Chapter Text
When he thinks about it over a decade later, Dennis can’t recall that much about the day before his sixteenth birthday. He knows it was a good day. A great day even. His brothers woke up early to cover his chores so he wouldn’t have to do them, he slept in for an hour later than normal, and his mother even made him an apple pie that night. He thinks they might’ve even had ice cream. There’s a vague notion that his brothers snuck him into the middle of the cornfield to let him have a beer that they stole to drink under the stars with him. He remembers laughing so hard he cried.
It was nice enough of a memory that he purposely tried to forget the fact that his dad beat him that morning when he woke up late, that the apple pie was slightly burnt because his parents were arguing over the finances of a failing farm, or that his brothers decided to leave him alone in the dark of the crops despite knowing he always forgot which way pointed home. The day tasted sweet on his tongue.
His birthday fell on a Saturday that year. Sometime around 8am, the library that was only three miles away from the farm would open its beautiful wooden doors and he would get to ride home on his bike with an obscene amount of medical textbooks on its back. Around mile two was an incline so steep that he thought his lungs would collapse under the weight of his own breath. It also meant that on the way home, he’d get to pause at the very top and look over the vast plains that surrounded his entire town. When enough time had passed, he’d pedal forward and let himself descend down. The rush of the wind would whip through him and he’d raise his arms up in mockery of the birds that flew through the orchards.
He remembers how excited he was to be sixteen and how he was going to be closer to an adult than a child soon. He thought about which books he was going to get tomorrow, if he could muster up the courage to ask his parents to take him to the drive-in movie theater. The last thing he remembers of that day was looking at the clock next to his bed. He closed the book he was reading, forcing himself to not be so endlessly fascinated by the fact that humans had two thousand to ten thousand taste buds, and to dream of tomorrow. Sometime around eleven at night, his eyes closed with the promises of what tomorrow would bring.
..
Thud. The unmistakable sound of something heavy falling on the floor was the first thing he heard besides his own breathing. As his eyes opened and he realized his light was still on in his room, he rolled off of his back to face his clock. Blinking away the sleep and confusion at the fact that he had somehow woken up at three am despite being a heavy sleeper, he sat up and hoped the light hadn’t accidentally kept anyone up in his house. Then he heard it, two more breaths besides his own filled the room. Heavy, loud, unmistakable. Two men stood on either side of his door. As his brain caught up to the fact that neither of them were any of his brothers, they struck. One jumped on the bed as he began screaming and quickly held him down to the mattress. The other rifled through his drawers and closet, grabbing a hoodie and a pair of pants. A man's hand reached to hold him down by his neck and he twisted his body to bite down on the man's fingers as hard as he could. He could feel his heart threaten to explode within himself as the men backed off of the bed, one wincing with his bloodied hand, but they still stood there. Waiting.
Eventually, the taller man with all his fingers still intact simply pointed at the clothes that he had thrown at the top of the bed in the scuffle. Dennis stared. And stared. It must’ve been only a minute or two of intense eye contact before he felt himself move to put on the clothes they had laid out for him, the metal of his cross necklace lying cold against his chest. Slowly, he got off the mattress and made an attempt to grab the book on his nightstand as a hand came to rest at the apex of his neck before squeezing. Dennis understood the warning. As they walked him to his front door to slide on his shoes, he looked around. All the overhead lights were off. The soft glow of his mothers reading lamp shined through the bottom crack of his parents door. As they walked past, it reflected onto the blood dripping from the man's fingers he had halfway severed. A sharp pain shot through him when he realized that everyone was dead. Why else had no one come when he was screaming for help?
…
They drove for what must’ve been three days. At least. He doesn’t know specifics of where they’re going or what they want, only that he had to piss and shit on the side of the road as they transition from the wide reaching plains of his home to the neverending forest terrain. They passed his town’s JESUS IS ALIVE! billboard early on. Halfway through, they force him to change into a white shirt and thin cargo pants instead of his usual wear. A brief thought of signalling for help occurs when the man watching him falls asleep until he looks out the window and realizes that it’s night. There hasn’t been another car on the road for at least five hours now. He turns away from the window, from the two men, and simply stares into nothingness. Mist clouds his eyes before he blinks it away. His dead father was right: Crying has always been useless and it is useless now.
