Drip

“Well, if that’s your decision.”

The knife glints in the flickering fluorescent light.

“Let me know if you change your mind.”   

It sinks to the hilt into his gut, slow and deep and deliberate.

Retreating footsteps. They pause.

“I wouldn’t wait too long, though. If I were you.”

Hinges creak as the door swings open and shut.

And there is nothing left but pained gasps, shallow breaths, and the slow drip of blood.

****************************************************************************

“Have fun in there?”

Avia’s waiting for her outside. She leans, arms crossed, against the dark van they drove here in, parked neatly in a bay in the corner. The image reeks of mundanity, a distorted memory from an era long gone. This could have been them, then: waiting in car parks; spending long days together, days that stretched into weeks into months; enjoying each other’s presence even as they feigned constant indifference to it, sniping away as if there was anywhere else they’d rather be. Living in a world imperfect, but uncorrupted.

Avia is feigning indifference, and they are in a car park, and the world is imperfect. But there her eyes would be warm and bright, and there their van wouldn’t be the sole vehicle around and they the only people, and nowhere there would they ever think that a dying man sat behind them in the small room full of paying machines and lift doors.

Her chosen pose is casual, but her body is tight with tension, frozen in a way independent of the chill of the northerly wind. She slouches as if the curve of her spine was cast in iron, the tempered blade of a sickle. 

Diya looks over her best friend and takes it all in, and thinks, ‘I’ve lost her’.

Distantly, she thinks that thought should shock her more.

Avia still has an expectant eyebrow raised. Diya hasn’t answered her yet. She gives herself a mental shakedown and strides forward. “Don’t ask stupid questions.” She makes to walk to the backdoor of the van.

Avia steps out, blocking her way. The action isn’t aggressive, but it is deliberate, and she steps out again when Diya tries to move around her, planting her feet, one behind the other.

Diya halts. The mood is still outwardly civil, if cool - it’s been cool between them for a while now - and she’d prefer to keep it that way. She thinks she knows what Avia wants, but she doesn’t know how far she’s willing to go to get it, and she doesn’t want to find out.

Avia’s arms are still folded over her stomach. Diya digs her thumbs further into her pockets, palms resting on damp denim as she forces her hands not to curl into fists . They stand mere inches apart, close enough that Diya can feel every exhale disturb her curls, that she could just tilt her head slightly and rest her forehead against Avia’s shoulder, as she has done so many times.

She dares not move.

Not forwards nor back. Neither do, both unwilling to admit that something is wrong, that somewhere something has changed, and both knowing that doing so is long overdue.

She hears Avia sigh somewhere above her. She doesn’t look. 

And then the air cools ever so slightly as Avia leans away, shifting her weight to her back leg. 

“Learn anything?”

It’s not an olive branch. It’s barely a drifting leaf. And if she knows Avia, and she hopes she still does, then she knows that if anything this is simply the retreat of a tide that precedes a tsunami, a seismic wave waiting to crash over Diya, to leave her floundering as it washes away what little she still has to hold dear.

But it’s difficult not to hope.

She steps back too, not without some faint sense of regret. 

“Corroboration, mostly.” 

She tries to keep her voice even, tries not to sound defensive, though she isn’t sure she succeeds. She knows what’s coming, she knows this may well be the true beginning of her end. She knows she’s driving Avia away, but she can’t bring herself to feel apologetic, and she won’t lie about this. She owes her that much.

Her t-shirt is thin, bloodstained cotton. It drags across her skin as she rolls her shoulders uncomfortably, over her back and her waist. She fights the urge to itch.

Avia’s mouth stretches. It is not a smile, and nor is it a frown, but it twists and distorts her expression into something new and unknown..

“There’s still time.” And Diya knows, she knows she’s on the defensive now, but she can’t help herself, she’s run out of time. They’ve run out of time. The fuse to the veritable powder keg of all that’s being left unsaid in their relationship has been burning out for days now, unrelenting, and only now does she find herself, at the cusp of the explosion, clutching the cord with both hands in a desperate attempt to stave off the spark.

And Avia laughs. Short and bitter. It is not a happy sound, yet somehow Diya cannot keep her heart from fluttering slightly when she hears it.

“What time? You were in there hours with nothing to show for it, and you expect me to believe he’ll be any more enlightening when you go back in? That you left him in a position where you can go back in? I notice you don’t have your knife, by the way.”

“He’s still alive, and we tapped the room. If he says anything, we’ll know.”

“Listen to yourself! You spent hours with the man and learnt nothing, and now you think that, as he bleeds to death, aware that we at least certainly don’t have the ability to save him, he’s going to start spilling all the little secrets that got him into this situation into an empty room.”

Her voice has risen to a crescendo, deafening in the otherwise still silence, and her words crash over Diya, leaving her adrift, ears ringing.

