The Resurgent

by Blake Wilbanks

  He slept peacefully. It was a dreamless sleep, which he was thankful for because he didn’t want to have to see anything, even in dream form.

  “I’ve never made homemade pizza, before,” said Tyler. “It’s either frozen or delivery for me, and nothing inbetween.”

  “Well, it certainly isn’t delivery anymore,” said Demetria in reply. “But if you feel like running to the Grocery store than I’m sure that we could find some frozen pizza to your liking, I really don’t care. We just have to get some kind of pizza, it’s Xavier's favorite food, and if his mother Eliza were here and she saw him like that, she’d be down here making him a homemade pizza to cheer him up. But seeing as I’m not the greatest cook, don’t have the specific recipe she uses, and have seen you try to cook before; our best bet is to get some frozen pizzas. It’s the second best thing to the real thing.”

  Tyler nodded. He hadn’t really been listening, but he got the gist of what she had been saying. He grabbed the keys off of the kitchen island and made his way to the car, Demetria not far behind him.

  They had been to the grocery store a few hours before but hadn’t even thought to get any of the frozen pizzas that they had passed by a number of times. They filled a cart with four meat trio pizza and four supreme.

  Tyler scrunched his face up at the sight of the supreme pizzas, and Demetria just shrugged nonchalantly. It didn’t bother her that he didn’t like supreme pizza; in fact, it made her a little happy. Because it just meant that there would be more for her and Xavier.

  They walked past the check-out, which Xavier and Tyler still felt sorry about. They felt that they were stealing, just because they weren’t paying for the food. They weren’t stealing, Demetria had told them, just because they weren’t paying in money didn’t mean that they were stealing. If anything, they were paying with respect, which was worth more than money in so many ways.

  The drive home was spent in silence, save for the low hum of music from the radio. Demetria had found an old Celine Dion CD that belonged to Eliza, and decided that it was better than nothing. Which it was, but Demetria still wished that there was something better and that she had thought to grab a few CDs from the Record Shop when they were there. But she brushed away the thought and decided that she would whenever they went again, which hopefully, would be real soon.

  And she definitely wouldn’t be playing “I’d Rather Go Blind,” again. Instead, she would stick to something that didn’t have any feeling or memories attached to it. Like a Spice Chicks or TRL record. That would be sure to set a more lively and cheerful mood.

  When they got back home, Xavier was sitting on the couch watching a superhero movie on TV with barely any interest. He looked to where Tyler and Demetria stood in the entrance of the living room and gave them an almost smile that lasted no longer than a millisecond.

  He was wearing an old looking Black Sabbath shirt and a pair of blue plaid pajama pants. He looked comfortable, but he wasn’t. His shoulders were tense and there were dark circles under his eyes.

  Demetria was going to ask about it, but she didn’t know how that would make him feel, so she held her tongue. It was hard for her to do, but she did it. She took in a breath of air, held it in for a few moments, then let it out. She then turned and made her way to the kitchen, wasting no time in ripping into one of the boxes of Supreme Pizza and put it in the oven to cook. It wasn’t gourmet like Eliza’s would have been, but as an alternative, it would have to do.

  When the first pizza was done, she took it out of the oven and placed it on the bar on top of the box that it came in, then proceeded to cook a meat trio pizza for Tyler.

  Tyler sat on the couch with Xavier. Neither of them spoke, just watched the movie that Xavier had put on while they were gone. It was pretty good but not as engrossing as it should have been.

  From beside him, Xavier shuffled in his seat and laid his head down on the couch arm, closing his eyes. Just to rest them, he wasn’t trying to sleep, but his eyes felt extremely heavy.

  “Foods done!” called Demetria from the kitchen, where she was just finishing up setting the table.

  Tyler and Xavier pushed themselves to their feet and made their way to the kitchen. Demetria was already sitting down and eating, and she was already halfway through her first slice.

  Xavier sat down across her, closed his eyes and prayed over the food that he was about to consume, then dug in.

