Burn Out - Chapter 1, Part 2

"No thank you, Nero." He glanced back to make sure he was following; indeed he was. He was right behind Mox, his large brown eyes looking rather desperate. He really wanted Mox to eat the dog. He sighed. "We're late now, you realise. We've got to get to Burnout soon or we won't be able to see to find a place to sleep."

Regardless, he took the dog from the other's hand as they walked, just so he'd stop making that face. That... face. It didn't bother him particularly, but it made it appear to others like he'd done something horrible to Nero. Which, in Nero's opinion, he had, but to everyone else he hadn't. He didn't bother eating the thing, choosing instead to carry it. The foil crinkled in his hand as he shifted it around.

It took them nearly half an hour to reach Burnout, something Nero didn't notice, which was fine for Mox. He didn't particularly need his friend rubbing it in that the candy shoppe venture hadn't been the only thing to make them late. It was dark as anything when they'd arrived, which made finding a building that wasn't falling apart particularly difficult.

Burnout was a part of the same city they'd just spent the day walking through, but somehow a whole separate world. It had been ravaged by a violent fire some six years before, a fire that had ripped through the better part of ten square blocks and had killed its share of people in the process. The fire had been put down to a gas pipe explosion, facilitated by the high winds and several well-placed cars that had immediately spun down the street into buildings all down the way. The fact that it had started by destroying the only fire station in the area, coupled with the wide-spread area that had been engulfed in flames quickly following the initial explosion, had led to the other fire companies declaring it a total loss fire. They'd stayed on the perimeter, spraying the flames down as they reached it to prevent it spreading to the surrounding areas, but doing nothing to stop the burning core. The gas lines being shut off stopped it from crippling the entire city, but in the end, a rather large area had ended up being destroyed.

With the economy the way it had been then, most had been discouraged from rebuilding, and those who had had hopes for it had quickly given them up and moved away to a different area. Long after the fires had been extinguished, the skeletal reminders of it were left behind in the form of burnt out cinderblock buildings and the half-destroyed dwellings of families unfortunate enough to have been in the radius. The mayor had referred to it as 'the burned out area' in a speech soon after the incident, and the locals had latched onto the term for use in reference to it. Burnout soon became the center for many of the city's homeless to flock to, and a hotspot for runaway children and teenagers to hide away in. The police simply wouldn't venture into the area; it became a lawless zone, a place for those who wanted to disappear or who wanted to make other disappear to thrive in.

It was a place Mox and Nero had been to only once, and a place they had since never returned to.

"Mox..." Nero's voice had gone soft and small as they'd reached the edge of Burnout; the area was easy enough to recognise upon reaching it. A few buildings along the edge had mostly survived the flames, and these abandoned places had already mostly been claimed as homes for those who had no other place to go. There were no cars in front of them, no kept lawns in front. Mox eyed a building disinterestedly as the torn curtains stirred in the window. "Mox, I just remembered. I don't like it here."

Of course he didn't like it here.

"I know. I wouldn't either, Nero." Mox continued forward anyway, ears concentrated on Nero's footsteps behind him. The other man faltered and stopped once, but when Mox didn't pause to wait for him, the footsteps picked up in earnest. "We had to come back though. You know why. I didn't expect you would enjoy it here, but... you know it's unavoidable."

Their reason for being here was simple. It wasn't revenge, per say. They were simply looking for someone who had taken something from them. They weren't out to kill him, or anything like that. Right? Mox nodded his head to his own thoughts as they passed the dismal remains of a family home that hadn't been so lucky as its neighbour. The siding was melted all over, the interior of the house gutted and black. He found himself wondering if the family had survived. Had they come home to discover they didn't have a home anymore? Or had they been in the home when the disaster had struck?

He was thinking too much. Mox rubbed his eyes as he continued down the sidewalk, toward the commercial area that had once thrived. Many of the old buildings down that way had been completely destroyed. Only those that had been knocked down and rebuilt prior to Burnout had remained behind, and even those hadn't fought the flames well. Half-walls towered over the streets next to charred black ground from which no plants seemed able to grow yet, the bricks prone to coming loose over the years and falling toward the unsuspecting who happened to be walking below. Mox kept diligent for this, however much it was impossible for them to hurt him.

"Nero, we're almost there."

