The Day the Earth Met the Sky Read online

  “Yes, please.” Erik almost laughed.

  “But, you gotta let me try something. Somethin’s been in the back of my head. I want you to dream with me.”

  Erik rolled back to face Aaron who was looking at him a little too eagerly. “Sounds… weird.”

  “Maybe,” Aaron considered. “Could be cool though. Wanna try?”

  “I don’t think I want you in my head any more than you already get at.”

  “Be just like regular dreaming, not like I’m gonna be able to go probing around and stuff. We’d just be sharing it.”

  Erik pretended to consider for a moment before agreeing. He could never say no to anything involving Aaron’s magic, ridiculous or not.

  “Ok! Close your eyes,” Aaron said.

  Erik closed his eyes and instantly felt like he was falling.

  Erik was 8 years old. It was after dark and he was lying on an old wet couch someone had abandoned on the street. An 8-year-old Aaron was across the street, sitting on a boxy car with its window busted out, staring down at him.

  “Get down from there! What’re you looking at?” Erik said.

  Aaron jumped, landing silently on the sidewalk and reached a hand out to him. Erik turned away and began to walk down 7th street, passing the ragged old beggars, at least three for every block. Something made his stomach flip. “I won’t beg, you know.”

  “I know, I know,” Aaron said. “But it doesn’t hurt.”

  “It does so… What would you know?” Erik began to run.

  Aaron called after him but he continued on. The buildings were becoming more and more like scrap metal boxes and he knew he was close to the projects. The old flower shop lady screamed at him that it wasn’t safe, waving chrysanthemums above her head, but she was crazy. He turned into the alley behind the barber shop that wasn’t a barber shop. It smelled worse than normal, like rotting meat and burnt hair, and Erik covered his face with his sweater sleeve. He felt Aaron grip his shoulder. “I’m right behind you,” he whispered in his ear.

  “Duh,” Erik said, walking further into the dark.

  It took a minute for his eyes to adjust. Lying up against the dumpster was a sack of green and purple flesh with thousands of flies swarming it, creating a black cloud. Erik heaved. He threw up something green and purple and began to cry, sitting on the sticky concrete. Aaron got to the ground and pulled him against his narrow chest, and Erik wrapped his arms around him. Aaron was fragile, like a bird, and Erik thought he could crush him if he squeezed a little harder. He pushed Aaron onto his back in the stickiness and straddled him, gripping his thin neck in both his hands. “You can’t see him like this! I won’t let you!”

  “I won’t look, I promise!” Aaron wheezed.

  “Liar!” Erik was still crying and his tears fell onto Aaron’s face, pooling underneath his eyes.

  “It’s ok, I’ll take you somewhere else.” Aaron’s voice was barely a breath.

  Erik let him up off the ground and Aaron reached his hand out to him again. Erik took it and he pulled him out of the alley. “We’ll go to the forest,” Aaron said.

  “Why?”

  “Cus’ it’s home. Duh.” Aaron looked over his shoulder at Erik, smiling. “It’s just over here.”

  They took a right turn onto 4th street. Narrow trees as tall as skyscrapers began to grow up out of the concrete. The farther they walked the more skyscraper trees there were, until eventually there was nothing but tight columns of trees with sunlight filtering through the heart shaped leaves high above them. Aaron was pulling him quickly on a path Erik couldn’t see. Erik realized he was still holding his hand and he jerked at him. “Let go!” he yelled.

  “But, you’ll get lost!”

  Erik jerked harder, freeing his hand, and Aaron disappeared. He looked around the forest but he was nowhere. Erik began to run through the trees but they became thicker and thicker until he couldn’t fit between them anymore and he was trapped in a small semicircle of inescapable space. He screamed for Aaron for an inconceivable amount of time before the trees parted, revealing a red wolf that was Aaron. He ran to him and hugged him, feeling his snout nuzzle in the crook of his neck. Then, he squeezed too hard, causing them to become one in the same. They began to run on all fours, seeing the path which was invisible before with their nose until they fell apart. Aaron sat across from him in the mud. It was raining in the jungle and all the blood and dirt began flowing away with the flood. “I think we should go too,” Aaron said.

