Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

hang like that. “Who’s your confessor?”
    He shrugged. “I don’t have one.”
    He’d been so nice to me from day one, even though he’d followed Kowi’s orders to grab me when he first met me. I’d seen him fight enough times to come to the conclusion that even then, he’d held back and not used everything he had against me. He was always standing around, smiling, interjecting humor when things got too intense. All of this made it impossible for me not to respond.
    “You can confide in me if you need someone. I won’t share either.”
    He smiled. “Thanks, Bryn. Maybe someday I will.” He stood up, my eyes following him automatically. “Keep the water. I’ll come see you at dinner.”
    “Okay, thanks,” I said, tipping the bottle towards him before taking another sip. He walked away before I was finished.
    I swallowed, thinking about what had just transpired, letting the water bottle rest beside me. Paci was a good guy, maybe even a good friend. It was hard to believe he didn’t have anyone he could talk to; he was a pretty popular guy, always laughing and joking around with everyone. He was cute, too … really cute. And I’d seen lots of the girls watching him and acting very interested. But I also knew that sometimes it was hard to open up, and when you found someone you could do that with, it felt like coming home in a way - to a safe place. I wanted to be that for Paci, but a part of me felt like I’d be cheating on Bodo. But I told myself that was stupid, because there was nothing wrong with talking to someone, and I was going to go find Bodo soon anyway.
    My thoughts about making rescue plans were interrupted by Peter, who’d arrived again to boss me around, apparently.
    “Finish that water and then come on. Kowi wants to see you.”
    I sat up with the plan to gulp the rest of the water down, raising the bottle partway to my lips, when the world started to go faint, my vision narrowing down to a tunnel of grayness in front of me.
    I heard Peter say, “You don’t look so good…” and then a buzzing filled my ears. The tunnel shut down completely and everything went black.
    ***
    I woke up in my hut, Peter and Buster asleep at my side. As soon as I moved, Peter sat up quickly, his hair sticking out all over the place.
    “What? Who? …” He looked around, lost in his dream world for a few seconds until he laid eyes on me. “Oh. Hey, Bryn. Do you need anything?”
    “Water?” I asked, my tongue nearly sticking to the roof of my mouth.
    Peter reached over and grabbed the bottle next to him. “Here. I guess I fell down on the job. I was supposed to wake you up in the middle of the night and make you drink this.”
    I guzzled the entire bottle and then burped. Peter curled his lip in disgust but said nothing. I was probably getting a pass since I was on the injured list. I wondered what else I could get away with.
    “What time is it?” My watch had disappeared somewhere between punching a canner in the face and being here on the mattress with Buster licking my fingers. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw it on my wrist. “Ew, Buster, get away.” I shoved him over onto Peter’s mattress, but he was back in half a second, deciding that my pushing him away meant I wanted more attention from him, not less.
    “It’s about seven in the morning,” answered Peter, enjoying Buster’s torture of me.
    Buster was angling for a chin lick, I could tell by the way he was staring at me while his butt wiggled with frantic tail wagging.
    “No, Buster! No lick!”
    He dove at me and got one in, practically knocking me over in his enthusiasm.
    I pushed him away again and held my hand out to stop him from getting close. “I swear to God, that dog knows when I’m weak and can’t fight him off.” I waited for him to walk away and then wiped his stinky drool from my face. “I need some bleach or something. I probably have an amoeba on my chin right now.”
    “An amoeba? From Buster? Not likely. More like e-coli.”
    “Are you serious?” I asked, now wondering if it were possible that I had flecks of poo on my face. I scrubbed my chin harder.
    “No, I’m not serious, dope. There’s nothing on your face that isn’t on every other square inch of your body right now. I’ll help you go take a shower in a minute. Let me just get some food in you, first.” Peter left the sleeping area and came back with a basket that had been sitting on the shelves. “Eat this stuff. Then we’ll