Prologue #2
“Car…” The name scatters. “Carlos.” There. Got it.
“Brilliant. You’re doing so well.”
“I’m…trying,” I say.
“Tell me about working in fashion,” Jared says. “What’s a typical day like?”
“Boutique. High-end.” The words come slowly. “Rich people…expensive clothes.”
“Do you enjoy it?”
My teeth start chattering. Can’t make them stop. Jared’s jacket isn’t enough anymore.
“S’okay. Some clients are…” What’s the word? “Snobs. But others…”
There’s a gap. Suddenly, Jared is asking me something else, and I don’t know how we got here.
“Just clothes,” I mumble, but even through the fog, I know it’s more than that.
There’s silence. Or maybe I drifted off. Jared’s voice cuts through the fog, urgent.
“Felix! Open your eyes for me.”
Did I close them? When?
“That’s it. Stay with me. Can you wiggle your fingers for me? Both hands? Fingers,” Jared repeats. “Move them for me.”
My right hand barely responds. My left hand screams in protest, but moves.
“Good. Now your toes?”
“Can’t…can’t tell.” Everything below my chest feels wrong, compressed. “Shoes too tight.”
“That’s okay. The fact that you can feel the shoes is good. You’re doing great, Felix.”
“Do I get…sticker?” The memory surfaces randomly. “Like at the doctor’s…”
“Fresh out of stickers, I’m afraid.”
“Liked the…scratch ones. Smelled like…” What did they smell like? The thought dissolves.
“I just need to check the padding on your cheek. Might sting a bit.”
A bit turns out to be an understatement. It’s like someone’s pressing a hot iron against my cheek while simultaneously scrubbing it with broken glass. The pain radiates out in waves, each one making my eyes water so badly I can’t tell if I’m crying or just leaking.
Sound tears out of me—not quite a scream, not quite a sob.
“Squeeze my hand. As hard as you want.”
I do. Or I think I do. Hard to tell what my right hand is doing anymore.
“Hurts,” is all I can manage. One word. That’s all I’ve got.
“You’re doing so well,” Jared says.
“Drugs?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have anything stronger than paracetamol, and I can’t give you that with a potential head injury.”
“You don’t have drugs? Budget cuts?”
I can feel the puff of Jared’s laughter on my face.
“I’m actually off-duty right now. I just happened to be one of the first people on the scene. I’ve only got my off-duty kit with me.”
I manage a short, sharp laugh, although it sends a jolt of pain through me.
“My mum will laugh.”
“Why will your mum laugh?”
“Says I’ve always been lucky.”
“Tell me why your mum thinks you’re lucky.”
“Fell off the roof once. I was eight.” The words come in bursts. “Landed in…neighbor’s pool.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Frisbee on roof. Pool was…just filled.” Even saying this exhausts me.
“Felix, the padding on your face—is it soaked through?”
“Everything’s wet.” Is it blood or just the dampness of the cave? I can’t tell anymore.
“Okay. I’m going to need to apply more pressure.”
My vision is tunneling. The darkness at the edges isn’t just the cave anymore—it’s inside me, creeping inward like spilled ink. My chest feels strange, like I’m breathing through wet cloth. Each breath takes more effort than the last.
I’m getting worse. The thought arrives with cold clarity.
Sleep pulls at me like an undertow. But what if I close my eyes and that’s it? What if the darkness is the permanent kind? My heart hammers against my ribs, or maybe it’s supposed to beat that fast. I can’t tell anymore.
“Felix?” Jared’s voice sounds distant. “Stay with me.”
“Scared.” The word slips out before I can stop it. “If I sleep…?”
“You’re not going to die, Felix.” His hand tightens on mine. “I won’t let you.”
But people say things like that all the time, don’t they? Pretty lies in the dark.
“Anyone ever…said last words to you?”
Silence, then, “Yes.”
“What’d they say?”
“That’s not going to happen to you, Felix.”
Something in his voice makes me believe him. Or maybe I just want to.
“Maybe I should come up with some just in case?”
“Felix—”
“What about ‘I hid the treasure in the—’ then I die…without finishing.” I try to laugh, but it comes out wrong.
Jared joins in the laughter, only his is normal-sounding. “That sounds cruel to your family.”
“Give them a hobby,” I say.
“Speaking about hobbies, do you have any?”
“You’re…keeping me talking.”
“You’ve seen through my master plan.”
“Talented like that,” I mumble.
But despite the fact that I know this is simply a distraction technique, I try my hardest to keep answering Jared’s questions.
I tell him through stuttering words about how I love dancing at clubs and watching reality TV, and somehow end up telling him about my cat Patches and her habit of stealing underwear off clotheslines around the neighborhood.
Jared laughs, that deep rumbling sound. “You’re kidding.”