When the car comes to a stop in the early hours of the morning, his bones begin to miss the rumble of the engine that flowed through him for so long. The window next to him shows what must be his future. Kids around his age dressed just like him stand next to the road, a few people in their thirties behind them. They were dirty. He climbs out the car, a hand resting on the back of his neck once more, and introductions were in order.
He learns the rules quickly.
His mentor is another boy just two years older than him. When he smiles, his left cheek dimples in the same way it does for his eldest brother. He’s not allowed to talk to anyone besides Isaih and the staff or else, they explain. He nods. They hand him the heaviest backpack he’s ever held before, a water bottle, and another set of clothes. He nods. Isaiah whispers for him to put the clothes away in the already stuffed to the brim backpack. That he’ll need his hands free for the hike that lies ahead. Isaiah looks him in the eyes with a sadness that tells Dennis everything he needs to know about what lies ahead. And so, he nods.
..
He counts the days. He counts routines. It’s been three weeks of hiking and camping and sleeping on the floor of the woods while bugs bite him as punishment for existence. After five days, he earns the right to speak to the other kids, but he doesn’t. He keeps to himself and, albeit rarely, talks to Isaiah. He prays to God when everyone goes to sleep at night and when he wakes up. He learns everything there is to learn about surviving in the woods and how to live through the ten to fifteen mile hikes they do until the moon rose into its highest point of the sky. Isaiah whispers to him sometimes when the people in charge aren’t looking. He wants to fly. Before got taken, he was getting ready to take a licensing exam that he had saved and studied for a year to do. He tells Dennis about when he tried to escape and the consequences that came with it. Dennis begins to memorize his face and the way he moves like a broken marionette.
…
Three weeks and three days after his sixteenth birthday, he receives a letter. Isaiah hands it to him and he looks solemn as he clutches his own envelope tightly in his hand. After initial confusion and belief that what he’s holding was a manufactured letter made by his captors, he realizes that it’s real. His mothers handwriting is impossible to forge. He would know, he tried to replicate it on a book report before he was pulled out of school to help with the farm. With every passing word comes the second realization that he was sent here on purpose. That his mother, father, and three brothers all sat in their rooms while he screamed and wailed for someone to help him as he was kidnapped. He blinks away the tears once more.
That night after dinner, they’re all forced to read their letters outloud to the entire group. He listens. He learns that the bug bites that littered their bodies were covering up track marks, self harm scars, and how the dirt that was now caked into their bodies hid the itinerary of evidence of even older wounds. He learns Isaiah was sent away for pushing a kid off the top of his high school's bleachers.
When he has to stand in front of the campfire and read his own letter, a lump forms in his throat. A scream inside him is attempting to let itself out but he refuses to let it rear its beastly head into the world. He admits his sins to God every night. His mother is not hesitant to write why he was sent away. How his own parents wanted him gone for the simple fact that three weeks and five days ago, his father found him kissing another boy in the tunnel where his parents kissed for the first time. She writes that this is good for him, how this will fix him. They’re taking precious, precious money from the farm, so be good okay? He gets yelled at by the staff for crumpling the letter immediately, but he doesn’t care. He stopped caring about his life a few days into the ordeal after he had to shit with two people watching him and when they took his shoes every night so he couldn’t run away. Truthfully, when he thinks about it later that night, he might’ve stopped feeling much after realizing nobody was coming to save him.
Dennis wakes up an hour after he fell asleep that night to the sound of Isaiah crying. He shuffles out of his sleeping bag to comfort him before realizing that Isaiah is still sleeping. Tears roll down his cheeks furiously. It’s a waste of the limited water they’re given throughout the day so he quietly tries to wake Isaiah up before any of the staff notice he's left his sleeping bag. The other boy opens his eyes slowly, unfocused and hesitant until he realizes it’s Dennis in front of him. Isaiah smiles, dimple prominently shining under the moon's faint light, as he reaches his hand out to feel Dennis’ heart pound underneath his fingertips. Just as soon as it began, his eyes closed once more. Satisfied, Dennis crawls back into his sleeping bag and gets as good of a rest as you can get when surrounded by hundreds of miles of forest. And hungry, hungry bugs.
