression was telling its own harrowing tale. His bones ached as his platelets were guided by the adjuration of their momentary master; his muscles mourned their brief loss in the redirection forced by the remote whispers of his brother''s tongue. Mutely, he hoped that the bloodcaller''s sacrifice was payment enough for their petty knavery, or else he would have to devise some way to make prayer-apologies retroactive, hide a glass body from his mother¡¯s keen gaze. The boy was entirely confident he could pull the wool over his parents'' eyes¡ªhe was less so when the object of his chicanery was sacrosanct.
¡°We just have to maintain the story,¡± Kaden reassured his brother, guilty in the orchestration of their subterfuge. Maybe in the future, he would see misfortune as a reprisal for his complicity in the coverup, but for now, it seemed the best option. ¡°The same story to every person who sees us.¡±
¡°And we have to be seen by every person that¡¯s out,¡± Eoran reiterated, bringing the point of bent knuckle to his good eye and furiously rubbing to stimulate irritation. It was the finishing touches to the ruse¡ªtears, sniffles. ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s do this.¡±
Kaden¡¯s own face, already hollow, affected a shell-shocked indifference that read from a thousand yards. ¡°Every person. Let¡¯s go.¡±
They didn¡¯t encounter another soul until they hit the main street, well away from Orika¡¯s surgical theatre, but the souls they encountered were many when they crept into the daylight near the morning markets, the vendors just beginning to set up their stalls.
¡°You poor boys!¡± Nana Omayan exclaimed, dropping her bolts of fabrics to comfort Eoran¡¯s trauma, to assess the damage Kaden sustained. ¡°Your mother has been looking for you all night¡ªtell Nana Omayan what has been done to you.¡±
The rope burns, the bruises, the trauma to their eyes,
and under it all, the tiniest untraceable prick of
Kaden¡¯s lying fingerprint.
"I met Kaden on the way h-home from Uncle Enji''s last night because he got into Augustine and we were all really happy for him and celebrating b¡ªbut then some trenchants wanted to see our papers and¡ªand¡ªand they wouldn''t let us leave and then they¡ they...." Blubbering trumped cohesion. Eoran clung to the clothes Nana Omayan wore, gripping her skirt, clutching at the silks draped around her elderly form to better sow his seed of deceit. The waterworks were in full effect. His head was pounding from the surgery now, and while he would have preferred that it didn''t, he couldn''t deny that it was not lending some authenticity to his performance.
A crowd quickly gathered from the commotion, expressions of sympathy mixed with indignation cursing Port Haven''s broken system. The true gift of the Toriet boys may have been their ability to inhabit their elaborate falsehoods, but Eoran liked to tell himself it was survival of the fittest.
The elder Toriet said nothing, his brother¡¯s performance more than enough to secure their safety, to cement their story in the heart of the community. He stared with his one good eye into the street, a sunbleached billboard announcing open recruitment for Amstead¡¯s proud military in the shadow where his vision no longer reached.
h a n g m a n
2120 - Noise and nerves - Another Ossan - The sound of the sea - Deployment - Four propellers - Snake eyes - Fight or flight - Call and response - Alphabet soup - Candy - A new friend.
Mom, they''re sending me to Ossa tomorrow, Eoran Toriet''s letter began. He sat hunched over a low table that spread long to either side of him, left hand compiling his thoughts in a flurry of slapdash penmanship scrawled onto the sloppy and warped pages of a notebook that had seen much better days. Just beyond him lingered an empty aluminum tray, each partition picked clean save a pair of seed-laden, wheat-based rectangles. For convenience sake, most people called them crackers, but all soldiers knew the truth behind that delusive designation: they were reformed sawdust masquerading as food.
The chow hall long ago descended into auditory chaos. Two companies of freshly-trained recruits from opposite ends of the country were assembled and allowed to mingle therein. Soldiers stripped to their shirts hooted loudly amongst one another; tables were slapped in jovial recollection of hardships they¡¯d faced at home, furtive glances belying any stoicism these young men boasted of the yet-to-be hardships they would face in the field. Bodies were up and down, around and about, a constant fluctuation of ungoverned curiosity.
Eoran, however, kept close to the mates he¡¯d acquired in basic. Despite their brief camaraderie, he knew this large gathering was due to be chopped up and shipped out. It was pointless to get to know anyone he may never see again¡ªperhaps this was a passive way of divesting himself of unnecessary emotional baggage. Besides, he clearly had more important things to do.
