Into The Light: chapter 2
Bruno wakes to an aroma like every family dinner he ever sat through in secret with an empty painted plate in front of him, biting his cheeks to keep himself quiet.
Saliva pools in his mouth. He swallows it down painfully. He begins to hum tunelessly to distract himself, but stops, because Dolores is bound to hear, and if she guesses he has nothing to eat, she might tell someone where he is. He needs to be strong.
He buries his face in the wing of his armchair.
“Bruno?” It sounds like Julieta. But Julieta doesn’t say his name, not in front of the whole family. It’s his mind playing tricks again.
He’s been getting worse lately, he’s pretty sure. He’s seen birds and animals that were never there. A painting on his wall that was really upstairs. His camp stove, long since out of fuel, standing up and shaking its feet. He’s heard voices talking nonsense in languages he doesn’t know. Or his family, sometimes telling him comforting things, sometimes the opposite.
Now here’s Julieta, as if the smell through the cracks could waft her through the wall. He can’t see her — he won’t look — but she feels so close that his skin prickles. She seems to bend over him, saying, “Aren’t you hungry?”
He’s hollow. He’s trembling. But he’s used to that. He squeezes his infected fingertip, to let the pain distract him.
“Bruno? I have some supper for you.”
“Go away. Let me sleep.” That’s the best thing he can do, because he won’t be getting a meal tonight.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
