May 20, 2019

Leo Kelly

Between the little food I had that day, and the complete lack of sleep, I just managed to carry the girl out of the kitchen and into the main room of the house. I don’t know if they saw me getting in here, but I had no confidence the glass on that door would hold if they did. So, once I moved the girl to the couch, I grabbed my sword and leaned against the door and waited. It was quiet. Quiet enough I could hear the tattered leather grip squeak as I tightened my hold on my sword even more.

Stupid, cheap, knockoff weeb shit!

One of the first things I had to do after I found this thing was re-string the lace that made up the grip. Then, I had to actually sharpen the damn thing and doing that in silence was harder than I thought it would be. Using one of those fancy metal stick things that they sell with the way too expensive knives wasn’t easy in the slightest.

I waited a few more minutes with my ear against the door before I decided it was safe. After putting my sword down on the faux-granite counter, I opened the fridge. It was almost a shock that the light didn’t come on. But I guess, there’s no telling what you’ll find weird after everything goes to shit. I grabbed half a bag of pepperoni sticks hidden beneath half a metric ton of vegetables.

I decided that I'd rather get sick off the processed stuff, shit for two-weeks straight, then actually get sick from veggies gone bad. The faint stench told me it was the right decision not to risk it, anyway.

I grabbed my sword and made my way back to the main room. I found a comfortable seat across from the couch where I dumped the girl. I had never seen someone that looked as young as she did need an oxygen tank, but there it was anyway. Just looking at her, she looked like she couldn’t have been much older than seventeen, maybe eighteen? And that was being generous. Not to mention that the oxygen tank felt heavier than she did. But I guess she did say that she had a weapon.

After I finished the first three pepperoni sticks, I tried my best to start pacing myself. The food I had in my hands was probably more than enough for the girl if she rationed herself, and here I was eating half of her supply without so much as a “please” or a “thank you.” I grabbed one more and returned the bag to the fridge.

After sitting back down again, I tried to sleep. I was more than exhausted enough to sleep standing up if I had to.

I waited fifteen minutes before I found out I couldn’t sleep. The noise outside didn’t really help. So, I decided to get up and walk around the house. Maybe a patrol or two would calm me down. Level off the adrenaline.

On my first patrol of the house, I didn’t notice much. There was the lingering feeling that some crazy might pop out from behind a closed door or something. After my first once-over, I slowed down and took a real look.

It was odd. I couldn’t help but notice that there weren’t any photos of the girl on the couch.

The woman in the photos was beautiful though. Long legs, curly blonde hair, and perfect turquoise eyes paired with her “I know I'm hot” expression a little too well. It all came together to make me feel almost uncomfortable. I found myself looking at her, anyways. It was a welcomed distraction from staring at the back door, and it felt significantly less awkward than staring at the unconscious girl on the couch.

It still didn’t stop me from looking at her though. It was curiosity more than anything else that kept me coming back to her. I also felt kind of lonely in this manicured semi-punk, semi-suburban, rural middle-class temple. I guess that’s why I was so drawn to the girl, something about her told me I wasn’t as alone as I felt and maybe she could understand. It was easy to look at her oxygen tank and see her as a kindred spirit—someone who’s been the odd one out—but maybe that was just wishful thinking. I guess that was assuming that when all of this was over, there was some sort of normal for us to compare ourselves to.

As the sun began to rise outside, and they got more active, I found myself wanting to fall even further from my own reality and discover more of her’s. As far as I could tell, my initial guess was dead on—she didn’t live here. The house belonged to the model or someone obsessed enough to hang pictures of her everywhere. The big blue oxygen tank in the second bedroom upstairs told me that, at the very least, the girl was staying here but everything else—the still packed suitcase included—told me it hadn’t been for long. After my third strafe around the house, I decided there was nowhere better for me than sitting across from her. Poking around in other people’s things was bringing back bad memories. So, the cracked leather armchair became my best option.

No matter how many times I forced myself to look away, my eyes kept wandering back to her. Sleeping on the couch, she seemed so calm and tranquil. I could imagine her eyes, wide, glassy, and serene—doll-like—like all the shit that was happening around us, wasn’t really happening to her. That she was unchanging despite everything else.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as the girl’s eyes began to open. As they did though, the illusion about her disappeared as well because as her eyes opened, so did her mouth. Then, the silence that had hung in the room like grains of dust exploded when she gasped for air. Her ragged breathing from before was now a completely different beast. I was on my feet within the second, but it was like she was drowning on land and I was powerless to do anything about it.

In all the chaos around the girl, I couldn’t help but realize just how right I was. The glazed, barely-there look about her made her seem even more like a doll, that was until her arms began to move frantically. She searched for something, and whether it was the panic or lack of sleep, it took me several seconds to realize what she needed. Her oxygen.

I grabbed the tank from the ground. My first instinct was to show it to her.

I felt like I was just waving the tank in the flailing girl’s face, not so much helping her do anything with it. So, feeling like a massive moron, I turned the top back to myself and started looking at it. The knob was there, so I twisted it. No change. Okay, there was a gauge, but the needle was in the middle. Looking back at the girl again, the panic in her eyes made me panic even more.

“Uhhh. Ahhh!” I tapped the gauge and suddenly, the needle dropped to the dark red area at the bottom.

Oh!

