A Thousand Endings

Everything felt fuzzy, after a couple seconds I slowly regained feeling in my body and could gather coherent thoughts.I was suddenly very aware that a group of about forty people were talking loudly in front of me, it sounded like a big argument, their voices boomed off of the walls, the air felt different in here.Out of the mix of voices I picked out a couple sentences like “what are we going to do with her” and “we can’t keep her, she was found with the secessionists, what if she’s one of them?”And “Andy can’t possibly trust her enough to keep her”.
Who’s this Andy character and why can’t he keep me?Why should I even need to be kept?!
I opened my eyes slowly and looked up, as soon as I moved the room went deathly silent.I shifted onto my butt, leaning back on my hands and peered up at them.It stayed quiet until everyone staring at me silently turned to everyone shouting questions at me.
“Who are you?!” “Where did you come from?!” “What’s your name?!” came at me from all directions, my head felt like it was going to explode.Then I realized, Chrysanthemum! And Fin! What had happened to Fin when he tried to save me?Where did he leave Chrysanthemum?Is she safe?How the hell did I get here? I had so many questions unanswered.
“Shut the fuck up!” I screeched at the top of my lungs, half delirious.
My hands had reached up to my ears to cover them with shaking fingers and I sat hunched over, my anxiety was crying at this point.The crowd quieted then parted like scissors straight down the middle, a figure emerged from the newly made aisle slowly.His black boots cuffed against the dirt, I didn’t bother to look up and kept my head down towards his feet, but from what I could see I guessed that he was a tall, skinny figure dressed in all black.
He stopped directly in front of me and crouched down to my level, I turned away never looking at his face while still in my hunched, hands on my head position, I probably looked insane.My breathing was loud and rapid, I focused on taking deep breaths to steady it.
“Welcome to the Mole Hole” came a rough voice from beside me.
I finally looked up into his eyes, the only thing I could think was, pretty.They were so blue and mesmerizing, my eyes immediately locked onto his like a wolf’s unrelenting jaw locked onto its victim. Finally pulling myself away from this beauty, alien to me, I shoved my head between my knees.
“Chrysanthemum…” I whispered quietly.
“Look… um… let’s get you taken care of, and maybe some food, and-“
“No you fucktard!Where’s Chrysanthemum! She-she’s a little girl, about this big, a-and she has black hair, w-with green eyes, you can’t miss her”, I explained stuttering on my worries.
I looked up at him, I was sure as hell that I had crazy eyes; out of the corner of my eye I saw a little head poke out from the crowd.
“Dennie!” came a high pitched voice.
I whipped my head around, and saw Chris, oh thank god!Holding my arms wide open Chris ran into them, and I buried my face into her hair.I stood taking Chris up with me while resting her weight on my hip.Looking at this stranger’s whole face for the first time I wasn’t disappointed, he had a straight, hard jawline, jet black hair longer on the top and cut short on the sides, the long part swooped over perfect eyebrows that arched in the middle, my eyes wandered down to his pale lips.I cleared my throat suddenly self-conscious, and went back to his eyes, his face was set in an expectant stare, but his eyes held a humorous sparkle, I felt a hot blush creep onto my cheeks.He had caught me staring.
“Fin”, I said quietly to myself, “where’s Fin?” I said louder.
He looked confused.
“Oh, um, the boy I, uh, was with, tall, really skinny, brown eyes, blond hair?”
The stranger looked down, conflicted.
“He… he didn’t make it”.
“What?You mean he…”
“Was taken prisoner”, the stranger finished for me.
I let my gaze drop, after a while he spoke.
“So, Dennie was it?I’m Andy, listen, why don’t we show you guys your room get you two fed, and talk through some things”, the crowd gasped at his invitation.
“Hayden, my name is Hayden not Dennie.You call me Hayden, got it?”I was a little pissed that this was the Andy that decided to keep me or not, like I was some stray pet.
He nodded awkwardly at my rudeness, I nodded back showing I was ready to go.