Too bad some in his class had different opinions on that latter point.
"Eo¡ªhey, Eo! How do you say ''FUCK YOU'' again?" The loudest private in his squad shouted loud enough to fill the hall, even though he was sitting right in front of the occupied boy.
"Aatoya¡ª"
"AATOYA," the rambunctious soldier repeated, shoving his friend next to him with a large fist. "How do you say ''FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKIN¡¯ FUCK''?"
"Uh¡ªwhat? What about ''fuck you'' isn''t good enough? It''s concise, gets the point across..." Eoran looked up from his letter to the bright blue eyes of the blond boy perched expectantly in his queries. Eo was a complete contrast; dark hair, dark eyes, demure in the face of such self-possessed bombast, furrowed brow conveying a small measure of irritation.
"I wanna get poetic with it. Remember when Instructor Carle said you people are all about the poetry of shit? I gotta to show off my eloquence, really blow ''em away. Look, if you won''t tell me, I''ll just go ask that Ossan guy from the other camp."
Eoran¡¯s eyes lit up instantly, apparently not as committed to his correspondence as his studious fa?ade portrayed. He glanced aside, surreptitiously searching the sea of faces draped in blue-light fluorescents. ¡°There¡¯s another Ossan?!¡±
The private¡¯s thumb gestured behind him and Eoran tilted his head to the side.
¡°I don¡¯t see him¡ªwhich one?¡±
¡°Black hair,¡± the white boy turned, ¡°There, right there¡ªsee? Three rows down, back to us, to the left.¡±
¡°Oh.¡± With a grin, Eoran shut his notebook and stood. ¡°I¡¯m going to go say hey.¡±
He was only a handful steps in before a loud sergeant entered the room and announced, with an open throat shout, that chow time was over. The Toriet boy¡¯s sigh fell on deaf ears, soon devoured by a horde of boys rushing to claim their beds.
Reveille woke everyone early the following day.
Camp Holltin was built on the south eastern side of Amstead¡¯s landmass. Situated near the ocean, it drew a salt-touched breeze from the nearby water, especially in the hours marking the beginnings of a new day. The sun had yet to peek over the squat buildings lining the camp¡¯s far side, but it lingered just above the horizon. Streaks of red clouds emanated from a center unseen, a neon-rimmed burst of lines broke the lavender tranquility of morning¡¯s first breaths with their grasping fire fingers. Just below, row upon row of colorless barracks stood in an order that would never be disrupted¡ªnot unless peace somehow came between Amstead and Ossa¡¯s quarrelling, which seemed increasingly unlikely given the repetitious marching of every passing day. Again, the shuffling of boots on gravel clashed with the meditative hum of the crashing sea.
With his haversack slung over his shoulder and still partially asleep, the Toriet boy fell in line within his company. Their CO wove through the collective lines of the group and picked them apart, directing each soldier to go one of two ways, either:
Left, where a convoy of trucks were idling. Or¡
Right, where a hulking turboprop waited at the head of a paved runway.
Like a zipper ripped open, Eoran¡¯s squad split apart. He moved towards the plane, watching with a rousing fascination how the flight crew scurried around the structure, scale reduced to the size of ants turned frenzied. Their black shadows were brisk, quickly fussing and passing around the machine in preparatory ballet, choreographed motions beholden to the wisps of pull-tags demanding removal before each departure. Four propellers lazily spun in the morning air before committing to their spinning in earnest. Now there was no calming rush of the sea¡ªonly the sound of antiquated engineering proved too reliable to decommission.
When Eoran stepped into the belly of the idle beast, he felt the hum of its engines in his spine. The plane¡¯s interior was dark¡ªno windows save for the one in the center of the exit, situated like it was built to be bailed from. The cabin was long and sparse, inner joists bare, industrial and bereft the luxury of bubbly fabrics seen in civilian transport. Seats were more like benches: long and littered with straps. The young private fit himself into the first space he saw, clutched his pack to his chest, and glanced aside. The soldier at his writing elbow had hair the color of autumn, like foliage burnt by the will of a quickly changing season. He turned his chin to check the other side, quickly absorbed in the sea of similarly young faces filtering in from the daylight. Eoran''s eyes were always full of night, wide in the darkness of their confinement as they shifted over details blurred by constant motion.
When the next group began to file in, PFC Toriet''s query from the night prior was the first man aboard.
