Page 2 of Retrograde

The result?

A wound that will never heal. A scar that will never fade.

I close my watering eyes and sink deeper into the pillow.

Most people are terrified of ageing, of losing the grasp on their faculties, of being abandoned by their own senses. I used to be, too, a long time ago. But no more.

Because today I realised that to go blind, deaf, and dumb in old age is perhaps the greatest mercy there is.

1

RILEY

Iam dead.

This time for real.

There’s no sensation in my body because I no longer have a body. When I open my eyes, it stays dark. There is no sound, which is nice, but it’s also where the good news ends.

I wasn’t expecting heaven. God knows I wasn’t. If I hoped for anything at all, I hoped for nothing, for my mind to just disappear like it never existed.

But the dull pain that’s starting to throb in my temples feels like the opposite of not existing. I open my mouth and groan. I can’t hear a thing, but I can feel the vibrations of my vocal cords.

Soon, a warm hand touches my shoulder. Then I notice the cold, hard, and uneven ground beneath my back. The chill seeping deep into my achy bones. The moist, cave-like smell in the air around me.

Scattered memories play before my eyes. The storm clouds, dark and hanging low in the skies. The long-abandoned petrol station. That fragment of a data plate. That sole Wi-Fi bar, disappearing, and with it our last hope. Then the roar of bikes. The rap of gunfire, lost in the rumble of the approaching thunder.

And that’s when it all comes crashing down.

I am not dead.

But soon I’m going to wish that I were.

I scream until my lungs are searing and until I start being able to hear my voice, albeit like from a distance. Soon, I also hear another voice, male and strained but soothing.

“You’re alright, Wolfie. You’re alright.”

“Corrado? Corrado!”

He helps me up and wraps me in a hug, the feel of it familiar down to the acidic reek of terror.

“I’m here, Wolfie. I’m here.”

“Fuck!” I mutter into his shoulder and then start crying, oozing onto his sweater, my whole body quaking with sobs.

As familiar with my tears as I am with his post-action smell of fear, he allows me wordlessly to let it all out. He knows it’s just my body’s reaction to high stress, not so different from his excessive sweating.

I cry until my face is swollen and my headache worsens. When I finally disentangle from Corrado’s arms, I find that my eyes have adjusted to the dark. I can see now that we’re in a cell, the iron bars fitted into a naturally occurring niche inside a cave.

There is barely enough room to stand. I can see no way out. It’s like being in a grave.

I groan, my lungs closing in, the ground destabilising under my knees.

“Where’s my camera? Where’s our kit?” I ask Corrado, my voice choked.

“They took it all.”

“Did it upload?”