Our Future

Gabriel and I stay on the roof for a few hours. We watch the sun set and the moon rise. We use one of the vents as a way back in so nobody knows we went outside. We drop from the ceiling into one of the dark empty classrooms and exit the classroom silently. It’s late. Sam and Anna along with half the school are probably asleep. Rider is in the gym throwing around a basketball. Hayden is checking out stocks in the teacher’s lounge. Cassie, a nurse in training comes out of the front office.

“How bad were Emily’s wounds?” Gabriel asks.

“Well, I don’t think she was bit by a zombie seeing as she hasn’t turned. It must have been a dog or wolf and I gave her some anti-rabies medicine just in case,” Cassie answers.

“That’s good,” replies Gabriel. “Good night.”

“See you later,” replies Cassie and walks back towards the classrooms. Some we’ve made into something similar to a hospital rooms.

Even though Emily is mad at Gabriel, he worries and checks up on her.

After, we grab the key to one of classrooms where things are stored. We’ve made a cool cave out of boxes and often sleep there. The cave is lit by flash lights and fake plastic candles. The floor has mattresses and then lots of blankets and pillows. You can see the floor for a few feet before the exit. It’s our favorite place in the entire school. Back before the apocalypse, me and Gabriel, Melody and Emily used to skip class every once in a while and come and hideout in this room. We used to just leave the key in the door when we left and Melody always managed to steal it when we needed it again.

Back then there wasn’t as much stuff in this room and the mattresses and blankets and pillows were elsewhere. But we used to play hide and seek and scare each other. Melody and Gabriel always found some of the best hiding spots.

Gabriel can tell I’m distracted because I’m just starring off into space. Thinking about the four of us and our time together. After Emily left our quartet, we were a trio for a while. Until Melody met Quinn and Arran. They were twins. You could only tell them apart because of their gender otherwise they looked relatively the same. Brown hair, green eyes and the sweetest people in the world or at least that was what Melody said. Quinn was no longer around and Arran had been wallowing in a pit of sorrow since his twin was killed. Gabriel and I had tried all sorts of things to cheer him up. But Quinn was his best friend and the center of his world.

He only ate and slept and walked in either circles or paced back and forth between the front of a classroom and the back of a classroom. He barely said a word. This worried us all. Cassie had tried antidepressants but they didn’t seem to be helping. Gabriel had suggested many things; Cassie had tried all of them and nothing had worked. I gave ideas of my own but I don’t think they worked either.

Gabriel hasn’t said anything; he must be reading my mind. Going through all the times we’ve been here and reliving the happy and sad moments with me.

“Maybe we should go visit Arran tomorrow,” says Gabriel quietly.

“Sure,” I reply.

I lie down and drift off to sleep. If I dream about anything I don’t recall any of it when I wake. Gabriel is against the other wall still sleeping. I get up and silently exit the box cave. I hear a creek and spot the light from the door spreading across the floor. I peek around the corner and see Emily. She comes in and quietly closes the door.

“What do you want, Emily?” I call as she rounds the first corner of boxes. I make her jump.

“What are you? Gabriel’s bodyguard?” she says annoyed.

“No, I’m his friend and I intend to make sure he lives as long a life as possible,” I reply.

My head starts screaming with an annoying ringing sound. I ignore it but soon I can’t hear anything but it. It becomes louder and my ears start to hurt. I cover them but it only makes it worse. Soon, I start shouting for the sound to shut up.

I wake Gabriel up in the process of shouting. He comes running to see what all the noise is about. And I can see his lips moving but I don’t know what he’s saying. He grabs my arms and appears to be talking to me but I still can’t hear him.

“I can’t hear you,” I say but I can’t tell if I’m still shouting or talking in normal tone.

I start seeing flashes and my vision blurs. I stumble to the ground and Gabriel ensures I don’t hurt myself as I settle down. He says something to Emily and she runs off. That’s when I see it. She and I discussing my sexual orientation. I don’t know why or how. I start shaking my head wanting it to go away again. Then it goes black and then flashes start appearing again. I see her slapping me and then forgiving me but I can tell she’s still not over Gabriel and I know she’s still mad at him. I see a flash of white and then Emily, me, Gabriel, Arran along with Rider in the cave made of boxes, laughing. Enjoying each other’s company. Emily keeps looking at Arran and Arran keeps looking at Emily. Emily seems to be over Gabriel and happy.

“Nathan!” I finally hear Gabriel’s voice break through the ringing sound and then I notice I can no longer hear the ringing.

I look at Gabriel and I know he’s been watching the future unfold with me because he slightly looking off into space well he comprehends it all.

“Well at least we know how to get her off my back. Are you okay? Are you sure there’s no side effect to this power?” he says more calmly.

“Aside from the loud, annoying ringing. Frightening loss of hearing for a few minutes and the headaches, no. I don’t think so,” I reply. “Where’d you send Emily?”

“To get Cassie,” he comments.

“She knows jack squat about supernatural powers what is she gonna do?” I reply.

Gabriel just shrugs. I go back to the Box Cave and lie down. Gabriel follows and I steal my MP3 player back from his bedside before he can stop me. He sits down beside me, silently.

I turn the MP3 player on and skip through the songs till I get to ‘This Song Saved My Life’ by Simple Plan.