He was tall with a head-down-low posture echoing more a predator''s desire to remain hidden than the habit of a shy thing, more measured than callow. Eoran''s squadmate had been right, to some degree: the boy in question was mixed. His features were brackish between duelling landscapes, cheekbones high as Ossa''s jagged terrain, nose sharper and more pronounced like the boys surrounding them, eyes wider than typical but shaped enough like a foreigner''s that their color didn''t matter when lines were drawn, gaze like gunmetal and ashes rather than the more familiar onyx and deep mahogany that Ossa took great pride in.
The darker the hollow, the deeper the well, the Toriet patriarch had proudly proclaimed of his sons time and time again.
The deeper the well, the harder to get rid of the snakes, Eoran''s mother had always added, constantly patrolling the outlands of her husband''s old blood philosophy to make sure her children knew sense and not just principle.
That unnerving boy and his lightning bottle energy paused when he breached the fuselage, just long enough to skim across each face,
long enough to pause on Eoran,
brief enough to keep from lingering.
The stranger passed brisk through the gangway and went straight to the back of the plane, hand carding through his black hair to rub at his freshly sheared undercut. As far as he could get from those already seated, the pale-eyed boy and his mongoose cast, glowering gaze ever averted, took a seat with his back to the sturdy wall of the hold, pack between his feet, counting out energy bars like the holy currency of the food-insecure.
Idle reverie broken by the sudden reminder escaping him, Eoran leaned forward on his pack, smooshing it atop his thighs. His gaze was always guided by his curiosity¡¯s whim, and his curiosity only had eyes for the soldier that just passed him by. For an extended moment, he studied that boy from afar, watched the shadow-draped shape of him work through his calorie counting arithmetic. He was on the edge of his seat when a specter of perception gave his impatience pause. What was that¡ªhostility? A sense of innate antipathy? That boy¡¯s scowl clearly worked wonders in building walls. A zone of exclusion afforded him a wide berth in a space that was rapidly becoming cramped.
Watching, waiting, Eoran was scopaesthesia made real. He willed himself to be caught, wearing a smile to be found in a profusion of apathy.
That feral thing knew what it was to be watched.
Much the opposite of a domesticated creature¡¯s impulse to seek the source of their peripheral dysphoria, the boy in question fell completely still. Slowly, carefully, like even now he was in danger of being trenchant caught, he stowed the bars in his bag. Folded in twain, he idly cast his grey eyes askance and upward, caught his captor by the throat with his noose stare, straight line mouth a piano-wire snare before the trapping pit.
He was two reflections of fight-or-flight in a foxhole. His eyes narrowed, just barely, twitch like a question mark.
Eoran¡¯s sense of adventure double-crossed a pang of anxiety that rang through his guts like a scolding from his mother, another ignored lesson on how he shouldn¡¯t be so open to courting all signs of blatant danger. He motioned to the boy with his hand, a fluid language of his own making compiled in a series of gestures. Index finger to his chest identified the subject of the sentence; turning it upon the stranger posited his request: Can I sit with you?
The raffish boy''s deadfall expression didn''t falter, stock still position unmoving despite the chaos of boarding surrounding him.
"Hey," a larger PFC intoned, friendly as he broke the mudblood''s predator-prey standoff with the Ossan boy across the plane. Rubbing at his close cropped auburn hair, the soldier attempted to sit. "I''m Bergen¡ªCole B¡ª"
The larger recruit''s descent was halted by that lone delinquent''s hand planted on his back, shoving him off to the next row across.
"No." His decree was absolute. "Seat''s taken." He still held Eoran''s querying stare,
eyes wide and dark,
so wide in the dark,
when he spoke, loud enough to be heard across the din. The standoffish soldier crossed his arms over his chest as he sat back, sullen and unamused. He looked up sharply at the redhead sent stumbling over apologies as he found himself a seat a couple rows away, ears red and cheeks flushed in rejection.
The boyish hope illuminating Eo¡¯s expression grew into a victor¡¯s satisfaction in seeing the question answered and his invitation extended. The young private stood and moved through the settling crowd, stepping past the shunned white boy with no acknowledgement of his personal victory whatsoever.
¡°Hey,¡± he said to the mixed stranger, sitting close enough to be heard without having to yell. He fashioned himself into a more jovial reflection of the other boy, wedging his bag between the bench and the dust-blown floor. ¡°I¡¯m Eoran. Thanks for letting me sit with you.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"Okay," the loner replied, a short drawl through something of a mumble like the word was sticky. His smirk was tucked into his cheek where no one could see, head pressed back into the fuselage. He spoke at a volume that drew people closer but he wasn''t conscious of this behavior¡ªinstead, he canted his head to listlessly examine his companion from his tall angle, inadvertent superiority scrawled all over his pretty face.
