Rated: R ~ Warnings: mild horror, angst ~ Pairing: none ~ Notes: N/A "He's not waking up. Oh, god and I told him to rest!" Rowen paced around, wringing his hands together as he glanced at Lucas lying on the bed. "What if it killed him? What if he did have the parasite and it killed him?" "If he had it, he'd have been wandering around by now," Joshua said. "It gets into you, eating away at your insides before making it's way up into your brain and telling you to get up and just wander around. Not long after that, it tells you to just sit or lay down and...you die." Rowen shook his head, still pacing. He had checked on Rowen after telling the others about becoming immune to the parasite. It had worked on Joshua, why shouldn't it work on anyone else? When he tried to wake Lucas, he had gotten no responce and after several more times in vain, Rowen had shouted for the others. Kyle had been the one to calm Rowen to a point while Joshua looked over Lucas' body, checking for any signs that he was infected or otherwise in pain. Nothing out of the ordinary was found, leaving them all to speculate on why Lucas wouldn't wake up. Rowen was convinced Lucas had the parasite and proceeded to panic about his twin infecting them all with it, but was reminded many times that Lucas was immune to the parasite; he couldn't get it because his body was somehow immune to it. Rowen wasn't convinced and had tried to wake Lucas up, finding it all in vain when he wouldn't wake. Finally, after several long minutes, Rowen gave up and took to pacing the room, glancing at Lucas every few minutes, his bottom lip firmly clamped between his teeth. "He'll be fine," Joshua assured, watching Rowen's fast pacing. "He'll wake up." "When?" Rowen asked, stopping his pacing to stare at Joshua. "When will he wake up?" "I don't know." Joshua glanced down at Lucas, frowning. Rowen and Joshua both looked at Lucas for a while, hoping that he would wake up soon. Rowen had glanced away for five seconds when Lucas let out a sudden scream, eyes shut tightly, body tensed up like a spring on a springboard. It only lasted a second before Lucas was convulsing on the bed, pained cries coming from his throat. Rowen shared a look with Joshua, knowing by the look in the others eyes, neither knew what to do to help Lucas. It was only when Lucas suddenly started to bleed heavily from unknown wounds did Rowen or Joshua act. Rowen tried to touch Lucas, but Lucas' skin was too hot to touch. "He's hot," Rowen mumbled, "and not in the good way." "Just like I was when Lucas gave me his blood," Joshua whispered when he tried to touch Lucas also. "Don't worry. He'll be fine." "Stop telling me that!" Rowen shouted. "You and I both know that he won't! Clearly you can see that with the way he is now." "What way?" Rowen spun around to stare at Lucas, who was looking at Rowen curiously. "But...how?" he asked softly. Lucas shrugged casually. "I don't ask questions," he replied, "but I'm fine, Roe. Stop worrying." "But...you were just convulsing on the bed, bleeding," Rowen whispered. "Not even Josh recovered that fast after drinking your blood." "I'm fine," Lucas insisted, smiling. Rowen looked ready to argue, but a reassuring nod from both Lucas and Joshua stopped the arguement. Reluctantly, Rowen accepted that Lucas was fine and immediately rushed up and embraced his twin tight. "I thought I almost lost you," Rowen whispered. "You didn't loose me, Roo," Lucas assured, wrapping his arms around Rowen. "I'd never leave you; you know that as well as I do." "And you know I would never leave you," Rowen mumbled, rubbing his nose in Lucas' neck, which felt colder than usual. "Are you sure you're ok? You feel cold." Lucas chuckled lightly. "It is cold down here," he replied. "But Joshua, Scott, or even Kyle don't feel as cold as you," Rowen insisted, his arms tightening around Lucas. "You're like ice." "I'll be fine," Lucas said. "If it makes you feel better, we can cuddle under a blanket to make sure I'm warm." Rowen flushed, a small smile on his lips. "That sounds nice," he whispered. Lucas nodded, turning to Joshua. "Can you get a blanket for me?" he asked. "I don't think Rowen's going to let me go soon." Joshua nodded and left the room, returning with a thick fleece blanket and handing it to Lucas. Lucas smiled his thanks and nodded; the sign that said 'thanks, but go away now while I cuddle with my twin' - to which, Joshua simply nodded back and left the room. Rowen and Lucas both situated themselves on the bed and covered up with the blanket with Rowen snuggling into Lucas' side once situated comfortably. Several minutes passed in the comfortable silence of the room, but Rowen was frowning. After the long minutes cuddling, Lucas was still freezing, yet he didn't seem to be affected by it. He wasn't shivering or showing