  “Thanks,” he muttered to Demetria.

  She nodded her head in acknowledgment and then proceeded to eat. She didn’t need to use words, because she knew that words weren’t merely enough, and she knew that he was grateful for that, because he wasn’t really up for a conversation or anything?

  They ate in silence, save for the few times that Tyler and Demetria would indulge in small talk. None of them really thought about the ripple in the sky, in some way it had become a part of almost normalcy, and in a way, the paranoid people roaming the streets had become a normal thing, as well.

  “Good night,” said Xavier, standing to his feet and taking his plate to the sink. “Tomorrow, we can do something else, or we can go back to the record shop. Or, if either of you is feeling up to it we could go to that park, you know the one our parents used to take us to when we were younger, Demetria.”

  “Sure,” she said, with a small smile etched on her lips. “I would love that.”

  “Would that be okay with you, Tyler?”

  Tyler nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds great, actually.”

  “Great,” said Xavier in finality. “Goodnight, you two.”

  “Goodnight,” said Demetria and Tyler in unison.

  “Sleep well!” called Tyler from behind him as he made his way up the stairs toward his room. He huffed out a deep breath of air and threw himself lazily down onto his bed, haphazardly throwing the covers over his body.

  He fell asleep slowly, blackness creeping in and then taking him all at once. But it ended faster than it had begun. To him, it felt as if he had only been sleeping for a few minutes instead of five hours, and he woke stretching his limbs with a yawn falling from his lips. And he stared up at the ceiling of his room for a few minutes.

  Outside it was still pretty dark, so the glow-in-the-dark stars were shining as vibrantly as they could, not exactly lighting up the ceiling, but they did what they were meant to do: which was nothing, but look pretty.

  Xavier took his phone off the nightstand by his bed and turned it on, squinting his eyes from the brightness, to check the time. It read: 3:27 AM, which made Xavier, groan. On most nights whenever he would wake up in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason, he would just stare up at the fake stars that littered the length of his ceiling or read some book on his phone until tiredness reclaimed hold of him and dragged him back under.

  He didn’t feel like looking up at the stars on his bedroom’s ceiling, so he opted for one of the many books that had been left unread in his phones library. He decided on some book that Demetria always raved about and had been telling him to read since Middle School. It was interesting to some extent and had a promising plot, but nothing much happened in the first few chapters, nothing that grasped for his attention anyway, so he grew bored and tired pretty fast. With a yawn, he locked his phone and put it back on the nightstand by his bed and laid back down, closing his eyes.

  He was almost asleep, again, when he heard the door of his bedroom creaking open, and a stream of light came in and then it was gone. And his room was cast back into darkness.

  “Xavier,” whispered a voice.

  It was Tyler. He was standing at the end of Xavier’s bed and all Xavier could see was Tyler’s silhouette. “Yeah? What’s wrong?”

  “Can’t sleep,” said Tyler in reply. “Can I sleep in here for the rest of the night? I just don’t want to be alone.”

  Xavier took a moment to think, taking in a breath of air then letting it out slowly. “Yeah, sure,” he said.

  Tyler c
rawled in bed beside Xavier. They slept peacefully, waking a few hours later to the sound of a loud clang from downstairs in the kitchen.

  Xavier jolted upright, a gasp leaving his mouth. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked to his side; Tyler was still asleep, shivering cold. It was cold, but he hadn’t noticed until that moment. He pushed himself out of bed and covered Tyler with his blanket. It just seemed like the most sensible thing to do. He didn’t want him to freeze when he didn’t really have to.

  Xavier then made his way downstairs. He had a mission, and it was all he was focused on. He didn’t pay any mind to Demetria, who was in the kitchen cooking breakfast. He went straight for the fireplace that they hadn’t even thought to use in the past few days as the nip of cold was nearing. He kneeled at the hearth of the fireplace and started stacking it high with firewood, one by one, and lighting it when he was done.