His antagonistic demeanor seemed all too willing to withhold his name, to torch this offer of friendship and leave it gawking at a seat left empty by a ghost, but something seemed to hold that juvenile delinquent fast.
"I''mma ask you something."
It was a statement of intent, not a request for permission.
That gregarious boy tilted his head, inquisitive stare augmenting his already receptive disposition. If the other boy was telling, then, just like that, the young PFC considered himself told.
And yet¡ªthere it was again. A feeling that put him on the edge of his seat. Eoran warned himself that this was the type of conversation had on the eve of a stabbing, his et tus nameless, his curiosity slain. Like witnessing the timeslown, unstoppable moments before his own death, Eo couldn¡¯t look away. He couldn¡¯t stop himself from quirking his brow just so,
ready and
waiting and
wanting¡ªeven in his red-flag captivation.
¡°Okay,¡± he replied, easy.
The flight risk next to Eoran crossed his legs loosely, heel bouncing on the aluminum floor.
"If you had the chance, in this exact moment, to go back to the life you were living before¡ªyour friends, your family, the things and people you love¡ªwould you take it?" Feral thing incapable of amicable eye contact kept his straightaway looks to himself, observing the other PFC in sidelong, obtuse degrees and skewed glimpses. He seemed nervous, undecided, ready to spring but suddenly snared. "Whatever you get out of the army, money, job stuff, you get it. Would you dip, right now?"
Eoran briefly thought on the question, then shook his head. ¡°No.¡±
He leaned back, but his torso remained turned toward the unfamiliar boy. In the stuttered space of all his glancing, Eo was resilient, tempting eye contact from the stranger¡¯s strident flickering.
¡°Do I get to know your name now?¡±
"No. You get parts. Starts with a K," the boy replied before briskly continuing, almost without space enough for breath. "Why do you even want to be here. I mean do you want to be here or do you have to be here¡ªcause it''s different."
The boy whose name started with a K flickered less, strayed less.
¡°I chose to be here, but don¡¯t want to be here. I just wouldn¡¯t leave right now,¡± Eoran replied. ¡°It¡¯s not that I like being in the army¡ªshit sucks, for real. I hate all the running and being yelled at, and how all these guys think saying ¡®you people¡¯ is a sympathetic way of addressing someone who looks different but was born in Amstead just like them... But it¡¯s not much better in Port Haven, is it? I want to see the Ossa my parents rant and rave about. I think this is the only chance I¡¯ll ever get. I¡¯m tempting Varonian with my life no matter the angle, right? Die out here a traitor to my heritage or like a dog in the streets of Holm. What does it matter either way?¡±
"A," the interrogator offered in reward, setting a precedent for the rules of their impromptu game. "If you die either way, wouldn''t you want to be with your crew¡ªyour family, whatever¡ªrather than a plane full of people you don''t give a fuck about?"
¡°Oh, so either the plane crashes or trenchants eradicate my entire bloodline in one fell swoop?¡± The Toriet boy pulled a face as the circumstances of each option grew clearer, features contorted by a strain of disbelief. ¡°Who are you to say I don¡¯t give a fuck about the people on this plane¡ªthat guy over there and his friend right beside him; Poole, four heads down,¡± Eo indicated with a quick flick of his fingers. ¡°You, and the guy you ushered off...¡±
"Fuck that guy¡ªI don''t know him. Don''t want to. S''why I''m talking to you," he scoffed indignant, like this topic, these other people were irrelevant. Eoran didn''t earn a letter this time: he didn''t answer the question. But maybe the fault laid with the interviewer.
"I have a friend who''s alone without me and I don''t want to be here¡ªbut it''s sort of her fault I''m out here at all. Tryna figure out if I really want to get out and find my way back home or if I should stay here and keep having this conversation with you."
Surely that stray boy was discussing a longer timeline with the language of immediacy.
His eyes, though: they lingered. Quicksilver alleycat and his mercurial attention span was curious now, pressed by the holes being poked through the backdrop of his thought experiment, the tangential admission of a bloodline with a reason to be afraid of trenchants.