He tried not to think about the last time they had been here, for Nero's sake. If Nero managed to get close enough, and carelessly touched anywhere he had a patch of bare skin... He would see it all again. And while Mox couldn't feel that fear that he had felt back then, Nero definitely would feel it. He didn't want his friend to go through that again. It was bad enough the first time around, without him remembering exactly what had happened. His eyes searched down the dark street for any indication that they were near the building he was looking for.

These streets hadn't been lit at night for over six years. Mox would've done well to bring a flashlight with him. It was one of those silly little things he should have thought about before dragging Nero back to this place. The moon in the sky above was only at its half, leaving the area below severely lacking for light. Stars provided little in the way of this as well... Mox reached for Nero's arm automatically, feeling for the leather sleeve of his jacket.

"Nero, do you have a flashlight or something in your pack? I can't see where it is..." He glanced at his strangely silent friend; though his face was difficult to make out in the dark, it wasn't that hard to tell that his jaw was clenched tight under his rapidly paling skin. He was afraid, almost ridiculously so. Mox could feel the fear coming off him. The waves of it rubbed against his skin, making him twitch slightly as his stomach churned. "Don't... look like that. He's not going to be here tonight, I'm sure of it."

After all, what reason could that person have for hiding in the darkened remains so late at night, when victims would be few and far between? He had preyed on two high-schoolers, did he also prey on the older homeless population? The manner of his thievery left Mox inclined to say no to that. This man, this monster, most likely only went after those like Nero and himself. Young, energetic, full-of-life people. Those who had the most to lose.

"I've... got one," Nero finally replied, sliding the pack off his shoulder and pulling the drawstring to open it up. He seemed to be relaxing a bit; Mox took his hand off his sleeve and focused his eyes in the pack. The strange collections that Nero had started were all jammed in there, poised to overflow. A few coins clinked against the sidewalk as he shifted aside a balled-up teeshirt. "It's in here, I swear it is. I know I didn't throw it out, because I use it to read after you go to sleep sometimes..."

He set the pack down on the ground and squatted next to it, one hand feeling around on the sidewalk for the wayward coins as the other dug about through the contents of his bag. It obviously... wasn't a big flashlight, if he couldn't find it easily. Mox sighed and squatted next to him, giving Nero's arm a gentle nudge with his elbow as his hands dipped into the contents as well. He would find it faster than Nero would, most likely.

"You need to keep this organised. You'd have a lot more room in here if you folded your clothes, you know." The old army-issue bag was about three feet deep, and mostly stuffed with the mass of clothing that he had accumulated over the last two years. He hadn't grown at all since the incident, and the only thing he'd ever bothered to get rid of were his pajama pants. The battle over that had been rather huge on their usual battle scale, but in the end Mox had relented. Fighting with Nero simply wasn't worth the trouble. "And some of your shirts have huge holes in them, we should get you new ones. You should tell me when that stuff happens, instead of shoving them to the bottom of your pack."

"They do not!" Nero protested, his bottom lip jutting out as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Some have little holes in them, but they're still wearable!"

Mox pulled a white tee shirt from the pack just then and held it up; one of the sleeves was nearly separated from the rest of the shirt by a large hole that had probably originated in the armpit. There was also a rather large across the stomach of it, just below the logo of some old bowling alley Nero had never been to. The smaller man blushed furiously and almost opened his mouth to protest as Mox tossed the thing at him.

"That's a washing rag now. As is this one." He tossed another shirt, a light blue one which was stained rather badly down the front. "And this one." A red tee shirt landed on Nero's head; the side was ripped open, most likely from him climbing over a fence or something similar. "We'll find a shop and get you some more clothes tomorrow."

The flashlight was stuck in the poorly-sewn inside pocket, Mox discovered moments later. It was a small plastic thing, barely noticeable, but the small beam made it possible for him to at least see. He tucked the remainder of Nero's clothes back in the bag and handed it back silently. He would take it back later tonight, after they'd found a suitable building to sleep in, and fold all the clothing that was left after he tossed out anything that wasn't wearable by human standards. They were homeless, yes, but he wouldn't allow Nero to look the part.

