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Cub
He opened his eyes slowly, and stared up at the ceiling for a second.
Blinked once, twice.
Five tremors last night…they’re getting further apart…
It was such a strange experience, to be in the over-city right now. When he walked the streets early in the morning, before, he used to still find himself tripping over university students or other early commuters.
Now?
It was so oddly…empty.
Not to say there were no people on the streets. Certainly less. For the past few weeks, the university had been shut down, and a lot of the office buildings that were once abuzz were stagnant and dull.
Then again, maybe that was just the whole city?
A ton of people took off into the suburbs or beyond…there’s been communication damage from these tremors, so it’s been hard for people to get in touch…who knows who ended up above or below bedrock.
It was a mess…a real mess.
And Scar isn’t answering me either.
Cub was worried. Of course he was worried, but what was he supposed to do? Even just managing to get himself to the sparsely stocked store and back was enough to wrack him with terror, the noises he could hear so far beyond a place that should’ve been quiet.
The buildings creaking. The Bedrock seemed to scream. Like sinew slowly being torn apart them smushed back together, like stitches being drawn through flesh still fresh and aching.
Screaming.
It was the best way Cub could think to describe it.
He sat up slowly in bed and removed his noise cancelling headphones, eyes feeling crusty and stinging from lack of rest.
Too loud.
So quiet.
Cub still couldn’t quite figure out what was going on. He knew the Bedrock was sealing over, he knew that it was somehow growing more and more permanent, but he didn’t understand how.
He couldn’t bear to drag himself to the Hot Cave to start trying to find out, because why would he? Why would he?
Scar’s not around anymore.
He knew Scar was safe, at least. He had computers running that monitored Scar’s biotech, and he had made sure from early on that he had access to those from his apartment, and checking those had assuaged his concern that something hadn’t actually happened to Scar.
As he dragged himself out of bed and shuffled into his square-ish kitchen, a thought flew across his mind.
Does that make it better or worse?
Cub got out the biggest thermos he owned, and he had quite the collection. At some point, Scar had decided that Cub was getting a new thermos every major holiday for the rest of forever, and thus, he had an entire cabinet dedicated to them. The one he chose was a massive number that took three teabags to get to strength, with a bunch of adorable little cats running around across it in a pink and white pattern.
Why, exactly, Scar had decided it was Cub’s style, he was sure…but the lid was his favorite because it had a flip with a rubber catch that meant it didn’t make a loud popping sound, even with hot water, and it really did hold a lot of tea.
He went through the motions of making tea as his mind whirled.
Through everything that had broken down. Through everything yet to shatter.
Count me as one of them, huh?
It felt vague…almost fuzzy around the edges. The past few weeks were mercurial, moments of panic so severe he could barely manage to stand, combined with these ridiculous seconds where he’d open his window and breathe deep and feel oddly at peace.
Enjoy the silence. Savor the quiet.
But then there would be the rumble, and all of it would feel like it was cracking at the edges again.
Why?
Well, he knew why. He could recite what had been said, on the newscasts, in the articles.
Meanwhile, blogs and private publishing houses had been practically at civil war, torn on the subject of Bedrock, on if or not it was working, on if or not it was worth it, on if or not this rumble, rumble, rumble, would ever end.
Cub poured boiling water over three tea bags, he’d knotted the strings together at some point while his mind was drifting.
I’ve talked to Zed, a couple times…
He was depressed. Cub knew why, but he couldn’t speak upon it, couldn’t bring it up or offer support or even a shoulder to cry on. Not that he thought Zed wanted to be leaving his apartment right now.
He assumed Scar was the same…but again, he hadn’t spoken to him.
Cub stared at the steaming surface of his thermos, the lid upside-down on the table beside it. The little hourglass set on the countertop beside it drained toward five minutes away.
Grains that fell through bit by bit to mark the passage of time, the only tangible version he’d known in three weeks time. Since he’d collapsed in that alleyway the day this initiative had begun, and had to drag himself back to his apartment in a desperate scramble, alongside everyone else who was afraid.
Afraid.
Of what?
RUMBLE
RUMBLE
RUMBLE
Cub jumped, and his hand shot out. His vision was unfocused as he slapped his other hand up to yank his glasses down from where they’d rested on his forehead, and his vision collapsed into sharpness. He was able to stop his thermos from toppling, as everything shook. It wasn’t enough to cause any serious damage. The buildings in this city were built to handle the natural rifts that tore into the bedrock every now and again, but this?
This was absurd.
It’s why people are afraid.
Cub’s hazy teal eyes gazed into the surface of his thermos, which had been still and steaming, now rippling as the tremors began to ease.
“…what are we doing, people…?” He murmured to himself, his mind beginning to chug.
To turn.
Stop it.
His best friend was somewhere suffering.
Cub grabbed the shaker container of sugar from his tea cabinet and emptied an unholy amount of it into his thermos, turning the ripples into a pattering like falling rain.
Stop it!
One of his only other friends was shattering at the seams.
He stumbled over his own feet toward the door, then set his thermos down on the tiny table by the door that was his crash pad as he came inside, usually. Grabbed his white blazer off the hook on the door and yanked it on, his eyes burning.
Because he hadn’t slept? Probably.
Because he wanted to cry? Maybe that too.
But he double back in another shaky scramble, had to fling himself once more into saving his thermos from meeting its end on the floor, to get his noise-cancelling headphones.
“This is getting ridiculous!”
He slammed his headphones on so hard they made his ears pop. Glamor shown teal over his features. Over the sculk, teal pinpoints shining through like stars in a midnight sky on his cheeks, in his hair, on his eyelids like painted on shadow with it’s own LED effect.
Concealed the tendrils, concealed the black sclera of his eyes, turned them white.
He picked up his thermos with it’s pink and white kitty cat design, and popped the lid. Took a swig that burnt his tongue, but he didn’t care.
He didn’t care.
I’ve worked too hard…I’ve loved to much…
And maybe it was strange, for him to assign this work, these people, these place, to something like love.
But Cub did love. He loved his cabinet full of thermos’s, no one quite the same as the other, because somehow Scar could always remember which colors he’d gotten, which colors he was missing. He loved every wild ramble Zed would go off on, about brand new arrow ideas and random technological concepts, bouncing wall to wall and question to question like a hyperactive toddler.
He loved this city, for all its wrongs.
He loved what was below, for all it had wronged him.
Cub shut his door and locked it behind him, cranked his noise-cancelled headphones all the way up and hit play on an endless loop of white noise.
Starting walking.
Starting plotting.
Starting wondering, conceptualizing, hypothesizing, thinking…because Cub was a lot of things.
Cub had a lot of loves.
And his mind, above or below, was beyond compare.