“He might.” Her response is quiet. “It wouldn’t be conscious. People will do a lot when they don’t want to die.”

Avia’s expression softens, just around the edges, with something distressingly close to pity. Somehow that feels worse than any other emotion she could have seen, fear or anger or disgust.

She reaches out, rests her hand on Diya’s upper arm, thumb moving up and down in an attempt to be soothing. 

“Look.” They’re looking at each other now, properly, face to face and eye to eye for perhaps the first time that day. “It’s been a few months since we left. We haven’t checked in in a while, and we’re well past the bottom of our barrel of leads. Maybe we should head back home, let them all know we’re still okay, that you're still okay, and then we can plan from there.”

It’s a trap. Bait. She knows it.

But it sounds so reasonable, so rational. A clear, definite course of action. And Diya wants to go home - she knows Avia knows that. To rest, and sleep, and just be with the rest of their little mismatched band of survivors, full of both people she’d known before and not? She wants that more than almost anything else in the world.

Almost, anything.

Her waist itches.

“If we go back…” And her voice is low, reluctant, the admission being torn from her. “If we go back, I don't think I’ll be able to leave.” Her eyes plead with Avia to understand what she isn’t saying, to let it lie, all of it. She already knows she won’t, knows where this conversation is going, where Avia is leading it and has been doing since she walked over her, walked away from those shallow breaths and gasps of pain.

Her friend swallows. “Maybe…” She breaks off. Swallows again. “Maybe we shouldn’t. Leave. We’ve spent months chasing ever fainter shadows, maybe it’s time we recognise that going after these people one by one isn’t useful anymore, and -”

“Give up?” Her tone isn’t cold like she wants it to be, but her voice holds steady, which is a victory in itself.

“No! No, I’m not saying that, I would never…” A breath in, then out. “When we left, we barely knew anything about the mutations, not how they began, how they progressed. We just knew that they could be controlled, and if they weren’t they’d end in death. So we went looking for people responsible, and we found them, and we’ve learned a lot. 

“And it wasn’t easy - listening to them was hard for me and I can only imagine how much more so it must have been for you. I know we haven’t found any sort of treatment yet. And I know you want to keep going, and if I thought we had any chance of finding something different then I would too. I’m with you.

“But this - I don’t think we’ve learnt anything in the last month at least. Either no one we can find knows anything new, or they’d all rather die than tell us. We’re stuck in a maze of dead ends - maybe the best course of action is to go back. We can tell everyone what we’ve found, and then work on finding a solution together. It’s not giving up, we know it’s doable and we’re in a way better position than we were when we left. We’ll stop and go back, and we’ll figure this out, okay? All of us.”

Her eyes shine, her posture relaxed. She looks so hopeful, and Diya wants to say yes, God does she want to.

But she wants to live more.

She shakes off her hand. “Do you have any ideas? One single idea on how to control the mutations, or halt them, or even just study them properly, and I’ll drive us back right now. Because you’re right that we haven’t learned anything new over the past month, but we’re no closer to being able to figure stuff out by ourselves either. And we are on a deadline.”

“It’s just been the two of us. We’ll go home, get a fresh perspective - we’ve got time -”

“What time?” she scoffs. Oh, the tables do turn. She puts a foot back and half turns, reaching a hand back to pull off her shirt. Avia’s face pales as she takes in the patches of scale already starting to show through skin, on her waist, behind her ribs. It would feel almost gratifying if Diya herself wasn’t so terrified.

‘This is it’, she thinks. No more secrets left between them. No more time. It’s the final showdown, all cards on the table, and she has a sinking notion that this time there won’t be a winner. She can’t leave, and Avia won’t stay.

Nor does she respond, immediately. When she does, her voice is shaky, but her reasoning firm. Avia was going to be a lawyer, in another life, back before her best friend became a hellbound monster determined to drag her down with her. 

“I know you’re scared. I know it’s hard to accept. But this, doesn’t change the fact that us driving around on mere whims isn’t helping you. So I don’t know if we can figure out how they managed to control their mutations. But we will do our damndest to find out, okay? We can get through this, and we will, but being here? Isn’t the right way to go about it. So let’s go home. I don’t want to lose my best friend.”

‘Then stay’. It’s on the tip of her tongue. She bites the words back - it’s the least she can do. Avia’s eyes are bright once more, now glistening. 

“I don’t want to lose you. And this,” she gestures around them, and breaks off. “Sometimes when I see you like this, it feels like I already have. This isn’t you, Di.. And I don’t know that I can just stand by and pretend much longer.”

It’s funny. Avia’s given up on trying to stay aloof, stay in control. Meanwhile, Diya feels like frozen glass, like she’ll shatter if she so much as blinks out of rhythm.