The soft flickering of the flashlight over the buildings led them down the street, Nero keeping himself as close to Mox as he dared. It had been two years. Two years to the day, Mox realised as they walked down the empty street. Nero had been several steps ahead of him, as always. Mox's eyes had been locked on the back of that empty, shaggy head; the memories of that day were returning unbidden in the familiar surroundings.

"Nero, slow down." The same words, spoken in quite a different tone. Nero wasn't ahead of him this time, however, rather he was behind him, and thus confused by Mox's sudden, strange words... but he was in the memory now and wasn't thinking. Nero had been in front of him. And he'd turned around, that goofy grin that always crossed his face plastered on like a mask... and then it had happened.

Mox stopped abruptly on the cracked sidewalk and touched one hand to his throat, the flashlight beam shooting to illuminate the front of the building they were standing next to. The person had appeared from nowhere, bursting into existence during a moment of awkward relief. One second, Mox had been looking at his friend, whose mouth was poised to say something that was mostly likely very smartass-like, and the next... he was rolling across the floor of the building they'd been walking past, shattered glass flying around him as he spun helplessly into the crumbling opposite wall. Whatever had thrown him had hit him very hard in the throat, rendering him unable to breathe when he finally came to a stop face-down against the bare cement floor.

Then the real pain hit. The lungs so devoid of oxygen struggled to let out even the slightest indication that yes, he was hurt and the world should know it. The glass had shredded his left arm especially; one flimsy layer of cloth had not been enough to protect it from the sharp shards that had left deep gouges in his skin. Little slashes marked his face, hands, and chest, glass still embedded in them. A shard had managed to leave a rather loud wound across one side of his face, an inch-and-a half-long crevass that started just below his ear and ended close to his nose.

It took him a minute to finally draw some semblance of a breath. He moved automatically, rolling himself over onto his back, not caring if there were little pebbles of glass beneath him. His thin frame shook as a cough ripped through him, one hand rising to his throat anxiously. At that moment, Mox hadn't realised that it had been a person who had thrown him so easily, as if he were a child's doll rather than a fairly sturdy human. Not even when the man stepped through the broken window, boots crunching over broken glass, one hand clenched around Nero's arm, did it dawn on him. His blurred eyes fixed onto the man, not knowing.

"M-Mox?" Nero stuttered, voice riddled with horror.

"What happened?" Mox managed to wheeze, and in that moment, a hand touched his back and he jerked forward, out of the reverie he'd been trapped in.

His breath was coming in gasps even now, just remembering. The empty frame of the window mocked him, showing that this was the place they'd been, and the person who had been there was just as long gone as the glass pane it had held years before. Nero was standing a few steps away, looking rather shaky as his friend tried to regain his normal breathing patterns. Even though Mox couldn't feel the shock and pain of the memory... his body remembered. It knew the panic and horrors that it had held that day, and it would not forget them even if his mind didn't know how to feel them any longer.

"Are you alright?"

Mox took a breath and adjusted the pack on his shoulder. They were in this place again, after so long, because they needed to get back what was gone. He was closer now than he had been yesterday to recovery. Why wouldn't he be anything but okay?

"I'm fine, Nero. It just... I remembered a bit when I saw the building, is all." He couldn't say that it had shocked him, really. "It's fine."

All he had wanted for the day was to examine the building, but... well it was far too dark to have a proper inspection of it. The flashlight didn't provide nearly enough light, either. So, Mox turned the light to Nero, pointing it near his face. The man winced and covered his eyes with a hand immediately, a slow whine of protest creeping up his throat.

"Let's find a place for the night. We'll come back tomorrow."

They slept in a fall-down that night, on an air mattress inflated by Mox with a bicycle tire pump. Both items had been stored in his own pack, as well as the tarp that Nero had spent twenty minutes unfurling and setting up as a makeshift wall and ceiling. The mattress was pushed into the corner of the two lonely walls that still stood, cinderblock barriers stretching ten feet above the cracked concrete foundation of the home they once were a part of. It wasn't a particularly big mattress, but the pair had shared it more times than they remembered, through two summers and winters. Both men had learned quickly that fleece blankets were the lightest they could find that still provided warmth, and so each had two in their own packs. These were wrapped tightly around the two thin bodies as they attempted to find their own comfortable spots on the mattress. It didn't take long before they drifted off into sleep; their quiet breathing made no disturbance in the first dark night in Burnout.