Chapter 3 of Fur and Flesh
The third chapter! Get attached to my characters >:3
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Unfortunately, Dandi woke up again. It was getting old.
Sluggishly getting up, he basically falls out of bed, tangled in his sheets.
“Dandi?” Dax mumbled sleepily, woken by the thud.
“I’m okay Dax, don’t worry.” Dandi escaped the sheets, chucking them back on his bed. Opening his and Dax’s lockers, he passes Dax’s clothes for the day to him, and puts his own on.
“We’ve got the day off, remember, so hang out with Alice and Leo.” Dax’s bright green eyes looked up, beaming at him. Dandi ruffles his hair, smiling sadly back at him. He’s a good kid. Dandi misses being that age. Or at least, what that age was supposed to be.
Looking up at the bunk above his, Dandi frowns. Riven is still there. It had been days since his… breakdown. It worries Dandi, It’s not healthy… I wish he’d talk to me. He knew Riven hated him, but that didn’t stop whatever Dandi was feeling.
At least he was getting out sometimes, Dandi heard him sneak out after midnight a couple times.
As if feeling Dandi staring at him, Riven rolled over. Dandi turns away quickly, hiding his expression.
Out in the sleeping quarters hallway, Dandi just catches the others coming out of room 10. They wave him over.
“Hi Dandi!” Callie chirps, her short curly brown hair bouncing with the spring in her step.
“Hey Callie.” He walks up behind the group.
“Sleep well?” Beni asks, taking her eyes off Eden for just a moment.
“Like a baby.” Dandi grins at her. In the literal sense.
As always, Dandi got an orange and some berries for breakfast. There was finally meat for meals, now that the farm was running enough to spare a pig, so the others got egg and bacon. Dandi wishes he could eat it, but it had always felt wrong to him to hurt another being for your own gain.
“Fuck me. It feels like it's been forever since I’ve eaten meat.” Beni basically ran to sit down at their usual blue table.
“Probably because it basically has been.” Eden followed her.
Dandi lagged behind, happy for them. He was last to the table, sitting in between Callie and August.
“How was Riven today, Dandi?” August asked, pausing to savour the bacon.
“Still moping.” The peels of Dandi’s orange laid in a neat pile, and he was staring at them like owed him something. “I don’t know what to do, he’s ignoring everything and just sleeping.”
“Give him time, I’m sure he’ll be fine eventually.” Callie chipped in. “That’s what usually happens, he has a breakdown, shuts everything out, and is fine in a week.”
But what happens when that stops working? He can’t keep doing this. Eventually it’s going to really break him. What if it’s this time?
Dandi shutters at the thought and goes back to his orange. Callie’s right. He’ll be fine. Dandi worries too much. That’s what I do.
They finish up, washing their plates in the kitchen. Dandi’s deep in thought, mostly overthinking, and doesn’t even notice when Beni splashes soapy water on him.
She pauses, concerned, holding out her arm to stop Eden doing the same thing. They sense something’s off.
“Dandi, what’s up? You’ve been distant all morning.” Beni asked, worry clear in her voice.
“I’m fine, just thinking a lot.” He could feel the look that she shared with Eden at that.
Thinking a lot isn’t good for anyone.
Not after everything.
It was the perfect time of day for painting, the sun lighting up most of the tunnel, and the end of the wall they were painting today.
Even though he sees it everyday, Dandi misses the sun. The cave’s roof blocked out most of the rays, and covered the sky almost completely. He misses the open skies, the clouds, but most of all the rain. Maybe it was because it reflected the way he felt or something, as Beni would tease, but he missed the cool raindrops on his skin after the heat, and the roll of thunder in the distance. Dandi misses a lot of things from outside the cave.
Not everything.
Eden had returned with paint from their sister, so they had started painting. They had been working on the mural on the 3 large roller doors inside the tunnel ever since they became friends.
Despite the horror of waking up without any memories, Dandi often thought about that day fondly. He had not enjoyed waking up to a pissed Tryell, terrified Riven, and crying Dax, being scared shitless himself. However, while everyone (all 100 at that point) ate rations that afternoon, Dandi had met Callie when she bounded down to him at the river. He was standing knee deep, letting the current wash around his feet, and her high pitched voice softly asked, “Hey, Dandi right?”, and invited him to eat with her, Beni, and Eden.
From what the adults could figure out, Dandi was around 13 when everyone first woke up, and he’s 16 now. Riven and Callie are around the same age, Eden and Beni are a bit older, and August is younger.
3 years…
Shit. I’m old.
Birthdays were one of the things they didn’t remember. You get used to it.
“Dandi. You’re thinking too much again. Snap out of it and help.” Beni called, already half way up a ladder with a bucket of blue paint.
Dandi shook off his daze. “Sorry.” He picked up a small can of black and put up his own ladder.
The mural was massive. Stretching across the 3 huge white roller doors, it was scenes of life outside and in the cave. The right side starts with a bright blue sky, clear in the centre, and fades into a thunderstorm over the farm’s crops. Along the horizon, the river flows, past green hills and a grey city full of lights. The left side ends as the city opens up to a park, and is decorated by handprints of everyone in the cave… including the ones that aren’t anymore.
Most of the parts were finished, but they were still adding finishing touches. Today they were finishing the sky.
Using his black paint, Dandi paints sweeping arches, birds flying across the sky. Beni was monkeying around above him, her bright yellow paint splattered all over herself as she splashed paint onto her sun painting. Eden watched nervously from the ground, directing her where they could.
August and Callie were painting frogs in a marsh at the bottom of the hills.
3 years… They had come a long way. That first year was the worst, maybe, as far as Dandi could remember, in his life.
They only started with a month's worth of food, and that quickly disappeared. Crops don’t grow in a month, and whoever put them here didn’t realise that. But they didn’t care.
20 people died in the first three months. That's when they started the mural. To remind them of the outside, and the ones they lost.
“That’s it. Dandi. What are you thinking about?”
Dandi didn’t realise he had stopped painting until Beni shouted up at him, done with her painting.
“I’m fine! Don’t worry!” He called back down.
“Liar!”
I’m fine, really, please don’t worry. You don’t need to do that. Worry about someone else, I don’t need it.
Dandi slides down the ladder and lands with a thud. “Really, I’m fine.”
Beni rolls her eyes. “Come with me.” She beckons for him to follow her out the tunnel.
“But-”
“Go Dandi, we’ll pack up.” August reassures him as he looks back at her.
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Feels pointless saying this, but please don't steal or feed in to ai
This is a first draft and will not be perfect! This version is more of a trial of the story, to see if I can finish a project and if people are interested!
Constructive criticism appreciated
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Notes
First Dandi chapter! This is a multi pov book, so we will switch persective sometimes
While i'm not 100% happy with this chapter, I really wanna get on to the next one.