The next day, Isaiah teaches him how to forage for chamomile. He points out which plants are poisonous, which aren’t. They figure out how to brew it over the campfire and he sleeps through the night without the restlessness he’s come to know about himself.
..
Dennis has to do a solo hike a week later. No one can come with him. He must survive on what he has learned alone. They, and Isaiah, will wait for him at the bottom. At the top of the mountain, he screams. He screams until he throws up a day's worth of rations onto the ground beneath him. He doesn’t bother to wipe his mouth with his dirt covered hands and simply falls back to sit on his heels. He waits for a few more moments, wondering if anyone is looking down upon him.
When he treks back down the mountain, his arms instinctively rise to his sides to spread his arms. The birds that flew away when he screamed have returned to mock him as they dive and twirl in the air above him. His arms come back down soon after to hold the cross that lies on his chest.
…
Him and Isaiah sometimes stay up a little later then they’re supposed to. They turn to each other at night and whisper about everything and nothing. Isaiah tells him about the feeling of the g-force upon your body. How the blood rushes away from your brain and pools into your legs all the while gravity exerts a powerful force of six hundred pounds directly onto your chest. He talks about how the licensing exam is far over, perhaps he should join the navy to fly a fighter jet. Isaiah’s hands mimic the way the hooks catch the planes landing on an aircraft carrier with the brightest twinkle in his eyes.
Dennis tells him that he wants to be a doctor. Maybe. He’s read so many medical textbooks, an addiction for knowledge of the human body infiltrates his soul and overtakes him when he reads. He whispers even quieter than they already are about his dwindling faith and about the cute boy he kissed back home. How he was so happy feeling his lips against his that for a brief, brief moment, he forgot it was such a sin to love another man.
They don’t speak about going back home. Both of them know that when they say they want to go back that they really mean away from here. They mean from everyone they’ve ever known and away from what they’ve done. Isaiah held his hand one night and spoke with the same confidence that he did when he talked about planes. He explained that he was Dennis’s older brother now. Not by blood but by bond and something much stronger as their souls were forever connected from this experience. He squeezed his hand.
Dennis can’t remember his exact words. He doesn’t want to think about it ever again. Yet, when he falls asleep at night, he hears Isaiah's breath get picked up by the wind as he tells Dennis that if someone makes him happy, truly happy like that boy back home, who cares if they’re a boy too?
..
Isaiah left fourteen weeks after he arrived. Isaiah’s dad, a hulking figure with frown lines permanently etched into his face, appeared one day. If he does some math, it was probably four am on a wednesday. They were all setting up to do another hike, a fifteen mile-er, when a truck hunkered its way down a road and flashed their lights at them. Isaiah straightened up as if a ruler had been taped to his body to keep him in perfect posture as soon as he visually made out the model of the car. When Dennis looked at the older adults for any signs of confusion, he found none, only the plastic wide smiles they do when they have to interact with anyone outside the program. After Isaiah's father and the staff exchanged fake talk, Isaiah was released back into his care. The same sharp pain he felt in his chest when he believed his family died returned in full force. His bones shook and ached with every step. This, despite not being miles up in the sky and his feet planted firmly in soil, this must be what g-force felt like for his brother as he soared in the air above.
Isaiah didn’t cry despite the painful way his face pinched together in a mix of sorrow and relief. He was given a few minutes to say goodbye. Isaiah went to hug everyone quickly, the time crunch heavy on his shoulders, before he stopped at Dennis. They stared at each other. He tried to smile because he was genuinely happy for Isaiah to be free of this hell hole that they had been abducted into. His brother didn’t smile back. He stood there, waiting, and then bringing Dennis into the tightest hug he’d ever been given from anyone his whole entire life. It replaced the crushing feeling that burst inside him with a sense of familiarity.
