The Intruders

Chapter Seventeen

I WAKE TO a kick to the abdomen. I groan, clutching my side and rolling onto my side. I pinch my eyelids together, and take a few deep breaths, letting the pain simmer until I open my eyes.

I open them to stars glittering across the sky, the moon to the left, no lights pollution. Just pure evening sky.

"I thought you were dead." I hear Natalie's voice and my eyes roll back to see the masked face standing above me. "What happened to you?" She asks, moving round to my front, not offering a hand up.

I groan as I sit, hand still on my side.

"I was attacked by these birds." I say. "There must have been thousands." I tell her.

"Birds?" She asks. "Birds are extinct." She reads out to me.

"Well look!" I shout, showing her both of my pecked arms. "What other animal could've done that?" I ask her. She bends down, her eyes squint in the minimal light.

"Done what?" She asks. I frown.

"The peck marks!" I say to her, and she runs a hand over my arm, shaking her head. "Look!" I raise my arms to my face, and freeze, there's nothing there. I slowly turn my arms round. But there's not a single scratch on me.

"What?" I ask myself. I run my hands over my legs, nothing, over my face, nothing, through my hair, it feels how I left it this morning. The birds weren't real?

"I think you've lost a little too much blood." Natalie says. "Come on, home time." She holds a singular hand out, and I grab it. She pulls me to my feet and begins to walk. I don't feel dizzy, I don't feel like I've lost too much blood.

I've been there before, this just feels like I've passed out, everything a bit foggy, slowly remembering how to walk and my date of birth.

"About what Joanna said, did you really kill your mom?" She asks, her face deadpan forward. Why does she care about my mother so much?

"She was in my Heartless Test." I say briefly, "I couldn't kill her though, she killed herself." I say simply. She nods her head, one sharp nod.

"But she's dead?" Natalie asks.

"Yeah." I say. I hear a sniffle from Natalie but she keeps her posture strong and her walk fast. "Why do you ask?"

"I just think moms should be treasured forever. I never knew mine." She mumbles. I bite my tongue from saying anything else as she walks me to the Resistance doors, she opens them and walks me to the elevator.

The elevator pings open, and I step in.

"See you tomorrow." She says, and they slide closed.

Veronica has left a note on her desk. She'll be out late, there's food inside the oven for me.

I head to the kitchen and warm the pasta up and sit by myself. I light a candle and turn off the main light. It's way past generator curfew but Resistance perks I assume. Turning the light off, makes me feel someway like I'm home, candles burning around R's room, candles lighting up the corridor at 3am and you need a piss, candles burning off Luka's leg hair.

I take the candle with me when I finish, passing the portraits and heading into R's room.

I set the candle on his bedside table and change out my bloodied dress... might have to let Veronica know I need a new one.

I take myself to the bathroom, being careful of the mirror and the shower, and rub a wet flannel against my chest, the dried blood comes off, revealing only a small cut where Joanna hit me. I grab a band-aid anyway, covering it and hoping it will heal soon.