“I need to go home. You, need to come home. Come back with me, Di.” Her hands are clenched at her sides. She takes half a step forwards, and stops abruptly. “Please, just…”

“If we go back, I will die.”

“You don’t know that.” 

“I do. And so do you. I’m staying.”

“You’ll die if you stay here too.”

Diya just stares. She refuses to repeat Avia’s own words, but they both hear them echo in the silence just the same.

“You will. You’ll die, only here you’ll be alone and unhappy, desperately chasing person after person - Jesus, do you know how many people we’ve taken? Questioned, hurt, killed? And you’ll just keep doing it, because you never could make yourself stop, and it won’t solve anything, and at best you’ll be miserable but at worst you’ll work yourself ‘til you’re so far gone you don’t feel a goddamn thing! And then you’ll die.”

“You never seemed to have a problem with the ‘questioning’.”

“Of course I had a bloody problem with the ‘questioning’. And you did too. Do, still, I’d like to think. But when we started out, it was necessary, we needed information and we did what it took to get it. Three people, though, we’ve left for dead now, without learning a damn thing. It’s time to stop.”

“If we stop, I die.”

“Then maybe you should!”

.

.

.

“You know I didn’t mean that.” Her face is wet. Diya notes that, distantly, though she doesn’t remember when Avia started crying. She can feel her own face grow cold, she is sure she must look bloodless, but her eyes are bone dry and she dare not blink.

“It’s just… I don’t know. Maybe this is something with a fix. Maybe. But there has to be some limit to how far you’re willing to go to find it. How many people have to die before you accept that maybe they can’t help you?

“I know they’re responsible for the world we live in now, for what’s happening. But you’ve never been one for revenge. So the fact that you insist, over and over, on tracking down the same types of people to run through the same routines with so we can learn the same information, means you’re either not thinking straight, or you’re not trying to find help anymore. Neither option is good, and neither will get solved by staying here.”

The air is thick, the breeze has long since died. Diya’s voice croaks when she finally speaks, rough and hoarse.

“Why did you come with me?”

“What?”

“When I left. Why did you come with me?”

“Because, I…” Her voice peters out. “Because you asked,” she states, finally. Simply. 

“You asked, so I came, so I’m asking you now-”

“And if I were to ask again? Here and now?”

Her heart thunders in her chest - it’s a time bomb, counting down mere seconds before Avia leaves and it explodes.

Her eyes are wet and full of sorrow, but her voice is firm. “I can’t.”

Crack.

There’s a vacuum inside Diya’s chest. Everything she is caves in towards it as she stands powerless to stop it, no matter how long she knew this was coming. Outward, she just nods.

Neither move.

“I, should go. Find a vehicle or something, I think I saw some cars parked a mile or so back.”

Diya nods again. Coughs. “Yeah. Shouldn’t drive back in the dark.”

Avia’s expression flickers, not quite a flinch. “Er, yeah. Not much time left, if I do leave, today.”

Nothing.

“Well, uh.” An aborted motion in her direction, before she turns and walks out of the car park. Her footsteps echo, slow and uncertain - Diya’s eyes close so she doesn’t have to watch her leave.

She keeps them shut tight another minute after the last footsteps fade. And then another. Her lashes are wet, they stick and drag against each other as her eyelids flicker.

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, unmoving and unresponsive, but when she opens her eyes, she’s alone.

She walks, unobstructed, to the back of the van. Climbs in. Shuts the doors.

They’d tapped the room she’d left the man in, an idea they’d had early on, when all information was good information and it was enough for both of them that they had each other.

The feed was set to record. She sits down, back against the wall, pulls on the headphones, and starts to rewind the tapes.

****************************************************************************

Drip.

Drip.

Pained gasps.

Drip.

Shallow breaths. 

And all the while that constant, incessant

Drip.

“No!” cries the man.

Drip.

“Please,” he pleads, voice broken and pathetic.

Distantly, he knows that he was meant to be keeping some secret. A woman was asking him questions, he thinks. A part of him remembers that he didn’t want to answer.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

But that was then and this is now, and whole worlds may as well separate the two. Now he is half delirious from blood loss. Now his throat is so dry it will be a wonder if anything he says will even be comprehensible. Now…

Drip.

Drip.

He really doesn’t want to die.

And in an empty room, with none but God as his witness, he tells everything.

****************************************************************************

He could have been lying.

Probably was. Or else, he’d just pointed her towards another pointless source. After all, they were pointed towards him by another person, and to her by some person before that.

And some small, hidden part of her wants a reason to wait here. To wait for Avia to come running back to her.

But, if there’s even a chance…

Well, people will do a lot when they don’t want to die.

When Avia stops by the carpark before she leaves, she finds it empty.