Isaiah whispered to him that he pleaded with his dad to take Dennis with them. He tried, he really, really tried to convince him but he wouldn’t budge. He was so sorry for leaving him behind without him. Dennis couldn’t help but laugh a little in his ear and squeeze back as hard as he could as well.
They pulled apart and Dennis put his hand on his chest to feel his pulse for one last time. He told Isaiah to never stop dreaming of flight. Isaiah pulled him into his arms one last time and as he climbed into his fathers truck and looked out the window, he smiled back at Dennis and mimed a jet lifting off into the sky. When they drove off, he tried to memorize the license plate and the way Isaiah used to jump around the campfire to make the rest of the people with them smile.
After the hike that night, he turned onto his back and stared up at the stars in an attempt to find polaris. When he did, he prayed to Helios to not burn Isaiah down when he flew and he prayed to God to keep his brother safe from all harm. He murmured scripture into the darkness around him till a dreamless sleep took him away.
..
A year passes. The letters from his mother stop coming and he is spared the embarrassment of explaining his situation to the rotating batch of kids that are sent. After he prepares for the punishment of asking such a question, he pulls aside a staff member to inquire why he’s still here. Why hasn’t he left yet when everyone else has? They smile in the same way that the coyotes would smile at the chicken coop after they had broken behind the fencing at the farm. His family was still paying and until they stopped, he was the program's property. He simply nods and walks away. His cross necklace breaks that night and he chucks it in the next river he comes across.
..
Many more months go by. He realized a long time ago that he was never leaving or making it out of this place till the farm finally gave out, but the utter emptiness of reality has rooted its way into his body so deep that its thorns puncture his intestines. Most kids are wary of him, the solitude and prayers that he mutters instead of real sentences, and yet every rotation a few of them warm up to him. He notices that he’s one of the eldest now. The hundredth time he has to explain that yes, they only get to shower once a week with little water and that yes, the bugs are going to bite you everyday and night, and yes, they steal your shoes at night, he feels what little of his soul remains splinter into so many pieces that they couldn’t possibly be put back together. It gets easier and harder at the same time. The staff have begun to trust him with putting together food for everyone, even them. He’s even been awarded bathroom privileges of being able to go by himself as long as he shouts his name beforehand. They’re testing him, he thinks, waiting for him to escape even though he never will.
..
The youngest kid he’s ever seen in a rotation arrives and immediately latches onto him with a fury he hadn’t seen in a long time. Benjamin, as he would later learn, was only ten and missing a front tooth. He pondered how anyone could send such a young boy away before removing the thought entirely. It stopped mattering why any of them were sent a long, long time ago. Survival is what must drive them now. He asks Ben to find a thick, sturdy stick for him.
That night, he rolls the name Benjamin around in his mind. Youngest of twelve, blessed to be a ravenous wolf and ferocious. It fits the boy sleeping next to him whose backpack is twice as big as his own body yet carries himself forward up the mountain. He wonders when he’ll stop missing his own brother. He stays up that night carving Ben a fork and spoon out of the stick since they’re not allowed to have any other sort of utensils.
..
Him and Ben get along swimmingly. The staff only refer to him by his full name which made him so mad he bit one of the male staff hard enough on the forearm to draw blood. He immediately turned around to give Dennis a wide, blood covered toothy smile. They punish him by making him hike with an even heavier backpack and no speaking privileges, but Ben doesn’t need to talk to get his feelings across. They have two days until they’re allowed to shower so Dennis uses some of the already limited water he’s given to wipe the blood off of the boy's face. They both know it’ll just get caked in dirt within a few hours. Ben confides in him later that he was happy to have an older brother who didn’t hurt him. He asks to hold his hand during hard parts of the hikes and after a week, they start pretending not to notice that they’re still clasped together even at the top of the mountain. Well, until Ben demands for him to begin making everyone food.
..