“Have a drawer full of…evidence. Neighbor’s boxers mostly.”
“Felix, you’re something else.”
His laugh makes me want to keep talking. And it’s not like my storytelling ability is at its peak right now. But when did someone last laugh at my stories like this? Not politely, but genuinely? Carlos usually checks his phone when I talk, or cuts me off to tell his own story.
“You actually listen,” I mumble.
“What’s that?”
“You ask…follow-up questions. Like you care about…the answers.” The words are getting harder, but this feels important. “Carlos never…he just waits for his turn to talk.”
“Well, Carlos sounds like he’s missing out.”
Something loosens in my chest that isn’t medical. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re excellent company, even half-conscious in a cave.”
I try to smile, but only half my face cooperates. “Low bar.”
“Higher than you’d think.” His thumb brushes across my knuckles—probably checking circulation, but it feels like comfort. “Tell me more about Patches. How old is she?”
“She’s…two. I got her at….” The words scatter.
“Felix?”
I’m drifting. The darkness pulls harder now, more insistent.
“Felix.”
“’M here.” But I’m not sure that’s true. Everything feels thin, like I’m dissolving at the edges.
“Stay with me. Why did you decide to get a cat?”
“Wanted something that would always be there.” Each word is work now. “Always something to cuddle.”
“I get that.” And his voice tells me he does.
My teeth are chattering again. When did that start? Time keeps jumping. One moment, Jared’s asking about what clubs I like to dance at. The next, he’s got both hands on my face, saying my name urgently.
“—need you to focus. Felix. Look at me.”
“Can’t see you. Dark.”
“I know. But stay with me. Squeeze my hand.”
I try. But my body isn’t all that cooperative.
“That’s it. Good.” But his voice has changed. Tighter. “They’ll be here soon.”
“Jared?” My voice sounds strange, distant.
“Right here.”
“Thank you for…listening.”
“Felix? FELIX!” Louder now. Something is pressing hard on my chest. His knuckles, maybe? “Come on, mate, open your eyes.”
“’M trying…” But I’m not sure if I say it or just think it.
Then a sound cuts through. Mechanical humming, growing louder.
“Hear that?” His hand tightens on mine. “That’s the cavalry.”
The noise multiplies. Engines. Voices shouting coordinates. Metal clanging. After hours of just Jared’s and my voices, it’s overwhelming.
“There are lots of people coming,” Jared warns. “But I’m not going anywhere. I’m your designated hand-holder until you fire me from the position.”
“Probably can’t afford your…rates,” I manage.
“Lucky for you, I’m running a special discount today.”
Now there’s too much brightness. It floods my vision. Well, my left eye, which is still attempting to see.
Faces appear in my peripheral vision, hands reaching in to attach things, assess things, discuss things in medical terminology that sounds like they’re speaking in code.
The car starts to transform around me: pieces are cut away with sounds that belong in a horror movie.
But through it all, Jared keeps up a running commentary, translating what they’re doing, warning me before anything loud happens, his voice the thread I follow through the chaos.
“Nearly there, Felix. You’re doing so brilliantly. A few more minutes, and we’ll have you out.”
The moment they finally peel enough metal away, my body remembers it’s not supposed to be folded like origami. Everything protests at once. Someone counts “One, two, three,” and then hands are everywhere, supporting my head, my back, my legs as they ease me out of what’s left of my car.
“I’ve got you,” Jared says, right by my ear, and I realize he’s moved to help guide my upper body onto what feels like a board. “Keep your head still for us.”
The transition from trapped to free is strangely anticlimactic.
No dramatic movie moment, just a lot of careful shuffling and professional voices saying things like “watch the IV” and “maintain C-spine.” My body feels like it belongs to someone else as they transfer me to a proper stretcher, strapping me down with practiced efficiency.
Then we’re moving, and the world tilts as they start hauling me up. I can hear the mechanical whir of whatever pulley system they’re using to extract me from this hole. My stomach lurches with the motion, or maybe that’s just my body finally catching up to everything that’s happened.
“Almost there,” Jared says, though his voice sounds different now, more distant, and I realize he must be climbing up alongside the stretcher somehow.
The last few meters happen fast. Suddenly, there’s sky above me instead of cave walls and about fifteen people in various uniforms all talking at once.
Now that we’re out in the light, everything looks like it’s been overexposed in a photo. The world has gone from black to blazing. My one semi-functional eye is not prepared for this transition. People are just shapes moving around me, voices without faces.
I want to see the face that matches the chocolate-cake voice.
I swivel as much as I can within the confines of my neck brace, looking for Jared, but he’s not among the sea of legs and bodies crowded around my stretcher. They all have normal, everyday voices.
I can’t see him anywhere.
It’s almost like he was never here at all.