  “What?” Erik said.

  Aaron began to walk with the blood river and Erik followed. At the end, they found the soldiers’ bodies. They were all lined up neatly, tightly packed against each other. “Arranged with love by their fellow men,” Aaron said.

  “What are you saying?” Erik was sinking in the blood mud, struggling to keep himself above ground.

  “Think about it. Who else loves enough to die for each other?” Aaron was sinking too, but he wasn’t trying to free himself.

  “It’s not love… it’s necessity,” Erik said, stepping onto more solid ground.

  “Can’t it be both?” Aaron faced him, reaching out his hand for the last time.

  Erik reached out to take it, but Aaron was sucked down into the mud and pulled underneath the ground quicker than he could move. Erik yelled for him, attempting to dig a hole where he’d been standing, but it kept refilling with the mud blood. He began to cry again and hated himself for it. “Aaron, please!”

  Erik opened his eyes. They burned, and he felt a tear trail down to the end of his nose. He sat up and looked across from him, relieved to see Aaron sitting up on his cot too, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, before remembering that he was angry. “What the hell was that?” Erik tried to keep his voice down, since most the barracks was asleep.

  “What? Weird, right?” Aaron slurred.

  “You fucking lied! That was not regular dreaming. I don’t dream about being a kid, you did that on purpose!”

  “Ok, maybe I had a little more influence than I thought I would, but it was still mostly out of my control.”

  “Asshole!”

  “C’mon, I just wanted to know you a little. You know, before you became you.”

  Erik let out a frustrated breath of air. “If I want you to know something, I’ll tell you! You can’t just do that shit.”

  “That’s not what bothered you though.” Aaron smiled at him.

  “I told you, quit telling me what I am! Why are you smiling?”

  “Cus’ you’re not even pissed anymore.” Aaron laughed.

  Erik looked away, trying not to smile. “No, but I want to be. You always get what you want, it’s not fair.” He laughed at himself.

  They lay back down on their wet cots, watching the water begin to leak through the holes in the tent again, listening to the rain pick up and the thunder crash outside. “Why’d you really wanna do that? If you want to know me better you could just ask things,” Erik said.

  “It’s not the same. You can never really know somebody like that.” Aaron sighed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s just, we spend our whole lives living inside our own heads, existing in our own realities.” He turned to face Erik, eyes full of some strange emotion. “You know that all atoms have electron shells that repel each other? There’s always a small, measurable distance between them, so we never really even touch!”

  “Why do you know that? Right, never mind.” Erik laughed.

  “We’re nothin’ but lonely worlds circling each other…” His eyes took on that ancient quality again before he looked away and began to fidget with the harmonica at his side. “I just wanted to exist in the same reality as you.”

  “Shit, honey.” Erik rubbed his hands across his face. “Sometimes you’re so… heartbreaking.”

  “Aw Sarge, I don’t wanna break your heart.” Aaron reclined with one arm behind his head, staring upwards, eyes unfocused. “I just wanna,” he stretched his free arm towards the ceiling and s
queezed Erik’s imaginary heart, “touch it.”

  Erik thought he could see it somewhere behind his eyes, all pinkish and bloody. Aaron took it down from the sky and bit into it like an apple.

  “Creep.” Erik rolled to the other side, facing the empty cot.

  “Wanna do it again? Promise I won’t fuck with anything this time,” Aaron said.

  “…Yeah, ok.” He could never say no.

  Erik closed his eyes and began to fall.

  The One I Love

  Captain Roth might as well be dead, lying there in the hospital bed, all grey and plugged with tubes, alive only by definition, but nothing was going on in his head anymore. At least, that’s what they were saying. He’d be truly dead tomorrow, no matter what. Scheduled to be “unplugged” with no family alive to protest. But, even if he’d had any family, there was nothing left of him upstairs worth keeping alive. That’s what they all kept saying anyways, but a part of Kiddo refused to believe it. Captain Roth couldn’t die… The Captain was invincible.

