Beneath the Shadowlanders

Chapter Twenty: Gabriel

It's really strange being woken by artificial sunlight. I'm a bit disoriented at first, especially because there isn't even any real sunlight in our bunker, and I never sleep this close to Genevieve. I blink away the few hours of rough sleep I managed to get – I was woken in the middle of the night by the door opening and closing, and it made me so nervous I couldn't get back to sleep for hours – and take a moment to really examine our surroundings for the first time.

We're in a small bedroom, populated only be a bed, nightstand, small dresser, and what can loosely be defined as a closet, but is really more of a slight depression in the wall. I slip off the edge of the bed, trying not to wake Gin as I do. I have no idea what time it is, but I know how grumpy she can be if she's woken too early. I poke around in the "closet," finding not much more than a few t-shirts and pairs of jeans. A pair of dirty sneakers hide toward the back. The dresser isn't much more populated. The first drawer is mostly underwear. I close it quickly, glancing around nervously, even though I know there's no one else here but Genevieve. The second drawer is socks, and a pair of dress pants and white button down. Must be his "nice" clothes. Not sure what use they are in the apocalypse, I think.

The bottom drawer is empty except for a photo album and a small leather book. A journal, maybe? I take them both out carefully, glancing back at Gin to make sure she's still asleep, as I sit down on the floor and pry open the album in my lap. It looks like mostly family photos. He and two girls at the park, the zoo, Disneyworld. His mother and a man – his father, probably? – stand at the background of most of the photos. I wonder if the second girl is another sister, in addition to the one we met last night. She looks older, perhaps she's out of the house already. Or maybe she's who came in so late last night, I think, turning another page.

The album ends abruptly with a picture of his thirteenth birthday party. I do some quick calculations and figure that must have been right before the Rebellion.

I remember Gin's thirteenth birthday, too. It was a month after the rebellion started. We tried to throw her a party, but everyone was too scared to leave their houses, so no one came. Mom baked this really terrible cake. We didn't have any sugar, so she substituted applesauce. It might not have been so bad if she hadn't been trying to make a chocolate cake. Dad said he was going to come anyway, but he never made it. We don't know if he even tried. Maybe he was scared, too.

I remember mom hung these really pathetic balloons and streamers all over the house, like that was going to make it better. She even tried to get her presents. She gave her a scarf that I recognized as one from her own closet, and a stack of books from the dollar store down the block. They were all really cheesy books, mostly romance novels, with titles like, "The Cowboy who Rode Me," and "Dating the Billionaire," but Gin read each and every one of them, all the same. She's never been picky when it comes to books.

We ate every bite of that damn cake, and after, mom made us some mac and cheese to wash it down. Gin said it was one of the best birthdays she'd ever had, and right then, in the middle of the apocalypse, we didn't even care that she was lying, because we knew it was the best any of us would get for a long time.

Mom died three weeks later. A shadow attacked our house while we were asleep. It left us alone, but it killed her. It came in through my window. Mom rushed in when she heard the glass break. Gin was right behind her. It didn't even look at me, but it latched onto her right away. She tried to stay strong. She tried to protect us. It bit her in the shoulder. She started to fade almost immediately.

They never tell you that, about shadow attacks. You don't bleed. You disappear. Like they're sucking the essence right out of you. Some say it doesn't even hurt. They bite you and you just stop existing, a little bit at a time. I remember the look in her eye right before she disappeared completely. Almost peaceful. Like she knew we were going to be okay.

And that's the craziest part: we were. The shadow didn't even acknowledge us. Just went back right out the window and moved on. Gin crawled into bed with me, unable to believe what we just saw. We cried for hours, until we ran out of tears, and drifted off into fitful, nightmare-riddled sleep.

Thinking about it now, I feel tears start to make their way down my cheeks. Familiar tracks they haven't run in months. I've managed to hold it together, for Gin. I've tried so hard. But now that they've come, I can't seem to get them to stop. It's like all the tears I've held back are pushing their way out all at once now. I choke back silent sobs, willing myself to keep it together. To press down all the emotions of the last four years and shut them back away in my chest like Pandora's box. But they keep coming. Forcing their way up my throat and stinging the backs of my eyes.

I feel Genevieve wrap her arm around my shoulder. I don't want her to see this. I can't let her see the weakness. I'm supposed to be the strong one. But when she pulls me into her chest and strokes my neck, and I feel the hot wetness of her own tears on my shoulder, it comes even harder, and I know she knows, and it's that night all over again. We sit like this for a long while, pressed into one another, mourning a mother and a childhood and a world we barely knew. A mess of tears and tangled limbs, sobbing on the floor of a strange house. But together, always together. Me and Genevieve against the world.