“Okay,” he said loudly to the crowd, turning around and looking at them, “get back to your daily schedules”. They dispersed immediately at his command, I’m guessing this guy was some sort of leader to them.
With that we walked into a long dark hall, the walls were made of dirt and we took a lot of turns, we passed curtains covering carved out doorways often.These hallways were like complicated spider webs, I don’t know how this Andy guy can navigate through it all.After about ten minutes of this we came to a dead end with a curtain-door next to it.Andy pulled back the curtain and gestured into the room at me, I walked in with Chris while looking around.There was a blanket on the floor with a grimy pillow, and that was it.
“This is your room, stay here while I go get you two food.Don’t leave, don’t even move, you can’t afford getting yourself into more trouble”, Andy ordered.
I glared at his back while he stalked briskly out of the room in long strides, oh boy this should be fun, a total dickhead hottie, no Fin, and literally a crowd full of people that hate me, just my luck.
Now that I’m all alone I think about Fin as Chris naps on the blanket.Oh Fin, I wish I was never mad at him, I wish he didn’t try to be a hero and save me.Why couldn’t he just have listened to me!? Silent tears fell from my eyes, and then I was suddenly seeing a different point of time, I recognized it as a memory from when Fin and I first met.
I was standing half crouched with a knife in my hand, ready to protect myself if needed.Fin was in front of me with his hands up in surrender, I let myself sink into the memory.
“Ok ok, we’re cool, I won’t hurt you.We’re in the same spot, I’m by myself looking for food too.Just… just put the knife away ok? Ok.
I slowly lowered the knife and looked at him quizzically
“What’s your name, stranger?” I asked roughly.
“Finley, but you can call me Fin, yours?”
“Hayden, but you can call me Dennie.”
With that we both smiled, relieved we weren’t alone any longer.
“Where’d you come from Dennie?”-
I was suddenly pulled back to our current time as a hand waved in front of my face, it was Andy.I jumped back a little, surprised.
“Didn’t mean to spook you, here’s your food.”
“Thanks”, I mumbled before biting into an apple then bread, oh it tasted so good, then taking large gulps of water, don’t even get me started on the water!
Andy laughed at my show of hunger, it made my heart flutter, oh his laugh, it was like music.But I still frowned up at him and swallowed hard.
“Excuse me but was my starvation funny to you?” I don’t know why I was being so rude, damn you brain.
“Oh um no, I just…”, he trailed off.
“Just forget it”, I concluded looking down.
Andy awkwardly stood there with Chrysanthemum’s plate of food in his hands, and looked over to her.I followed his gaze and took pride in her peaceful sleep.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a cuter kid”, Andy stated.
I just nodded finishing up my food.
“You can just set that there, I’ll wake her up later to eat”, I said pointing next to her pillow.
He set the food down and came to sit in front of me crisscrossed.
“So can you tell me what happened while I was… unconscious”, I asked unsure.
“Yea, well I had been keeping an eye on the secessionists for a while, I was going to stake out all night studying them and their plans when I saw you creeping through their camp.I thought you were absolutely crazy, were you trying to kill yourself?”
There was a pause and I swallowed any words I might have said, when he figured out I wasn’t going to speak he continued.
“So I followed from afar while hiding as well, when I saw you fall into the tent and heard yelling I knew I had to fix your mistake.The other secessionists are used to that kind of thing happening in the general’s tent so they didn’t bother checking it out.Then I saw your companion, um Fin? He ran out from behind a building and into the tent with only a shard of glass the crazy motherfucker. I looked back to the building he ran from and saw that little girl of yours poking her head out from behind it.Long story short I got you and Chrysanthemum out, and uh, didn’t have time to get Fin, I’m sorry.”
I didn’t look at him but instead down while saying,
“Thanks for that, for saving Chris”.
“No problem, ok so tonight I’ll let you two have your rest and kind of let things sink in, tomorrow I’ll schedule you your chores and have you meet the co-leaders.”
Chores?Co-leaders?

Notes