Eoran drew his line of sight away from his companion. He turned to carefully observe the rest of their compatriots to gauge interest¡ªdid they care that these two Ossan-looking kids were having a conversation? Was anyone actively listening? Finding nothing immediately alarming had him switching back, but the young private leaned closer in his return. Proximity was a product of confidentiality. Amiability was a surface-level front devoured by the sudden gravity of their conversation.
"Are you serious? You think you''re going to have a home to go back to if you desert the army? This machine runs on blood, they''ll get it either way." The depth of Eoran''s mineshaft stare was so austere; he was endless, impenetrable, empty. "Look, I don''t know shit about you and I''m only kinda into the pressure of this ''be interesting or I''m out'' game of hypotheticals you''ve got going on, but I''d hate to get the rest of your name from a newspaper article going off about how people that look like you and me are just traitors to their country."
The Toriet boy straightened and receded slightly. "Last night, when I heard there was another Ossan, I was so excited to meet you. I wanted to get deployed with you, I wanted to sit here. Does that sound weird? Whatever, just¡ªmaybe I''m misunderstanding what''s actually happening here, but I don''t want to be part of whatever scales you''re stacking in weighing your options. It''s not my place to convince you, so if you want to keep talking, I''m here. I can wait around, or I can fuck off. You looked really alone. Maybe that was my fault for assuming."
That boy, so ready to flee the forest fire threatening their perimeter, seemed to settle down, hands finally leaving the hand loops of his Amstead issued pack.
He leaned in too close, like he didn''t know how to properly escalate proximity between strangers, to catch the vortex of Eoran''s eyes, to find himself submitting to the whorl of that endless stare.
"I was alone ¡®cause I wanted to be," he offered succinctly with a lopsided grin, equal parts osprey and yearling. "Now I''m not. You act like I could go someplace right this second." The low-raised thing laid his arm out behind Eo, along the edge of the bench''s low back, his grey eyed observation now prolonged. "S. Two of them."
"You talk like you''re going to. I''m just trying to keep up." Eo offered in response, shoulders falling in tandem with a breath exhaled. He was slipping in the silver of the caged thing''s gaze, hangman tempted by his letterbox lure. "How many more pieces are there?"
"One," the boy responded like a preparatory breath. Rummaging through his pocket, the wilder of the pair pulled out a roll of hard candies, with a look on his face that said I definitely stole these from commissary.
He pressed a paper wrapped sweet into the other boy''s hand¡ªgiving, not offering, not waiting for him to accept. "You scared of breaking the rules? You act like they got a hook in you. Afraid of letting people hear."
"Yeah, they do have a hook in me. I need to get paid, my family needs the money.¡± Eyes affixed in his enduring observation, Eoran¡¯s head tilted again. ¡°Trust is tricky, right? I''m going into warzone alongside these guys, I don''t want to give them any reason to doubt me. I''m just like them¡ªskin and bones, blood and guts. But I look like the enemy, I speak their language... so I need to be careful.¡±
The Ossan boy''s fingers were wrapped around the piece only as long as it took him to dump the thing back into the other private''s lap. His returned glare deemed the placation unacceptable, but his body language assured that he could dance around the issue indefinitely. ¡°I don''t want candy. I want that letter.¡±
"It''s not candy or letter, they''re independent things¡ªyou can have candy and letter, fucking one-track Eo-Ra-N, always on that objective, huh," K-A-S-S- fired back, the rowdy Ossan in his blood shooting off as he grabbed Eoran by the wrist and wrapped Eoran''s fingers around the contentious sweet. He pushed the whole package back at the boy, settling back into the corner so he could watch him more keenly, popping one of the fruit candies into his mouth. "And I get it. Of course I do. I just know no one''s listening to us. They don''t wanna get involved with a street kid and a foreigner. They think we''re talking in words they can''t understand about shit they don''t wanna get involved in. Too worried about looking racist to listen too close-like. Yet. It''ll change when we''re out there."
Cheeks hollowed out from sucking on the cheap confection, the boy tilted his head, an unspoken, particularly shitty know-it-all proclamation of You know I''m right clear despite the rising cacophony of excited soldiers.
Still, Eoran was radiant in his fuck you, pay me recoil, his blistering desire unsated, his understanding of the rules established between them suddenly unsure, his answer unrewarded. He kept the sweet but was doubly scorned. That boy¡¯s frustration traced his features in embers, a conflagration stoked by his measured breath, smothered in the rise and fall of his chest.
"If I can have candy and the letter, then why do I
only
have
f u c k i n g
candy?
