Ravine

2027

“Rise and shine Dickhead” A rasped voice boomed, ripping Regulus from the sanctity of his slumber.

No, I mean literally.

He was literally yanked out of his camp bed. “Fucking hell Barty, what time is it?” His voice was muffled in the sleeping bag as he groaned.

“You’d think you’d be used to early mornings by now,” Barty said,” it’s only been four years,” He walks over to the back of the tent, his neck bent to avoid the low ceiling,“it’s six”.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been a morning person” Regulus returned, groaning again. He could feel the gravel-like ground beneath the flooring of the tent and it was surprisingly comfortable. How Barty was alive at this time in the morning Regulus would never understand, he was just opening his eyes by the time Barty had finished eating his breakfast, pulling out his notebook to read what appeared to be the daily schedule.

Barty must have a shit memory.

The days didn’t change: Barty would wake first, around five-ish, and check the perimeter for signs of unspeakables, he’d then return, waking Regulus - who’d complain - and eat breakfast. After that, Regulus would get dressed ready to sharpen their daggers and reload any used guns whilst Barty left again in search of food, a mission which Reg would join once the weaponry had been seen to. By the time they reached the tent again it was usually about five in the afternoon, and they settled down for dinner.

The boys had to be back before dusk. When the sun fell below the horizon the unspeakables were out;very few encountered them and lived. Well… they certainly wouldn’t live on as themselves anyway. Unspeakables were horrific to look at, with the more newly turned looking merely ill, dark bags under the eyes and a slight bruise-like discolouration littering their features. The unspeakables rotted from the inside out. Much like an orange. From the outside, not much changed for the newly turned, but after seven months or so, just the light dragging of a finger across skin would tear it away like damp tissue paper, revealing an oozing greeny blue flesh underneath. After a year, the skin peels back completely, leaving only the figure of a person left, an unrecognisable ghost of the life it once had, now buried deep in the mind of an animal.

So, yeah, the boys were back before dark.

Every three weeks or so, they went on the move, avoiding staying in any one place for too long. They attracted attention by staying, and attention meant bad things for all involved. Attention meant more people, and more people meant more unspeakables and more unspeakables meant… death.

Heartwarming, am I right?

Regulus rolled onto his knees , pushing himself to his feet whilst yawning “I’m up, I’m up,” he coughed, “hi,”. He deposited himself at the camp table.

“Here,” Barty slides Regulus a protein bar they raided a week earlier, barely looking up from his book.

“Barty you know the plan, it’s the same every day,” He said, biting into the bar. Barty just rolled his eyes.

Another day and nothing new.

—————————————————————————————————————

Regulus rocked the assassin look.

Black, plain, tight for ease of movement and thin for the constant heat these days. It would seem quite boring, if it weren’t for the daggers strapped to his thigh, bicep and hip. The gun holstered to his back really added something, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Regulus had used them on what were once people, he would’ve admired them.

Instead he crouched to a bush and began scanning it for an absence of acrimonious plants, before picking as many as he could fit in his flask. Regulus hadn't seen leaves in so long. He hadn’t seen grass in what felt like years. Although it could’ve been weeks, days blended together. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the scratch of bark beneath his fingertips. Regulus couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen nature and not killed it to survive.

It’s the small things. Regulus thinks. The small things that you miss.

Regulus didn’t think he cared. For four years, everything had been about surviving - so sue him if he took a minute, just a minute, to breathe. He followed his breath in and out as he pressed his back against the rough bark, gun lying dismantled on the grass beside him. The air passed steadily through his throat and down into his lungs where it diffused through his body.
Regulus felt a tear hit his cheek and wiped it away. That didn’t change the fact that it was there. Regulus took a moment to mourn who he could have been. He'd never cared for himself before, but his life could have been so different.

He would’ve worked in a library, shelving books and dusting off of the ones left unloved. He would’ve muttered under his breath at how unfair the world was. That someone had poured their life into pages and pages of words and the public didn’t care enough to even pick up the book and brush off the dust.

That Regulus had no idea how unfair the world was, that was saying something. Because even this new Regulus hadn’t had it easy. He’d had a fucked up life. With parents who didn’t care about him enough to love him, just enough to hide their scars.

Sometimes it gets to him: the heaviness of all this.

He would’ve sat behind his oak desk and read his neglected book, cover to cover. It would’ve been some kind of poetry. He thought about which his favourite would’ve been.

Regulus sat down at the base of the tree letting his eyes close and let his mind wander.

He would’ve read some commentary on life. This Regulus would’ve liked dark poetry. 