  The invincible fucking poster boy of the Chordish National Defense Institute…

  Of all people, he couldn’t die. He was the hero, after all. It wasn’t possible, wasn’t real…

  Kiddo stood alone by Captain Roth’s bedside, all quiet aside from the steady beep of the ECG monitor and Roth’s breath, unnaturally pushing through the tubes in his nose. It was the middle of the night and Kiddo couldn’t remember how he’d gotten into the medical wing, let alone Roth’s private room. It didn’t really matter though.

  How had it come to this? Right… Kiddo’s first real mission. He should’ve kept his shitty luck as far away from Roth as possible, but it was too late now.

  The fear of death had been surreal before…

  How had it come to this so soon, so suddenly, so impossibly him?

  They had been in a cave of some sort; damp and cold, but hidden…

  Roth had fallen over the edge of the cliff as he’d led the Swarm into their squad’s haphazard trap—desperation leaving them one final, sacrificial move in play—and he’d succeeded. Kiddo had obliterated the Swarm by reaching for the earth, crushing them beneath the remnants of an old, stone cathedral—the building Roth had led the Swarm through just before being thrown over the edge. Despite Kiddo’s panicked state, he was able to summon his magic and do his duty before freaking the fuck out. The squad needed to retreat before enemy reinforcements arrived, but Kiddo wouldn’t leave his captain behind, dead or alive.

  He wouldn’t leave, not after everything Roth had done for him… after Roth had saved him from obscurity, from beat-downs, from not-friends bleeding him dry, from a squad of underachieving shit-bag children with zero sense, zero concept of the gravity of real-life combat ops, zero give-a-fucks, despite the fact that their so-called friends’ lives were on the line every fucking day, despite the fact that their own lives were on the line every fucking day, and why? Because people like Roth would be there to take care of them, of course, pick up the slack, sacrifice everything to do the right thing, to be the hero everyone needed him to be… Spoiled children with “attitude,” sent to the Institute for “character building,” as if it was some kind of summer camp. Roth had little patience for those kids, being a “Rescue” like Kiddo. Rescues… poor street orphans, all alone, let CNDI (Cindy, as they say) be their family, they’ll likely be dead before 30 one way or another. Rescues understood death; they knew what needed to be done to survive, though most did it with a significant chip on their shoulder like Kiddo. Roth was special though, he never just survived…

  Kiddo hadn’t been fair to him at first. Roth was an asshole, and everyone knew it. Stuck-up, better-than-anyone poster-boy. Literal poster-boy. Kiddo had had that goddamn poster covering the hole in his wall before CNDI took him away, and he’d known Roth would be an asshole from then—though that hadn’t stopped him from jerking off to Roth’s perfect model face and physique, sexy as hell in his battledress, minus shirt, absentmindedly cleaning his rifle—Kiddo wondered how many girls had signed up just for the chance to meet the famed CNDI poster-boy; “Honor your country and see the world” and hook up with our resident knight in shining armor, or, fuck armor, let’s take his shirt off and put those muscles to use. Yeah, Roth was that guy…

  But, what was Roth really? Genuine and tired as fuck, that’s all. Honest to a fault, too young for all that responsibility on his head, and too smart to take it lightly. All Roth really wanted was to write music, to sing with that perfect devil/angel voice of his that drove Kiddo fucking mad, but Roth was too morally driven and selfless to ignore the duty that had been thrust at him simply for being damn good at taking charge and getting shit done. Roth cared. Roth genuinely cared! He cared about Kiddo even—god only knows why—and Kiddo loved him for it. He loved every fucking inch of him.

  —His blue-sky eyes that shone clear as diamonds even in shadow; those dangerously shredded muscles; long, lithe limbs; crooked, full-lipped, oh-so-easy smile; milk chocolate skin; god the music that came out of him! Genuine, beautiful, easy—

  He loved Roth, was in love with Roth, had even managed to tell Roth all this too, hadn’t he?

  Right, but not really. Way too fucking late. Roth had stopped talking, probably stopped thinking by then. In the cave…

  Roth had fallen into foggy, unknown depths. There was rocks and water down there, no telling what he’d hit.

  “We have to head back now!” Jericho yelled, but Kiddo was already one foot over the edge.

  “Kiddo, we’ll come ba—”

  “You go! I can take care of him. Send help when it’s clear.” Kiddo was surprised Dolfo wasn’t in his place, being he was supposed to be Roth’s best friend.