  Demetria stood in the doorway, watching him. Her arms were crossed over her chest and a smiled graced her lips. “I was wondering when one of you would wake up to do that for me. It’s been cold as hell. I’ve been up since 4:00 AM, because of how cold it has been. How’d you sleep?”

  Xavier shrugged, standing up straighter. “I slept all right. You?”

  “Tossed and turned,” she replied. “In fact, in the middle of the night I was going to come and join you like we used to do when we were kids, but Tyler had already taken my place.”

  Xavier opened his mouth to speak, but she did before he could.

  “Nightmares,” she supplied. “I know. I’ve seen him down here late at night, just staring into nothingness. I asked what was wrong once and “nightmares” were all that he told me. I guess he got tired of being alone, which is understandable because I think that I would too. We’re all hurting, Xavier. We’re all lonely, but we’re alone together and that’s all that really matters.”

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I suppose you’re right. What are you doing?”

  “Cooking breakfast.”

  “I’ll help.”

  Tyler came downstairs forty minutes later with Xavier’s blanket wrapped around his body, in a sort of cocoon-like fashion.

  “It’s hellishly cold upstairs, I can see my breath. Why’s it so cold? It isn’t winter.”

  “Don’t know,” said Xavier, setting a plate of food in front of him. “Breakfast is ready though”

  “Eat up.”

  Tyler obliged, taking a seat on a stool at the kitchen island, instead of at the dinner table where they normally sat. He bowed his head for a moment, then raised it and started eating. He hummed in content, the food warming his insides. He wished that it would do the same to his outsides, but the fire that was burning was slowly warming the house. He still kept the blanket wrapped around his body to shield him from the cold. He was still half asleep, but the smell of food and the bite of the cold had awoken him.

  “I think we should probably stay in, today,” said Demetria, taking a carton of orange juice out of the fridge and pouring some in a glass to hand to Xavier, and then did the same for Tyler and herself. “There aren’t many things for us to do, but specifically today, I think that it would be best for us to stay in and keep warm. We could just watch a couple of movies if the two of you are up to it.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Tyler, sipping absent-mindedly at his glass of orange juice.

  Xavier shrugged his shoulder. “Sure. Just let me take a shower first.”

  “Of course.”

  Xavier finished his breakfast in uneventful silence, then made his way upstairs to take a shower. He grabbed a chance of clothes from his room and then proceeded to the bathroom.

  He stripped himself of his clothes and stepped into the shower, and turned on the hot water. It sprayed down on him like rain but comforting with warmth.

  The water cascaded hotly down the length of his back, relaxing his muscles. It was such a heavenly relief that Xavier had to bite his bottom lip to suppress a groan.

  He lathered soap on his hands and then started to clean his face, then his body, and then his hair. When he was done and he deemed himself clean enough, he stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself. The air in the bathroom was hot and steamy. It was warm in the bathroom, but he knew that it was going to be cold throughout the rest of the house if the fire hadn’t yet started to do its job.

  He left the bathroom and shuttered from the slither of cold that filled the hall. It would warm downstairs faster than it would upstairs.

  Demetria and Tyler were already sitting on the couch, bundled up with their own respectful blankets, next to each other. Tyler was in the middle, and he started to move over so that Xavier could sit next to Demetria, but Xavier stopped him. He didn’t want to make him move, he didn’t have to sit next to her all the time.

  He sat at the other end of the couch next to Tyler, with his legs pulled under him. The movie that was playing was playing was some teen romance movie that Xavier probably never would have watched if either Tyler or Demetria hadn’t have picked it.

  But it was good enough and surprisingly piqued his interest enough for him to keep watching.

  After a few minutes, Xavier shivered from the cold. He had tried to ignore it, but couldn’t. Tyler nudged him with his elbow. Xavier looked back at him, his eyebrows raised in confusion. “Yes?” he asked.

  Tyler didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted the blanket that he was covered up with as if saying: go ahead and cover-up. I know you’re cold.