signs that his body was freezing, which confused Rowen. He tried to snuggle closer to his twin, but he was snuggled as close as he could be possible and anymore and he'd be crawling right into Lucas' body. Lucas, on the other hand, was grinning like a loon, but he couldn't figure out why. Idly, he started petting Rowen's hair, trying to ease the confusion he could feel oozing off of him. It had worked, until Rowen opened his mouth and the confusion creeped back in. "We've been cuddling for a half an hour and you're still freezing," Rowen murmured. "You should be warm, but you're not." "Give me time," Lucas mumbled, looking up at the ceiling, still grinning. "I'll warm up." "You should have already, though," Rowen said. "Something's wrong and you're not telling me." "Nothing's wrong," Lucas said. "I just can't get warm." Rowen wanted to protest, saying that there was something wrong, but he didn't want to argue. Instead, he just huffed and held Lucas tight. Eventually, and what had amassed to two hours, Rowen fell asleep; if his soft snores were any indication. When that happened, Lucas glanced over at Rowen and smiled, lightly petting his hair before sitting up. "Now to get out of here and find the others." The smile became sad. "And before I infect you and the others." Slowly, as to not wake Rowen, Lucas removed himself from the bed and, with a final, longing look to the bed, he left the room quickly. He navigated his way through the underground safe house and above ground, taking great caution in not getting caught. The night was still, not a sound was heard - the parasite-infected people had eventually given up their conquest to get to Lucas and his supposed cure. After several minutes of just staring up into the night sky, Lucas sighed softly and started running as if the parasitic people were after him, tears finally making themselves known. ~-~ "He's gone! Haven't I told you that enough times, already?" "Calm down, Rowen..." Joshua went to say more, but was cut off again. "Calm down? You expect me to, when he's up and disappeared to who knows where and you want me to calm down?" Rowen glared at Joshua. "I'm going to find him." With that, Rowen stormed out of the room despite Joshua's protests. Come hell or high water, Rowen was going to find Lucas and no parasitic people were going to stop him. ~-~ I think I had passed out again, but I believe it was because of the way I was running. They had found me, the infected, they tried to ambush me and kill me that way. The people may be lumbering fools, but the parasites infecting their bodies are smart, formulating plans and trying to execute them with the lumbering bodies they possess. I think that may be why the parasites have the people eventually kill themselves; they have no true use for a useless body that won't obey your commands, so they order the body to kill themselves in order to allow the parasite out of the body to search for a new one. However, I'm not sure the parasites know that they're the ones causing the people to act like fools and simply have the hosts kill themselves because they're useless to the parasite. Maybe there's a bigger, more elaborate plot going on and I'm trying to figure it out without all the pieces together. I don't know. All I really know is that I can't move my body and it's completely dark. There's also something warm and wet on me, causing an itching sensation that I can't itch. It takes me several minutes to realise that the warm and wet liquid on me is blood - my own blood and probably someone else's - and it's slowly oozing out of me from various gashes - new and old, along my body. So the infected did get to me and tore into me with their blunts nails and teeth. I feel no pain nor do I feel the grip of death - waiting in the shadows, waiting for me to take that last breath before I die...and then I'll be whisked away to wherever it is that the dead go to. It's cold and there's a brief throbbing in my skull, but I feel nothing more. The itching worsens and feeling suddenly returns to me in a giant wave. Pain lashes through me, forcing a scream from my throat and my entire body to tense and cause more pain. The intensity of the pain caused my world to go dark - I slipped into it, grateful to be away from the pain and the irritating itching sensation. ~-~ Fat droplets of rain pelted down from the skies, hissing a chorus as they made impact with the ground. This was no ordinary rain that harmless in nature and relatively soothing, but it was acidic and burned whatever it touched, leaving behind the acrid stench of chemicals. The first droplets that had rained down upon Rowen still stung when he moved, with yet more to come with the downpour he was unable to move away from. Trees dripped whatever wasn't filtered through the branches onto the ground, not giving