Optimist (c)
Feb 20, 2015 16:41:34 GMT -5
Post by East on Feb 20, 2015 16:41:34 GMT -5
WE ARE THE LAST PEOPLE STANDING
AT THE END OF THE NIGHT
AT THE END OF THE NIGHT
A week had passed since he'd gotten away from Osiris and Lazarus, running blindly until exhaustion finally brought his chest to the ground and he'd just laid there, panting hard with the snow cooling his burning skin. He closed his eyes as it melted against his face, silently absorbing the idea that he truly was free.
A week had passed in his newly found freedom, and it was far more disappointing than the boy deserved after everything. Initially, Benjamin thought he could go home. He discovered this by the first night, as the darkness brought forth a caustic cold and a barrage of white flakes. After wandering in vain for hours, he opted for shelter and found a shallow cave before he froze to death. Benji had curled into a tight, shivering ball, hungry and miserable until sleep stole him for a moment's peace.
When he woke the next morning he abandoned the crook in the mountain side in search of something more substantial - and food. No such luck with either. The Shepherd mix had rooted around a promising area but there were fresh scents of an unknown animal that drove him away, unwilling to risk it. He crawled beneath some stone in an outcropping and collapsed with worsening exhaustion until he could drag himself out the next morning.
Several days later and he'd found an opening amongst the rocks that widened into a space large enough to live in and be comfortable. Benji staved off starvation with the barest of scraps, eating whatever he could find. Leftover carcasses no longer fit for eating, or chewing on bones hopelessly. Pushed to the brink of it he would have scoffed down whatever meat that mad pair would give him indiscriminately. He thought of them constantly, if he would run into them but Osiris had collapsed, unlikely to get up again. If he was dead, then there would be a body. The idea made him salivate without feeling horrified; maybe he would later.
God, he was so hungry.
Benjamin walked through the trees with his head hanging low, feeling a strained groan in his chest. His gaze flitted back and forth across the snow speckled forest, for anything.
WE ARE THE GREATEST PRETENDERS
IN THE COLD MORNING LIGHT
IN THE COLD MORNING LIGHT
Bird is the word