Page 47 of Envious Of Fire
Silence persists between them as the tension prickles in the air. 987’s foot bounces in place, anxious. 100 and 77, the stoic ones, keep exchanging increasingly irritated looks.
Kaleb sighs. In the tiniest of voices, he asks himself, “Is it really so bad, living here?” When he looks up, he finds with a start that he’s captured everyone’s attention. “Sorry,” he says ina panic. “I … I just meant—I mean, they’ve been good to us.”
“Not this again,” groans 987, mortified.
The harsh-faced 77 stares down Kaleb with eyes that could peel him down to the bone. “Good to us?” he snaps. “You think your ass is staying at some five-star resort? Good to us?” He steps forward. “They bit my mother’s face off, right in front of me. They bit off her face and drank from her skull, laughing. I can still see the blood in their teeth. 100?” he then says with a thumb at his wide, muscled friend. “They stole his baby straight out of her crib, sank teeth into her belly, sucked her dry like she was nothing but a goddamned nectarine and tossed her lifeless remains aside, then came after him next. Good to us?” His eyes rage, as if he would spill tears were there any left.
“They killed my parents,” says the nurse simply.
304 glances at the nurse heavily, then adds, “My childhood friend Anya.” She says no more. “I witnessed a murder,” adds her boyfriend, his eyes going far away, as if reliving it. “One ofthemgot to someone in an alley behind the bank. Didn’t even know the guy, but I was a witness. The next thing I knew …”
“We’ve all got our stories,” says 987. “The point is, man, we’re prisoners here, prisoners without sentences, and it’s time we take our lives back into our own hands.”
“But they …” Kaleb shakes his head. “They never hurt me. I didn’t witness any murder. I wasn’t attacked. Actually …” He lowers his eyes. “My house was on fire … and they saved me.”
His words bring all the others to silence.
When he looks up, he finds the nurse staring at him in an especially unique way, squinting, studying him with interest. It only seems to be her reaction that Kaleb notices, not the others.
It’s 77 who sighs, breaking the silence. “There’s no time for this shit. Come on, guys, let’s fucking move. The window’s closing. Now or never.”
304 glances at the elevator again, her eyes heavy, then sighsand gestures impatiently at the nurse. Her boyfriend smiles, relieved. Soon, everyone is moving again, the nurse leading the way with 77 next to her, his harsh face creased and sweaty. It appears Kaleb’s protests have been entirely swept aside in favor of the group’s decision to continue with the escape plan. With a growing sense of despair, he watches as door after door passes them by, all the doors the same, all the walls. When yet a third identical elevator is seen, the nurse pushes them onward. The fourth elevator comes, and everyone knows better than to ask.
Kaleb’s foot catches something, he trips, flies to the floor, his arms still bound to his side by the blanket so tightly that he can’t stop his own fall. He winces in pain as he struggles to rise from the floor, his right knee having taken the impact.
“Up, up,” 987 hisses, not wanting to fall behind. “Let’s go.” Twice Kaleb tries to stand, but the blanket catches his feet and causes him to tumble back to the floor. “What’s with you?” 987 helps him by unraveling the blanket from his body and flinging it aside, likely figuring it to have served its purpose in forcing Kaleb’s choice to leave. “We gotta go. Move your legs, go, go.”
“My knee,” Kaleb groans, limping.
“Ignore it, fucking ignore it, this is the rest of our lives we are running toward, let’s go!”
But as 987 and Kaleb hurry forward, they find the rest of the group farther ahead than expected. Kaleb tries to keep up with 987, but his knee causes him to run at a greatly diminished speed, and 987 seems unwilling to race ahead of him. “Guys, we are coming, slow down!” 987 whispers as loudly as he can, but the only one who peers back is 303 at the tail, appearing more annoyed than concerned, and not one of them stops.
It isn’t long before they fall too far behind to even see the others. “They’re just up ahead,” says 987 encouragingly. “Keep moving those feet, fast as you can. We’re about to come up to another fake elevator.”
But instead of an elevator, they find themselves arriving at an intersection they haven’t yet encountered. Every hall looks the same—poorly-lit, avocado-green walls, and reflective floors that catch every stray bit of light. Everything is eerie suddenly. Whatever beauty and wonder that Kaleb saw earlier is gone.
“I caused us to fall behind,” sighs Kaleb.
“Nah, don’t worry,” 987 insists. “I remember the directions from what 77 said last night. There’s a staircase. It leads to a loading bay, where the nurse is supposed to open a hidden door or something.”
“It’s my fault …”
“This way,” decides 987, and the two head down a hallway.
Unlike before, the farther they go, the less familiar things become, until suddenly Kaleb can’t determine whether it’s a hospital they’re navigating, or an abandoned shopping mall, or a warehouse, or an old haunted house. The walls are no longer green, but Kaleb can’t properly say what they are. Blue? Purple and white? Pale yellow? The ceiling is sometimes so low, Kaleb fights an instinct to crouch, then sometimes incredibly high.
“Hey, look!” 987 points ahead. “See that? Stairs!”
“We can still turn back,” says Kaleb. “Just head back there, back to the elevator, it’d be so easy …”
987 faces him, at once turning harsh. “I amnotgoing back. I would rather fuckingdie—”
“Don’t say that! You’re one of my only friends here. I just want things to go back to how they were, when we were all—”
“Happy?” 987 grabs Kaleb’s face and brings it close, voice tender again. “I want us to be happy, too … and that’s why we havegotto get thefuckoutta this place—together. San Diego. The bakery. Our dream.” 987 throws an arm over Kaleb’s back. “Lean on me, man. Let me help you up the steps.”
Kaleb limps by his side, every step lanced with pain, every thought twisted with worry. When they reach the wide stairs thatseem to stretch on countlessly, he can barely keep up as the steps meet his feet. He tries to hop on one leg, but he’s out of breath from all of the running and can barely keep balance. “Come on, you got this,” says 987, yet the faster Kaleb tries to move his feet, the less they cooperate. His knee throbs, never once letting him forget its pain. “One more step. Up, another, yeah, good. Another, let’s go, let’s go …”
