the kids aren't alright

just a walk

August 2121

Heidi woke up alone in Tom's dorm room to the sound of the door clicking shut. She hadn't meant to fall asleep in Tom's room, but they'd been trying to piece together a stone chess set, which devolved into them both trying to learn how to actually play chess. That didn't last too long, and eventually talking shifted into sitting around doing fuck all in each other's general vicinity and then she must've dozed off.

It'd been just over a week since she'd left the tower, and he was still willing to entertain her clinginess to a degree, which was more than she could say for Erika. It wasn't all the time, but sometimes she just needed to know that her friends were all okay, and it was a lot easier to check if they were nearby. Even when they were apart, she'd given Tom, Erika, and Ade her schedule and they'd given theirs in return, with varying degrees of complaint. Just in case they needed to find the other quickly.

It was weird that Tom would just get up and leave, and a quick glance toward the window confirmed that it was still the middle of the night, but maybe he just had to use the bathroom or something. Heidi waited a moment to try to let the urge to follow him pass, but quickly caved. Self control had never been her strong suit.

She got up from the chair she'd fallen asleep in, blearily rubbing her eyes as she poked her head out into the hallway, searching for Tom. She was rewarded with a glimpse of Tom turning down the opposite hall from the bathroom, and oh boy, the uneasy feeling in her chest didn't like that one bit.

She jogged down the hall after him, watching his shoulders tense up as he heard her. "Where're you going?" she asked, partially because she was curious and partially just so Tom knew it was her. His shoulders lowered a bit, but didn't fully untense.

"Just a walk," he said, his voice sounding a bit funny. She pawed at her ear, blaming it on still being a bit groggy. "Go back to sleep, Heidi." She fell in step beside him instead.

"You can just kick me out of your room, y'know," she said. "You don't have to leave."

He shook his head. "Just a walk," he repeated.

They walked in silence for a few seconds, the only sound being that of their footsteps on the cool stone. Heidi looked down at their feet. She was barefoot, having left her shoes back in her and Ade's room, but Tom was actually wearing his sneakers. He had a jacket on too. It wasn't chilly inside. It was August, it was barely chilly outside.

He came to a stop at the end of the hallway, just facing the wall. "Heidi. Please," he said, sounding slightly annoyed. It was his vowels, she realized. He was saying his vowels differently, but in a way she'd heard before. It wasn't hard to place; she'd just spent a week listening to the guy bark orders at her. He was saying his vowels the same way Shima did.

It was stupid, how vulnerable she'd left herself. Her knife was back in her and Ade's room. She'd left her spear in Tom's. She didn't have anything. Neither of them had open wounds; Shima would probably kill her before she could draw blood with her fingernails.

"The door's the other way," she said slowly, her heart pounding in her chest. There were guards at the door. Maybe if she could get him to go past, she'd be able to get somebody to help her.

He didn't say anything to that, instead using his Flow to break open the wall in front of them and stepping outside. Without even thinking about it (stupid, stupid, stupid), Heidi grabbed his arm, and for a second they both froze. She should've pretended to go back to bed and gone to get help. Shima didn't seem to want to initiate conflict.

"...I really wish you went back to bed," Shima sighed, echoing her own thoughts. He then twisted his arm to grab ahold of Heidi instead, yanking her outside with a surprising strength.

He pulled her around in front of him, away from the dorm building, and Heidi heard the shifting of earth behind her. She didn't want to look, didn't want to see whatever Shima had in store for her. "Tom," she said urgently, trying not to sound scared. If Tom could hear her, she didn't want him to think she was scared of him. "C'mon, time to wake up."

Shima used Tom's face to level her with an exasperated look, like she was stupid for even trying to talk to Tom. Then, without any words or ceremony, he let go of her arm. The ground shifted beneath her feet, and she was falling.

Heidi screamed on the way down, and she screamed again when she hit the bottom, landing on her arm with a sickening snap. There was one blissful moment where she didn't feel anything at all, and then all of a sudden she was feeling far too much. She didn't need her Flow to know that she'd broken her right arm. The bone hadn't broken skin, but it was a near thing, and part of her was glad it was too dark to see much of anything.

Looking up, she could only see a small circle of the night sky. No Tom, no Shima. Shima was just walking away, taking Tom with him, and she hadn't been able to stop him.

She was bleeding a bit, from scraping against the rocks on her way down, so she pulled some blood out of a deeper scrape, solidifying it into two spikes. The walls of the hole weren't entirely smooth, and it didn't feel like solid stone either, so she could climb up. It was what, maybe twenty feet? She could climb up.

When she tried to curl her right fist around the spike though, a stabbing pain shot up her arm. She sharply inhaled through her teeth, blinking her vision clear. Okay. Climbing up with one hand. She could do that. She had to do that.

Physics didn't seem to get the memo, though, because she kept only making it up about two feet off the ground before falling on her ass.

She wasn't sure how long it took before Delmer found her, covered in dirt and blood, hunched against the side of the hole, cradling her broken arm in her lap. Long enough that her throat was scratchy and hoarse from all the frustrated screaming and crying. Long enough that she knew there was no way she would ever catch up to Shima. Delmer went and got Joey, which was embarrassing, but Joey got her up out of the hole, filling it in and patching the wall over.

"Don't worry," Delmer told her, gently taking her good arm to guide her back inside the dorms. She hated when the older kids tried to baby her like this, but she was too tired to tell him that. "The adults are already going after him. They'll bring him back."

The adults did actually catch Shima in the end. Heidi hadn't believed them– because it was fucking suspicious that they wouldn't let her or anyone else see Tom– until he knocked on the door of her and Ade's room on the morning of the third day. She opened the door and he was just standing there awkwardly, still dressed in the same clothes she'd last seen him in.

"...Heidi?" he asked after a moment, and she realized she hadn't said anything.

"Yeah, sorry, it's me," she said quickly. "I thought you were– They wouldn't let, they wouldn't let anyone see you–" she stammered, too surprised that Tom was actually standing in front of her to have coherent thoughts.

He opened his arms a little and she launched herself forward, hugging him tight. "I'm sorry," he started and she shook her head firmly.

"Nothing to apologize for," she insisted.

"The adults said you were with me when I–"

"It wasn't– It doesn't matter, Tom, I promise." Delmer and Joey had woken up Sage and gotten her to fix her arm that night. It was still a little achy, but that was barely anything.

She took a second to actually think about what he said. The adults had told him she'd been there. Did he not remember what Shima had done, or at least not what Shima had done to her? She knocked her head against his shoulder affectionately before letting go of him. "We'll figure it out, okay? Together. I'll get that fucking creep out of your head if its the last thing I do."

Tom shifted awkwardly, like he wanted to disagree with her, or at least disagree with the degree to which she was committing. "You're my friend," she cut in, before he could say something stupid. "It's what friends do."

"...Don't think there's usually any expectation in a friendship to get rid of a psychic fragment lodged in one person's brain," he said obstinately, though he had a small smile on his face, so Heidi was willing to let the disrespect slide.

"There is with me," she responded, tapping him on the arm with her fist. "C'mon, I need to go grab breakfast. Did they feed you at all?"

He thought about it for a second, like he was gauging how hungry he was. "I think so. But yeah, I'll eat," he said, waiting by the door while she grabbed her shoes. Her spear was already curled around her arm.