Quit stalling," he lamented, sulking glance turned aside, "I''m never going to get to know you if my answers aren''t even worth a letter anymore."
"Why do you need a name to know me?" The question was stark, callow in a manner absent from his prior string of conversation. "You see me, you''ve touched me, we''ve argued already¡ªam I meaningless if you don''t know my name?"
"No, but how am I supposed to get your attention if I don''t have something to call you? How are you supposed to acknowledge me if you don''t know I¡¯m talking to you? When I shout ''hey'' across a base or out in the field, how will you know it''s meant for you?" Eo looked back, bare and forthright. ¡°How can you touch me but not want me to know your name?¡±
"Those are some long term plans you got." A wry observation escaped that enigma of a boy as he leaned into his elbows, thoughtful. The boarding process was almost complete and already the engines were cutting back the range of intelligible conversation. He leaned closer, somewhere between reward and requisite, hand on his new friend''s neck when he gave Eoran his hard won bounty.
"E."
"Kasse," Eoran tried, testing the syllable on his tongue¡ªthe taut K, the lingering double S. He was pretty sure he was only thinking as far ahead as the day would take them, but maybe that was a long time for some: people who counted energy bars, who wanted to be alone and wanted to escape. Focus drawn to his lap, the boy fussed with the sweets, smile evidencing the satisfaction taken in receiving his prize of a vowel. "Thanks for the candy, I actually really like these."
"They''re the best thing in the commissary," Kasse replied as he split the roll in two, handing half of it over¡ªwaiting for it to be accepted this time. "S''why they keep them on the shelves behind the register¡ªit''s the good shit."
Maybe it didn''t seem like a lot, didn''t seem important, didn''t seem like much of a gift to boys who came from homes, came from houses, came from parents, from schools and some vague expectation of safety, but Kasse offered the sweets as a bond. This was a promise.
Five letters and half a roll of sugared pastilles was his stray dog oath to remain, to always lead his tamed friend out of the wilderness the same way they went in:
together.
"I wasn''t really gonna go anywhere," the mixed boy lied as he shoved a candy into his face. "I was just fucking with you."
¡°Hmm, okay.¡± Eoran accepted the words like he accepted the promise, with open mind and open hand. He tucked the sweets away for later, slipping them into the long, flat pocket atop his chest, his heart just beneath all those layers of scratchy camouflage and drab cotton underthings. For reasons unsaid, he felt the need to keep them close¡ªeasily accessible for when he wanted them most. Eo seemed fine to let the significance of Kasse¡¯s gesture stand in the wordless shifting of his lithe limbs.
¡°You can call me Eo, by the way. Most people do instead of saying my name in full.¡± As the growing roar of the four massive propellers hacked and slashed at the air beyond the riveted sheets of dinged cowling, the Toriet boy drew himself close enough to leave his words in his friend¡¯s ear. ¡°Was that the only thing you were fucking with me about?¡±
"Iunno," the boy hummed in taunting satisfaction, side-eyed graceful, tucking the candy into his cheek as he strapped in. His fate was decided. He was in this shit now. "I fuck around a lot."
Eoran smiled. Ever delayed by his own proclivities, the boy was just starting to situate himself face forward when a superior began their final walkthrough. The PFC made quick work of the machine¡¯s strange system of restraints, however, and was ready when those boots finally crossed his line of sight.
The Ossan boy settled back for the long, loud ride both glad to have made a new friend, and nervous about where the coming hours and days would take him. He was quiet and present, observant eyes making record of all moments passing in flashes of light from that lone window¡ªthe way Kasse looked in sun and shadow, how the light draped upon him, traced him sweeping strokes lent from breaks between thick patches of cloud cover.
At first, Eoran¡¯s glances at Kasse were frequent, witnessing that boy, reaffirming their overlap. Later he would learn to relax. Eoran would grow more skilled at being surreptitious, quicker, efficient, unobtrusive, but he was always after the same thing: to make sure Kasse was still there. To make sure Kasse was not a ghost.
i n t e r m i s s i o n (concept art ?)
COLLAPSE is intended to eventually be an art book. Below are some concepts and character art Nen and Liz created for the story. There will be more as we continue to upload chapters. We hope you enjoy them!
KADEN TORIET (watercolor):
EORAN TORIET (oil on duralar):A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
KASSE SEJAN (oil on duralar):
RETROACTIVE ILLO (gouache):
EORAN TORIET (watercolor):