Letter day is a hard day for anyone. He imagines it’s especially hard for a ten year old to hear that his parents effectively didn’t want them. When he tries to read the letter for Ben instead of forcing him to recite it, the staff don’t let him. He argues and argues until they go silent and Dennis remembers that no matter what he does, the rules never change. He loses speaking privileges for two days. The letter, read in the smallest voice he’s ever heard, consists of a father berating his son for things that most ten year olds do. Ben sobs so hard that snot falls onto the letter he’s holding onto with shaky hands. All Dennis can do is rub circles into the boy's back until he finally stops crying. When the ashes of the campfire finally dwindle and the embers die, Dennis will reach over and push the hair out of his face. He will pray to Jacob to keep his son safe.
..
Enough time has passed that he’s repeated every hike multiple times over. He knows every route and crevice that lies ahead on a revolving schedule. They’ll hike this mountain for one week, then another, and then they will circle back to this one before heading off to a few more spots. They follow a twelve week schedule rigorously. When they near the top and even the staff are tired, he lifts Ben onto his shoulders so he can see from a perspective even he is not privy to. Ben's arms lift high in the sky and he laughs, loud and boisterous, in a way that Dennis has not laughed in a long time.
Ben sits next to him at dinner that night and whispers something even he didn’t know. There’s a road that runs north from this mountain maybe three miles away. It’s small and probably nothing. His eyes glint with hope of escape and Dennis shakes in guilt for the way his eyes reflect dullness back upon him. He tries to make it up to the other by wrapping his arms in an old shirt so he stops scratching at the bites littering them.
..
It’s on Ben's fourth week that it all goes wrong. They’re hiking the twelve mile trail that leads them through a rushing river. The younger of the two climbs off of his shoulders quickly, feet slipping on the ground as he runs off as soon as he hears the roaring of the water that lies ahead. A few of the younger kids follow him in delight, grateful for a chance to wash themselves outside of a bucket of water. Dennis lets himself smile at the sight of a normal activity outside of the boundaries of where they are. With the wind howling in his ear and the waterfall he can distantly hear whipping off of the trees, it’s enough to imagine that they’re somewhere else. Ben calls for Dennis to come splash with him and jumps up and down in excitement as he toes his shoes off when he slips. Ben is upright one moment and on his side the next, cradling his hand as blood pours into the water below. He thinks about Moses turning the river red with his staff before he rushes into the rapids to see what’s happening.
Ben holds his bleeding hand in the other tenderly, as if any poke or movement will cause monumental pain to shoot up his entire body. He’s crying, from pain or embarrassment, but still lets Dennis carefully inspect and prod the wound to see what they’re dealing with. Dennis lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding when he sees it doesn’t need stitches. He tells him to put his hand up high and above his head while he grabs something from the first aid kid when Ben grabs onto his arm, scared. Dennis simply shakes his head and tells him he’ll be okay, just a small wound, albeit deep. Ben shivers from the cold.
Dennis tries to wrap his palm up in the same way one of his old library books said how to. He can’t remember it well, it’s been so long he’s beginning to forget about dreams, but Ben smiles up at him anyways and tells him he feels better than ever. He’s hesitant to climb up onto Dennis’s shoulders again until he’s promised an exclusive tour of the stars. Little legs scramble up to get back into their designated spot. They both laugh and try to forget about the fear of the river.
They learn they have something to share. The younger boy's birthday is a few days after his. Little legs kick at a rock in mock-casualty, attempting to act cool as he asks Dennis if they could have a dual birthday party. You know, celebrate together. Ben runs laps around him when he says yes.
..
He dressed and undressed Ben's hand for the first three days, taking care to flood it before washing it out once more. It doesn’t seem to matter much, dirt seems to take hold of it no matter how tight he wraps it. He stops worrying so much when it scabs over completely and reduces in redness. By day five, they stop wrapping it as the skin has finally puckered over it.