I dropped the tank a little too hard on the ground. Then I bolted for, and practically leap up, the long set of stairs. I got to the top in less than two seconds flat. Down the hallway, I skidded to a stop in the room with the big blue oxygen tank. I dismissed the five-foot tank as an option right away. I ran to the bedside and looked around instead. Beside the bed, there was a pair of green tanks, a smaller one and one identical to the tank downstairs sitting inside a carrying bag, as well as a tangle of other medical looking crap.

I grabbed the bag with the bigger tank in it and turned around towards the hallway.

I thanked God that my old bad habits may have just saved this girl.

As I came to a screeching halt beside the couch, I grabbed the empty tank and looked it over. I saw where the thin plastic tubing connected the girl to the tank, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to take it out without breaking it.

She closed her mouth and glared at me before she quickly pulled on a small metal ring where the tubing met the tank. Understanding what she was doing, I dropped the tank again and held up the full one for her. With a practiced motion, she slammed the metal ring into the corresponding cylinder on the tank’s top. I spun the knob on the side, and a few seconds later, the girl started to breathe deeply.

“Holy shit,” I said, “that was fucking stressful, wasn’t it?”

As the girl sucked air in through her nose, she kept her mouth closed. That was probably for the best since she wore the same deadly glare as before. A few stressful minutes later, she seemed to have finally caught her breath.

“Who the hell are you?”

“You can call me Kelly,” I said as I extended my hand out to her. Because of the way I squatted down beside her, the small gesture threw me slightly off balance.

“What the hell are you doing in my house, Kelly?”

I retracted my hand. “Saving your ungrateful ass it seems. Holy shit! I thought I was being nice.”

“Yeah, mister nice-guy, knocks the fuck out of me the moment I decide to help him. Thanks for the headache, by the way.”

“Well, fuck me! I didn’t mean to but by all means, feel free to crucify me. Want me to carry you and the cross or what?” The girl sat up on the couch and looked back towards the ever brightening kitchen.

“Carry me? You probably weigh as much as I do!”

I shook my head. “You highschool kids are all the same. Ungrateful as all hell.”

Surprisingly, this elicited a cracked smile from her, followed by a small high-pitched laugh.

“A highschooler? Me?” The girl snorted as I nodded, confused. “Is that what I look like to you? Maybe that’s why nobody at O’Brian’s wanted to take me home the other night!”

“O’Brian’s? You were at the bar? The night all that shit went down?” The girl’s laughter quieted down quickly.

“Yeah, but not when everything happened. A friend of mine was there though. Do you know what happened?”

“A bunch of them showed up and caused a fuckin’ riot, that’s what,” I said, trying to quiet the howling screams of that night from my memory.

“Them? The junkies?”

I scoffed. “They ain’t fucking junkies.” And I would know. “I don’t know what the fuck they are, but they ain’t fucking that.” For the first time in days, I felt anger. Real, white-hot anger. And it was all aimed at this girl with an oxygen tank, sitting helplessly on a couch.

What a fucking joke I’ve become, haven’t I?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” The girl began.

“No, I’m sorry. Just… just know that they’re not just junkies, or whatever you thought. They’re sick. There’s something else going on here.”

“Okay.” The girl looked around. Her eyes settled behind me and quickly grew wide. She was looking at my sword sitting on the coffee table. I backed up quickly and grabbed the sword.

That just makes you look like you’re going to kill her.

Immediately, I stepped over the coffee table, away from her. I stumbled until I found the brick fireplace mantle and left my sword there.

“See. I’m not dangerous,” I said, moving far from her. And the sword.

“Alright.” She said as she turned her body, putting her feet on the floor.

Smooth move, dumbass! First, you slammed a door in her face and then you went for your sword, she probably thinks this is some sort of freaky B&E situation.

“No, seriously, I’m not. That thing with the door and the sword were just accidents.”

“Sure.” She said as she grabbed her bag and put the tank inside of it. In a quick motion, she had the bag on her back with the front strap fastened on tight.

She was ready to run.

“Okay. Okay! Let’s just calm down.” I said as I walked into the corner of the room. Any further from her and my sword, I’d have to sink into the wall.

“I’m calm.” She said. Her eyes flicked back and forth between me and my sword.

Think about it, what would the cops get you to do?

Instantly, I sat down on the ground, cross-legged with my hands on my head.

Seeing the opportunity, the girl darted across the room for the sword. To my surprise, she easily took the blade out of the scabbard, losing the flimsy plastic and wood on the couch. She pointed the tip of the sword at me, holding it in two hands.

“Feel better now?” I asked.

“Not really.” She said, shifting her grip. I couldn’t help but notice that even the little bit of movement had left her panting slightly.

“I’m Kelly, by the way.”

Didn’t you already tell her?

“You said that already.”

Shit. “Well, usually, this is where people would introduce themselves.” The girl chewed on her bottom lip as she thought. It was at this moment I realized just how wrong I had been about her eyes. The glassy look I was so sure they’d have was nowhere to be seen as she eyed me down. Nothing but cool. Calm. Intensity.

“Fine.” She said, lowering the sword. “My name’s Eury.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” I said, still trying to maintain the same faux-genuine tone I had perfected working at the clinic.

“Don’t do anything stupid. Alright?” She said as she walked away from me, still holding the sword.

“I’ll do my best.”