“No no no no, Jessica, please—” Zero strained, making futile efforts to evade her grasp by means of thrashing his arms and legs around like a fish in outer space. He knew where they were headed. Apparently not even the use of her real name was enough to convince her otherwise. Mute had him by the back of his beloved green hoodie, faded and worn down with daily use, his weightless body dragging supinely behind.
Mute would call this an intervention. Zero considered it more of a premeditated attack.
There were no footsteps to mark their presence as she trudged down the hallway, pulling Zero along, and the front door made no effort to noisily creak open the way it normally did. At first Zero despaired that Mute’s condition meant there would be no sound to alert Grey or Parrot as to what she was doing. He then let out a sigh of defeat, which also caused him to tilt backward a bit, upon realizing how much more likely it was that the two of them already knew about this. Probably encouraged it, even.
Mute tugged hard on the hem of his hood so he wouldn’t smack the doorframe on the way out. How thoughtful. He couldn’t see her mouth at this odd angle either, so there was no real way to tell what she was saying. But she was making more of a statement with her actions than her words at the moment anyway.
The sky hung infinitely above in an array of overcast, blotchy grays. Always gray. Oppressive in its emptiness. The air outside was just as suffocatingly open. Zero shifted from trying to escape her hold to clinging desperately to it, both arms wrapped around hers in a sort of begrudging hug as her march toward oblivion refused to stop. Not as they left the door, stepped off the front porch, or made their way down the narrow pathway through the fields. After at most ten seconds of his relocation outdoors, Zero dared to unhook one arm from Mute’s jacket sleeve in order to shade himself against the blinding wash of sunlight assaulting his unaccustomed eyes.
It was a long trek to the train station. Typically, residents occupied one of four locations within Sonder. There was the City, the Garden, the Junkyard, and most relevantly, the Community, where the majority of Sonder resided. And even then, residencies were as widespread as stars. Once Mute and Zero had passed over the hillside, their neighbor’s place came into view. A small stone structure with an old greenhouse attached, its broken glass walls loosely patched up with a tarp that was flapping in the subtle breeze. At least now the endless sweep of rustling grass gave way to some variety, as Mute spotted two kiddish figures by the stream beside the distant house. She and Zero knew these two well enough by now to recognize them instantly, back when their living situations hadn’t quite settled yet and the pair of duos would regularly swap residencies with whoever was willing to take them for a while. Toad, hidden beneath his bucket hat, was squatted down near a patch of dirt where she assumed some type of bug must’ve sat, staring at it with the intensity of someone unearthing an alien species. Shark stood a few feet away from him, splashing and stomping through the water in her red rain boots to test just how high it could go.
Mute went to wave down at them before forcibly remembering that her arm was preoccupied, having been repurposed as a safeguard as of that morning. Though even as she waved down with her spare one, the kids failed to take notice, too engrossed in whatever it was they were doing. It was then that Zero piped up.
“Hey!” He shouted, “¡ustedes dos!” voice echoing off the hillsides in a way Mute envied deep inside. Shark’s head whipped around half a minute before her counterpart’s did, squinting at where the pair stood from afar. The little kid then swiftly sprung to her feet, swinging both arms enthusiastically up and down in a full-body greeting. Toad raised his hand halfway up in a timid wave. “Privet, Mute! Hi, Zero!” she screamed in reply at the very top of her lungs. And only then did they register who exactly they were speaking to.
Zero’s grip hadn’t loosened, not even by a fraction of an inch, and the feeling in her right arm had already started to fizzle out.
Toad whispered something into Shark’s ear, who then turned back toward the others. Acting as the shy kid’s spokesperson, it would seem. “Are you okay?” She ask-shouted. Zero felt Mute’s snicker through her shoulders as they turned to face each other. “I don’t know, am I?” he mocked, eyes narrowing.
“Come on, man,” Mute groaned, turning around and upward a bit to face him more directly. She made no effort to mime or gesture her way through each sentence, Zero knowing full well he was the only person she didn’t have to do that for. “You’re literally not going anywhere,” she insisted, readjusting her grasp so that she had him by the wrist and not the back of his hood. “I got you.” Giving a too-confident smile of which Zero absolutely did not trust. “Trust me!” She said.
He then exhaled for what felt like the first time in ages as he managed an “Uh-uh,” out of his tightened throat. “Trust—gone,” he stated, simple as fact. Mute rolled her eyes at him and sighed as if she’d merely forgotten it at home and would return for it later. She turned back toward the two kids and gave a passionate thumbs-up in light of their concern. They seemed satisfied with that answer, ready to return to their important work of playing around in the muddy stream.
Zero lurched forward a little as Mute continued on their stroll. He saluted the kids from behind as he pivoted horizontally. He caught Shark’s squeaky giggling from afar and the sound of it made him warm.
“Where are we going, anyway?” He asked, less dejectedly than before.
Mute seemed to process that for a second, mouth opening and closing as if the answer were obvious and it was Zero who just wasn’t getting it. Her gaze then darted back and forth between Zero and the space around them, a look which simultaneously meant outside and we’re already here. Zero knew better by now than to believe Mute’s first response would be the full answer. And with a sudden “Oh!” his beliefs were confirmed pretty much immediately.
“I’m taking us up to the station for some much needed sightseeing!“ She wiggled all the fingers on her freehand at that last word in order to give it a little pizzazz, as if that would help Zero feel any more inclined. He’d never tell her that honestly, the sheer lack of seriousness with which she treated the situation kind of did help. Art of distraction. “Grey wants us back before dinner, though,” she added. “So we better make this quick.”
Right on schedule, Mute took her own words of advice and ushered for them to continue on. Her knees marching up and down like that of a cartoon solider, free arm pointed outward at their destination somewhere behind that silvery midday horizon. Because of it, Zero, against his better judgement, relaxed his shoulders a little, now holding onto her wrist one-handed instead of swallowing the entirety of her right arm with both of his. Weirdly enough, it actually started to feel somewhat relaxing, allowing himself to be pulled along for once without worry.
He breathed deeply in, and out, and in again. Mute’s hand stayed layered over his, a safety tether beneath a sky that didn’t seem as overwhelming anymore.
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