He doesn’t realize he’s begun counting his days in terms of Ben’s weeks here, but he has. It’s Ben’s fifth week when the dread starts seeping from his pores and taking root into his organs. So the first day of week five, seven days after the cut, is hell. Not particularly because he knows this week is the hardest of all the hikes, more so because Ben is sick. The boy won't admit it, stubborn, reminding him of the bulls of the rodeo. But he notices. His hands are a little more clammy and when Dennis brushes the hair out of his face he feels the heat pulsating at his forehead. It worries him more than he wants to admit.
..
Something is wrong. Today’s hike brings them through a beautiful open meadow with trees lining around it in a circle. It’s beautiful. Dennis wishes he wasn’t forced to be here.
He manages to convince the staff to let him stop for five minutes. Seniority gives him an advantage that the other kids don’t and he’s not ashamed to use it, albeit sparingly. Fingers delicately pluck the underside of the flower and he presses the petals between clothes to dry them out. Ben sits on a rock next to him, watching. Waiting. His jaw keeps clenching and unclenching.
..
Ben eats the meager dinner they make slowly. His forehead beads with sweat to the point that Dennis is giving him even more of his water than normal. He swallows with visible effort.
After making sure the younger boy is settled in his sleeping bag and packed for tomorrow, he walks to where the staff are situated around the campfire. They argue for twenty minutes. Dennis gets close to screaming for real medical help for Ben. He’s sick, sick in the way that he needs medical attention. He’s only ten. He can’t survive this. He needs antibiotics. Why won’t you listen to me?
He loses speaking and food privileges for his behavior. Ben is staying until he is “fixed” by the program. He needs to accept his place as the lowest rung on the ladder.
..
He rolls over in the middle of the night to watch the younger boy. Textbooks and medical information try to make themselves known to him. It’s been so long since he’s thought about his own dreams, anything other than survival, that he feels the headache incoming from the physical effort to remember. He’s trying so hard to remember.
..
They have to go through a creek today. Ben refuses to go into it but doesn’t want them to be the last ones in fear they’ll be left behind. He tries not to think about how that would be a blessing. Dennis holds him on his shoulders as they waddle through, the first to cross so the boy atop doesn’t have to have a second of more terror than necessary. While they wait for everyone to cross, he looks. They’re next to a copious amount of poison hemlock. Enough to hurt.
Dennis hides a copious amount of the plant in the inner pocket of his pants. Ben rests his head upon his shoulder so Dennis can feel the involuntary clenching and unclenching of his jaw against his skin. A spasm travels down his neck and into his torso.
..
Ben makes it a quarter way through the hike before Dennis has to carry him the rest of the way up. By the time they reach the peak of the mountain, Ben is crying. Dennis tries to shush him and soothe him without his words but it does little.
The boy can barely open his jaw enough to say it hurts everywhere. He points to his jaw, neck, and back. He spasms under Dennis’s hand and cries, asking what’s wrong.
Dennis doesn’t want to tell him the truth. When no one is looking, he whispers to Ben to point where he saw the road. Discreetly. The kid forgets what “discreet” means when he openly points to where the road lies but thankfully, no one pays attention to the two as they’re busy with preparing food.
The thing is though, Dennis can see the road. Hidden, yes, but made more visible as the trees slowly lose their leaves with the season. He can’t see where it leads.
He puts him back down so Ben can go eat his portion of dinner tonight. It leaves him to think alone.
..
Pages fly into his sight in the milliseconds between blinks. Tetanus is a 1 in 4 mortality rate without treatment. Opisthotonos is the arching of the back, leaving only the person's head and toes on the floor as every muscle painfully contracts together, seen in the extreme late stage of infection. Sometimes the muscles within the body contract hard enough to break bone. He runs through the symptoms and signs and what’s going to happen to his brother if help never comes.
He makes a decision.
..
They all settle down for the night.
Chamomile, even when foraged, is relatively easy to brew into a tea. The flowers aren’t entirely dry but for this to work, it doesn’t particularly matter. All he needs the flower to do is mask the taste of the poison hemlock. This part, the measuring, is where he struggles. Too little and they get caught as Ben convulses to death or too much and all of the staff die. He doesn’t particularly care for a moment before he comes back to himself. Hopefully, even if it is on the more lethal side, they’ll call for medical aid. Stirring gives him time to pray for a happy inbetween.
