The sun wasn't even up yet, but my eyes were wide open.
I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the gray ceiling. My brain felt like it was full of thick, muddy water. I didn't want to close my eyes anymore.
Every time I did, I saw my house. I saw the table and the soup, and my mom and dad smiling at me. It felt so warm and real, but then it would start to melt away like a drawing in the rain.
I didn't want to see them melt again. So I stayed awake until my eyes burned.
Across the room, Robert was up. Margaretha made a sleepy, groaning noise. Then the door opened, and Spiro stood there.
"Up," he said.
We followed him outside into the cold.
The sky had a thin line of blue at the edge, like a bruise.
Spiro handed us wooden poles with big buckets on each side.
"River," he said. "Three turns."
Filling the buckets was easy. Carrying them wasn't.
The water made them so heavy that they pulled on my shoulders and made the pole dig into my neck.
Every step I took made the water slosh around, trying to tip me over.
By the second trip, my shoulder was already turning purple.
The wood rubbed against the same spot over and over.
Theo was complaining, and Pritha's arms were shaking so hard I thought they might snap.
But to be honest…I didn't mind the hurting.
The pain was actually... good. It was loud and sharp.
The pain was so loud it drowned out the memories. When my muscles burned, I couldn't hear the sound of the stone door closing in my head.
Step. Step. Step.
On the third trip, it felt like my arms were going to fall off. The pole hit the bruise on my shoulder, and it felt like a needle poking me. I bit my tongue and kept going.
The cave came back for a second—the smoke, Frans' voice telling me to run. So I ran. I didn't run because I was scared. I ran because the hurting kept the empty feeling away.
After the water, we had to clean.
The hideout was shaped like a giant letter H. There was a big room for eating in the middle, and long hallways with bedrooms on the sides.
"Don't go in the basement," Spiro told us. "Master is down there. And the training halls."
I watched people walking by. They all had the same gray light around them that Spiro had. They didn't even look at us. But then I saw an old man. His light was different. It was soft and green, like fallen leaves from the big tree in autumn.
"Grandpa!" Margaretha yelled. She ran to him, and he patted her head.
I looked at the floor and gripped my broom until the wood creaked.
Grandpa.
The word felt like a sharp rock in my throat.
I saw my parents' faces again for a split second, then watched them dissolve into the green light.
I swept the floor harder.
Spiro put me with Pritha to clean one of the empty dorms.
It was dusty and quiet. I cleaned the windows while she wiped the tables. She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the top.
"...Did you sleep well?" she asked softly.
"...Yes," I said. It was a lie, but it came out of my mouth before I could even stop it.
She didn't say anything else, but she looked at me like she knew I was lying. A little later, she pointed at a smudge I missed. "There."
"Oh."
I cleaned it. Her being there was nice. She didn't ask too many questions.
She was just... there.
When the cleaning was done, Spiro made us run to the next village.
At first, it was okay. But the road just kept going and going. My feet started to get blisters. Every time my heel hit the ground, it felt like a sting.
Good.
My lungs were on fire.
Better.
I kept my eyes moving. I looked at the trees, the bushes, the shadows. I was waiting for something bad to happen. I knew it was coming. It always comes.
The road finally stopped, but the world didn't. It kept spinning, the trees tilting at a sick angle against a sky that was too bright, too loud.
My heart was a frantic bird trapped in my ribs, hammering against the bone.
Then, there was a sound.
A soft, wet thud.
Pritha had collapsed. She looked like a broken doll dropped in the dirt.
Agni reached out, his face white, but his own legs gave way like melting wax.
They nearly went down together, a heap of tangled limbs and gasping breaths.
I just stood there.
I looked at my hands, hanging limp at my sides. I knew what a person was supposed to do.
A person was supposed to run over. A person was supposed to feel a spike of fear, to reach out, to help.
I watched them struggle in the dirt, and I felt... nothing. It was like watching a play from the very back of a dark theater.
I wanted to move, I really did, but my body doesn't listen. I didn't know what to do.
Robert moved. He didn't hesitate. He swung Pritha onto his back like her weight was nothing.
Theo and Margaretha grabbed Agni's arms, pulling him up, murmuring words of comfort that sounded like static in my ears.
They were a living, breathing thing that pulled together when someone broke.
And I was just a ghost standing in the middle of the road.
I felt the gap between us grow wider than the forest. They were survivors, but I was something else. I was a hollow space where a boy named Rick used to be.
I didn't join them. I just picked up my bag, the strap biting into my raw shoulder, and started walking. I didn't look back.
If I looked back, I might see the ghosts of my own family standing there, wondering why I was the only one who didn't know how to reach out.
Spiro gave us all heavy bags to carry back. The straps dug right into my bruised shoulders. Halfway home, my stomach turned over.
I had to stop and throw up on the side of the road. It tasted sour and burned my throat.
"You should…" Theo started to say, looking worried.
"I'm fine," I snapped.
I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, picked up the bag, and started walking again. Each step was a new kind of hurt.
But I liked it. If I stayed in the pain, I didn't have to think about the dining table. I didn't have to think about the soup. I don't have to see Frans, Father, and Mother in pain again.
I didn't have to see my parents disappear again.