  Xavier didn’t even take the time to think about it. It was already so cold, the only warmth that he was receiving was from the fireplace, but it wasn’t doing the greatest of jobs. Half of his body was warm, but the other half was cold. The battle between the warmth and the cold was a battle that was easily won by the cold.

  He laid the weight of his head into his right hand and watched the movie with mild interest.

  “I wish that there was a signal for the cable,” said Demetria. “I really want to binge watch FRIENDS, right now,” She had a box of cookies in her hands, nibbling on one. “It’d be more entertaining than this.”

  “I saw a box set of it at the store when we were shopping a few days earlier for groceries,” replied Xavier, nonchalantly. “Oh, speaking of groceries and food in general, I think that I would like a small dinner tonight. Something like scrambled eggs or something easy that doesn’t take too long to make. Sound reasonable?”

  “Eggs and cut up hot dogs like your dad used to make?”

  Xavier nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. The mention of his father made his heart pang in his chest, and a sliver of sadness to creep into the pit of his stomach.

  He sucked in a deep breath of air then let it out slowly. He stood to his feet and made his way into the kitchen. He was very cold, though the fire was slowly but surely making the downstairs part of the house warm. The cold made him want something warm to drink. Impulsively, without asking either Demetria or Tyler, he made him and them a nice hot cup of hot chocolate. He strategically measured the powdered cocoa and put it into three different mugs, then measured out cups of hot water and poured them carefully into the mugs.

  When he was done, he made his way back into the living room and handed Demetria and Tyler their own cups with a muttered: here.

  He sat back down on the couch beside Tyler and pulled the cover back over him. Instantly, he felt warm, his lower half at least. But it was enough to relax him.

  He sipped at his hot chocolate slowly. The warmth filling his insides with a warmth that was gone just as fast as it had begun. After he is finished his hot chocolate, he leaned his head against the back of the couch, and his eyes, heavy with tiredness, closed. And sleep overcame him, pulling him down, gently, into its grasp.

  Demetria and Tyler watch the movie, commenting every now and then about the cliché romance elements that make them cringe every now and again. The movie wasn’t bad, it was just a cute film that was meant to make one feel warm and almost gi
ddy. But the romance was lackluster and happened almost instantly.

  At one point in the film, the female love interest asked the male love interest if they believed in love at first sight and Tyler couldn’t help but scoff at it, which made Demetria look at him with furrowed brows.

  “What?” she asked.

  Tyler shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “I just thought that that scene was a little funny.”

  Demetria rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said. “I don’t believe in love at first sight. But I do think that you can catch “feelings” for someone at first sight, whether it is a strong like-like feeling or lust. Either one is valid, but I think it’s possible.”

  “Well,” said Tyler, setting his half-empty mug down on the table. “I’m not going to say that it’s not. But love isn’t something that I’m really looking for. I have no reason to. My parents fight all the time, their marriage is practically—No!—it is falling apart. I have very low expectations on love. They would have gotten divorced had this rapture business not occurred. They hate each other, but they stay together because of me—I know because I heard them talking about it one night. But them staying together just made me resent them. And they—died?—hating each other.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Then Demetria said, “Why did they hate each other?”

  Tyler shook his head. “My dad cheated on my mom, she found out through text, and a spark of resentment just coiled deep inside of her and all of her energy was used to hate him with a burning passion.”

  “What are your parents’ names? You never speak of them, and now that you are, it just feels kind of weird hearing you call them both ‘he’ and ‘she’.”

  “Aria and Cadence.”

  “Beautiful,” said Demetria. “Their names are really beautiful.”

  Tyler nods, not dignifying her words with a reply. They were, he thought.

  He willed those thoughts away and looked back at her, staring her straight in the eyes. He was about to speak when Demetria surged forward and placed her lips on his. He stiffened in shock, then after a moment he relaxed into it and kissed back. Her lips were soft against his.