He makes two batches. One half, pure chamomile, goes to all the kids stuck in the hellscape with them. They’ll sleep soundly tonight. The other half is given to the staff who are clearly appeased by Dennis trying to play nice. He doesn’t blame them. He’s given them tea before that wasn’t laced with something that would make them experience exactly what Ben is going through. The thought dampens his mood when he remembers. They’ll live. There’s a chance Ben won't if he doesn’t.
Everyone sips and finishes their tea as they fall asleep. He looks at the kids one last time, wishing he could save them all.
..
He’s scared. He’s just as scared as he was when he was brought here as much as he is now. He sneaks around the camp and grabs Ben’s shoes away from the staff, even if Dennis might be carrying him the entire way down. He prays no one wakes up as he wraps up his sleeping bag and adds it to his pack before waking his brother up. Little brother. He says it quietly. He’s never not been the littlest. He looks across the entire camp and says goodbye under his breath. When Ben wakes up from his shaking and smiles at him with the missing tooth in the exact same way Isaiah did with his dimple, he knows he’s doing the right thing.
..
Isaiah’s words come to him with the wind as he treks down the mountain with Ben in his arms. The moon above illuminates the way through the trees and the path they must take to salvation. He thinks of the day Isaiah left and the dreams in his eyes as he drove away with his father.
He remembers the older boy asking him if his name meant anything biblically. Dennis hadly shyly admitted that his name meant hope. That he’s started to recite scripture in his mind with his older brother's voice. The place where the cross used to rest upon his chest burns, as if heated by an invisible sun as they descend.
He thinks of hope and a brighter future for them as they get closer to the road. He thinks of Ben’s admission that he loved playing baseball as dawn lightens the sky and Ben remains in slumber. And when the first car that finally drives down the winding road stops for them to clamber in and Dennis says they need to get to the nearest hospital as Ben starts convulsing once more, bawling for his older brother to make it stop hurting, he prays. And prays. And prays some more. He prays until St. Raphael makes a home for himself inside the alveoli of his lungs and seeps into the lining of his gums. Please, he screams to the above, save my little brother.
..
Then, the world becomes a constant hum of machines for a while. Not really, maybe only a few hours, mere minutes if he really tried to think about it, but he doesn’t. The only time he thinks back to any of this is in his deepest nightmares, shoved down into his subconsciousness. Because a little while after they rushed Ben into the emergency room on a gurney his airways began seizing. He screams, albeit weakly and with a painfully clenched jaw, as he throws his head behind him and his back rises off the gurney. His body mimics an almost perfect match of the diagram they printed of opisthotonos in Dennis’s library book. The sound of bones snapping reverberates through his skull, ringing in his ears as the noises around him only get louder.
Ben dies holding Dennis’s hand. He slips his hand out of the hold after the yelling had finished long ago, sends one last word to whatever angel decides to show his brother around heaven, and steps away.
..
He stops a woman in the hallway on the way out to ask her the date. She looks at him with furrowed brows and rattles it off. He nods at her answer, walks away, and tries to not notice that her heels aren't clicking down the hall from the spot he left her.
Rain decides to pelt him as soon as he’s out the doors of the emergency room. Some menacingly large storm has swept into the same place that he’s been blown into as well. Large ominous black and grey clouds cover the entire sky, blocking even the sun's rays. Drops splatter onto his hair, rolling down his face and taking some of the dirt that has ingrained into his skin with it.
Something inside him, even now, is trying to escape from deep inside and he’s so tired that he lets it. Shaky laughter bubbles out of him until it devolves into loud whines of despair. Tears break through the once unshakable grip he had on them to stream down his cheeks. He crumples onto the sidewalk, hugging himself as the cold seeps through his clothes and into bones.
Ben dies on Dennis’s eighteenth birthday, a few days before he could turn eleven.
He cries for the first time in years.
..