Slicing the ground,
Ripping through flesh,
Blade of beauty,
Dagger of death,
Sweet and deadly,
The blood in our mouths,
The tang in our wounds,
The screams in their throats,

Their screams

Screams

Screams

screamsscreamsscreamsscreams

He gasps, eyes ripping open.

He looks to the sky, late afternoon. Four… or five? Oh god please not five.

He’s walked too far from base. He should've started moving an hour ago. He’s going to be blanketed by darkness in less than an hour, and he is on his own.

Regulus has never dealt with them on his own.

Breathing heavily, he scrambles. Scraping his hand on the tree bark in his efforts to drag himself upright.

He starts in a sprint, thankful for his combat boots as they manage the terrain, which is becoming progressively rockier and uneven. He can feel his heartbeat like a clock in his chest; tick,tick,ticking his time away, faster and faster the further he runs.

Regulus isn’t panicking. Not when he falls into the rough dirt, slicing open the palms of his hands and contaminating them with mud. Not when he looks to the heavens and registers the dimming of light.

Regulus follows his breath, in and out. Following his fingers, up and in down and out. His eyes trace the horizon as he puts stinging hands to cracked mud.

He can’t run anymore.

But there is no point in panicking, he’s exhausted anyway and an anxiety attack would only slow him down. He can only walk and pray his feet carry him fast enough to avoid any unspeakables.

Come on.

Come on.

Come on.

He treads on as silently as possible.

He can make it.

He has to.

—————————————————————————————————————

How could he be so stupid? How many times has he scorned Barty for cutting it to close? How many times has he sighed that it doesn’t fucking matter that you’re ok this time if he keeps doing it? Barty was too reckless and it had been too close a call too often.

Except the sun was long gone now, and it was Regulus who still wasn’t back. It was regulus who was toeing the ground, eyes darting back and forth as he made his way through the black atmosphere.

Scared wasn’t the right word. It made him feel weak. And someone gripping a knife wasn’t weak.

Someone whose aim was perfect was not vulnerable.

But he was cautious. And he was aware that if it came to hand to hand combat he would lose. So he was going to spy the creatures from afar and launch a knife into their heads when he did.

That was the plan.

But Regulus couldn’t see beyond a meter, and he couldn’t hear beyond his breath. Gripping the blade between his fingers he carried on walking, lifting his feet high to avoid rocks.
Step.

Step.

Step.

Crack!

What was that? There was a gurgling in the distance, Regulus decided to ignore it. It was far enough away.

He sighed and went to move but—

There it was again. Was it - No… closer?

Regulus suddenly became very conscious of the blood smeared over his hands. Could they smell it? He swallowed and turned - eyes darting, left, right, left, right, left, right.

Regulus heard it again.

When the news first came out, he thought they’d sound like the movies, groaning in pain, desperation. The sounds in the movies taking a conscious effort to make. But these? This was just the noise of their organs rotting. You could only hear an unspeakable in it’s very last stages. It’s most dangerous stages.

Your only chance with this kind was a machine gun. They’re too agile. No matter how fast you were, how true your aim, a knife would do nothing.

Which is why Regulus went cold when he went to reach for the MK48 strapped to his back, the blood draining from his entire body.

Just an empty harness.

Regulus needed it and it wasn’t there. His gun was still lying peacefully by his tree, where he’d forgotten it in his rush to get to shelter before dark.

The world really was unfair.

This twenty-two year old boy could only watch as it approached. Dragging what was left of its feet over the stones at an alarmingly fast rate.

The gurgling was loud now, accompanied by agonal, wheezing breaths. Regulus could see it clearly, with rotten eyes and dislocated limbs. It was truly gone. It’s hard for regulus to believe that this thing was once a person, it had a family.

Regulus was frozen in fear, in anticipation, his eyes now pressed shut. But when he heard that tell-tale rotting merely an arms length away?

He ran.

Scrambling away as the unspeakable drew nearer. He couldn’t die. Not yet. Regulus had survived for so long; he just wanted to live. Regulus was the last person to be scared of dying but this was not how he was meant to go.

As Regulus collapsed to the floor the second time that day he clutched his knife to his chest.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick; his heart clock was

down,

          down,

                   down.

He was scared. He was vulnerable. He was going to die.

Bang!

What?

—————————————————————————————————————

Alone.
I feel so.
Alone.
I’ve always been.
Alone.
No one to Hold.
Me.
On my own.
Surrounded but.
On my own.
Enshrouded yet.
On my own.
No one to be.
Used by.
Abused by.

Alone.