much of a cover when trying to avoid getting directly hit by the rain. Rowen refrained from scratching at his head, knowing it would only cause the itching to worsen and pain to flare down his spine. He peered through the rain, wincing as more rain droplets fell from the branches and onto his head. He hoped that he'd find Lucas soon and get back to the safety of the underground safehouse, but his hour long search had pulled up no sign of Lucas and several tiny burn marks from where the raindrops had hit. Just about ready to give up and make a run to the safehouse to avoid further damage to his skin, Rowen looked around the area and saw what looked like a person limping towards him, dripping wet with acidic rain. Squinting to get a better look, Rowen wondered how the person was still alive - their skin was head-to-foot bubbles of reaction to the acidic rain. Various spots of skin were burned far enough to see bones, but the person kept moving, moving with a more prominent limp at each step. Rowen took a step back, his eyes on the figure walking towards him when he suddenly froze as the person looked up swiftly. Its head titled this way and that, as if trying to figure out what exactly Rowen was before giving a high-pitched shriek and lunging at Rowen. Startled into movement, Rowen squeaked and turned, running into the rain, ignoring the pinpricks of pain as it made contact with his skin. He didn't bother looking back to see if the thing was following him, nor was he looking at where he was running, which caused him to trip and fall painfully onto his stomach. Groaning, Rowen slowly got up and looked to see what he had tripped on, eyes widening when he saw what it was that he tripped over. "Luc...?" Tentatively, Rowen reached out with a shaky hand, recoiling quickly when he realised how injured Lucas looked. Biting his lip, Rowen again reached out for Lucas, feathering his fingers over the damaged skin of Lucas' neck and face, recoiling once more as Lucas released a pained moan. Glancing from Lucas to the slowly disipating rain, Rowen heaved a sigh, looking back at Lucas. "How do I get you back to the house without causing further harm to you?" It was soon after Rowen's self-imposed question that Lucas' eyes shot open and a scream tore from his throat, his entire body going rigid. Rowen jumped nearly a foot off the ground at the sudden scream, glancing around frantically as if someone or something would suddenly appear because of the sudden noise and attack. Glancing back at Lucas, Rowen saw him standing and staring out at the rain, eyes narrow. As if sensing Rowen's eyes on him, Lucas turned and smiled. "I'm ok," he said. "Ok?" Rowen squeaked. "You look like someone chewed you up and spit you out!" Lucas made a face, gently prodding himself. "I'm fine," he said. "Sure, it hurts a little, but it'll heal." Rowen shook his head and stood, wiping his pants down before looking at Lucas. "We should get back," he said softly. "Not in this rain," Lucas mumbled, looking skyward, uncaring if droplets from the branches above hit his face. Instead, he just closed his eyes and sighed softly. "We'll go when it stops." "What if something tries to attack us?" Rowen asked. "We'll run," Lucas answered simply, grimacing briefly. "Make it under another tree." "We could just as easily run from one tree to another and get back to the safehouse that way," Rowen retorted, frowning. Lucas shook his head lightly, looking at Rowen. "We can wait," he said. "What's the rush?" "You're hurt!" Rowen shouted. "We need to get back to the house and wrap you up!" Lucas glanced down at his arms, of which had wrapped around himself a few minutes ago. Absently, he peeled away a layer of dead and slightly bubbly skin, a small smile on his face as the skin slowly peeled away, revealing more damaged skin underneath. Tilting his head at the piece of skin he held between two fingers, Lucas let it drop to the ground with a soft but wet plop as he went to peel away more. Rowen watched him, too shocked and disgusted to take action and stop his twin from harming himself. Lucas gently prodded his arms once he peeled off enough skin to the point of pain and winced, dropping his arms to the side as he looked at Rowen. "What?" Rowen blinked, making a face. "You just peeled away what could possibly be two layers of skin and that's all you can say?" "It itched," Lucas said, frowning. "Now it doesn't." "You're insane, I hope you know," Rowen muttered, glancing around. "Look. The rain's stopped. We can go now." Lucas shrugged, gesturing Rowen to lead. "Lead away," he said. "I'll be right behind you little brother." Rowen stepped up to Lucas, taking one of his hands in his own. He smiled and gently tugged Lucas in the direction of the safehouse, being mindful to avoid looking at Lucas' arms. ~TBC~ |