Thoughts

The Child Apocalypse: Five

Lexi...

Lexi… is that you?

What are you doing, Lexi?

Why did you do this to me?

I thought we were friends, Lexi. But you just wanted to get out, didn’t you?

Just wanted to leave me… leave me in this hell alone.

I will never forgive you.

DO YOU HEAR ME? NEVER!!!

“Diana!”

Her eyes flew open but she still saw nothing but darkness. What was this? Why was she still seeing these things in her mind? Hadn’t she already come to terms with it? Diana was not her responsibility. She knew that this life was a harsh. Their own parents had casted them aside to be slaves to the economy. What more evidence did she need to make this clear to the girl to leave her alone?

But she knew Diana would never leave her alone. She'll be back, yelling more insults than before. Remind her just what exactly she had done to her. Why exactly she was even going to the north in the first place with a rude, angry brute.

Alex glanced to her right and found the said brute seated there, the same look in his eyes as she had first seen in the basement back in Alabama. The car rumbled beneath her as it climbed another hill. If he had heard her screaming, then he was doing an impeccable job of not noticing it.

She stared out the windscreen and realized why it was dark. Night had fallen over the lands. It seemed that she had fallen asleep because conversations were far and few in between the hours.

“Here,” she turned around to find him leveling a bottle of water at her. So the brute was actually capable of being nice once in a while. She remembered what he had told her at the gas station in Kentucky and she revised the statement. The brute was more patient than she had any right to expect from anyone.

“Thanks,” she took the bottle, drank a mouthful of the liquid and appreciated the cool clear liquid as it made its way down her throat. Water was probably the only thing that she saw need to always take when it was still fresh. She finished the bottle in three gulps and started fiddling with the bottle, waiting for the obvious follow up conversation.

It took her fifteen minutes to realize that this boy was seriously uneducated in the art of banter.

“Where are we?” that seemed like a safe enough topic to bring up.

“Michigan.”

Already? She remembered the last time she was conscious before now. They had been entering Indiana, and the sun was setting then. How had he move them across the state, avoiding the major cities, in just a few hours?

“How long was I out?”

He glanced her way before staring back at the open road.

“Twenty hours.”

Wow. She must have been really tired if her mind needed that much time to recuperate. But it must have had something to do with her using her abilities to often. They usually end up leaving her in this state.

They rode in complete silence again and Alex was sure the boy was never going to initiate conversations with her even if she compelled him to.

“So are we just going to pretend I didn’t wake up screaming some random person’s name?”

“Everyone in this car has issues. I don’t need to add yours to mine.”

Well, at least he knew how to respect people’s privacy.