  But, maybe Dolfo had more sense than Kiddo. Roth was dead, no doubt. Didn’t matter, Kiddo was scaling the cliff-side and the others were on their way back to base while the next Swarm closed in on their location. He’d have to wait out the night, but his magic could keep him and Roth warm.

  Kiddo was practically in a trance in his descent, methodically lowering himself down the almost 90-degree angle of the cliff, slipping on cold, wet rock and mud, then catching on roots—bleeding hands, face, knees—he was numb to the pain and the danger, but, unfortunately, not to the time it took before hitting the godforsaken ground. If Roth wasn’t dead before, he surely was now.

  The fog was thick and he was losing light fast, but some kind of luck was with him in that moment as he brushed his unfeeling hands off on his pants. A dark figure lay limp not 20 feet away, half in a shallow stream, other half bloody and battered and barely recognizable. Kiddo moved as fast as his spent limbs would allow.

  “Roth, Roth!” He called as he rolled over the body.

  Breath, wheezing but real. Roth’s eyes opened, swollen mouth worked at words but his face was likely frozen if not broken. He made a noise that could have been “Ren.”

  Roth liked to call him by his first name when nobody else was around…

  The cave, another piece of strange, unforeseen luck. It wasn’t too far away, but Kiddo was weak from the climb and Roth was heavy. You shouldn’t move the injured… but, the Swarm would find them out here, no doubt. Kiddo could conceal them with magic if they weren’t out in the fucking open, and it’d be easier to keep them warm. He’d get Roth to the cave. The earth could help, but he needed to conserve as much magic as possible to get them through the night. With strength born of desperation, Kiddo slung Roth’s limp body over his shoulders and lumbered into the darkness, pushing out of his mind all the sounds, the sense he might’ve just broke the not quite broken yet, and the obvious pain.

  Roth made some noise in protest as Kiddo laid him out on the ground. “Sorry, Tristan…” He also liked to call Roth by his first name when no one was around. It was a thing they had…

  Kiddo set a small fire, just a little magic for light, and he saw Roth—face scratched and bruised, one eye swollen shut—actually smiling that crooked smile at him the best he could. “Tristan?”
r />   “Knew you’d find me,” Roth said in a rasping whisper before attempting to clear his throat or laugh.

  Kiddo put his hands on Roth’s trembling chest and sent his own warmth into him. “Wasn’t so hard, you didn’t get very far.” Kiddo attempted to be light, but his voice was strained even to his own ears.

  Roth tried to move his hand, but his face pinched in pain before he dropped it back to the ground. “Try not to move, yeah?” Kiddo said, tearing open the front of Roth’s shirt to get closer to skin.

  “Jus-waned-to… touch you.”

  “Tristan…”

  There was nothing Kiddo could do for the injuries. God only knows what kind of damage was done. Breathing was harsh, possibly a punctured lung, definitely broken ribs—he’d felt that much—head trauma… no point in thinking about it, they were trapped in a fucking cave with nothing. Roth’s chest was smooth and mostly undamaged though, so Kiddo focused on that. Smooth skin, slowly warming at his fingertips, heart beating…

  Roth didn’t speak again after that.

  Kiddo cried long and hard and eventually told him everything.

  He leaned over Roth’s body, lips to Roth’s ear, and said in his ragged voice, “God, Tristan, you can’t do this! You can’t leave us… there’s no one like you in this world, you know that, right? You’re fucking beautiful. No one like you, not now, not ever. You deserve so much more than this… Tristan, Tristan I love you… you can’t leave me like this. I love you so fucking much… I know you probably don’t feel it like I do, but that doesn’t change the way I feel. Please, you have to stay so I can take care of you… so I can tell you all this when you’re fucking conscious! Tristan, god, I’m so in love with you… since the day I met you… hell, since I first saw you in that goddamn poster! Part of me must’ve known how special you were from the beginning… Tristan, I… I just love you, ok? Please, please stay with me…”

  Kiddo told Roth he loved him countless times throughout the night, but Roth wasn’t there anymore. He breathed a little and his heart was still beating though, so Kiddo had had hope until the doctors took it away.