“I wanna start by letting you know this

Because of you my life has a purpose

You help me be who I am today

I see myself in every word you say

Sometimes it feels like nobody gets me

Trapped in a world where everyone hates me

There’s so much that I’m going through

I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you

I was broken

I was choking

I was lost

This song saved my life

I was bleeding

Stop believing

Could of died

This song saved my life

I was down

I was drowning

But it came on just in time

This song saved my life.”

The song use to describe Melody but it actually suits Gabriel more. He’s always been there and I’m sure Melody would have been if I hadn’t the need to kill her. I know Gabriel’s in my head, I can tell because he’s looking at me and not asking questions.

Emily comes back a few minutes later. I’m only half listening to their story about what happened to me. They say it was another seizure even though I and Gabriel know the truth. Gabriel knows there isn’t anything that can be done. Humanity knows nothing about supernatural powers and even if they did what would medicating it do?

Cassie and Emily leave a few minutes later after telling me to take it easy. Of course, I won’t do that and Gabriel knows it, too.

He moves to sit beside me and I lie down on my side and turn the MP3 player off. We just lay side by side for a while. We must both be nervous about somebody finding out because we don’t move any closer. We don’t say anything; we just enjoy the silence and each other’s company. He lies down and holds my hand and I touch his hair.

We’re afraid of being seen or getting caught. We’re afraid we’ll be laughed at, embarrassed because of all stories we’ve heard. It scares us and we both know it’s not fair. We should be able love who we want when we want and not have to worry about our lives being in danger.

I don’t know how many know about Gabriel’s sexual orientation aside from me, Emily and Arran. I don’t know if they tolerate being around him or like being around him. I wonder how Emily would react if we told her about us. She’d probably slap us, forgive me and then inside feel happy for Gabriel because he found someone despite his situation. And that person could be trusted by both Emily herself and Gabriel. There was no chance of me betraying or hurting Gabriel and Emily knew that. She’d known me for years and we now knew how to get her to stop from bombarding Gabriel with the things he did in the past.

Gabriel touches my face and comes closer to kiss me but before he can I hear the door squeal open. We back away from each other to separate sides of the cave but nervously stare at each in embarrassment. We quietly wait to see who it is that has managed to break into the room we have only key to. Emily picked the lock; she was good at that stuff. We turn off all the lights as another precaution so the cave becomes dark and the light is from the entrance.

I spot Rider, and then Sam and Anna appear at his sides. We quietly sneak out the back of the cave and around a separate tower of boxes and quietly watch out for them as we exit through the already open door. We manage to get away and pick the lock to a separate room before they come out. We’re breathing hard out of the fear of being caught. I don’t know how any of those three would respond to the truth of our situation. I also don’t know if they’d accept us. Even if two of them are our siblings.

We close the classroom door quietly and sit together against the door in almost pure darkness since the windows are boarded up.

Gabriel touches my face and I freeze, it’s terrifying and exciting at the same time.

That’s what we’ve spent today doing. Running around together, basically inseparable. He puts his head against mine but doesn’t look into my eyes. He’s as nervous as me. Being gay and having people know it is different than having people know your boyfriend used to be your best friend. That and they all think I’m straight because of Melody.

Gabriel hugs me tightly.

“I like you but I’m scared. Scared someone’ll see us,” he whispers.

“That makes two of us,” I reply in whisper.

We slide into the storage room across from the classroom’s front door. It’s a room between two classrooms that are connected to each other. We sit against the door you can access the hall with. We hold each other’s hands. Gabriel touches my face again and just stares at my lips as if he’s unsure so I lean in and kiss him first. It surprises him a bit but soon he’s smiling.

Soon I’m lying on the ground and he’s on top of me, kissing me and running his hands up and down my chest. I know he’s too preoccupied to be reading my thoughts.

It would be really embarrassing if anybody caught us now. And that’s when Emily walks in one of the side doors. We move away from each quickly but I think she saw. She goes closer to Gabriel and slaps him across the face. He takes it and doesn’t say anything. He was expecting it and he probably thinks he deserves it. He always felt terrible about faking how he felt about Emily.

She just glares at me for a few seconds and then repeats the action giving me and Gabriel identical bruised cheeks. She’s mad at Gabriel for misleading her and she’s mad at me for misleading Melody. I personally think Melody would have forgiven me.

“Why couldn’t you two just be truthful with me and Melody?” she asks loudly.

“It’s like you and your liking me. You didn’t tell me till I revealed I was gay. We were scared of what you would think and do. We didn’t want to lose our friends. We didn’t want to be seen as weirdoes,” says Gabriel loudly annoyed.

It’s the first time I’ve seen him get mad at Emily since before he revealed his secret. He must be fed up with her and he probably wants her to hurry up and get over him so he’s trying to make her hate him so she’ll go find someone else to like.

“Nathan, how could you do this to Melody? She loved you,” Emily questioningly exclaims starring me down.

“I thought I loved her at the time. It wasn’t until she died that I realized I acted more like a friend then a boyfriend. I know I was wrong but I personally don’t think it would have worked out between me and Melody. I’m sorry, okay? We’re both sorry. Can you please get over it? It’s stupid to hold this silly grudge against us,” I say in reply. “If you are over it we think there’s someone you should meet.”

Gabriel looks at me and he still looks mad but not as mad as when he confronted Emily. Emily just nods and we lead her down to Arran’s room. It’s always unlocked as a precaution. When we get inside Arran is just sitting on the bed listening to music. It was what he did to block out the world. He slowly pulls out his earphones as we enter.

“Hello, Arran. This is Emily. Do you remember? She was the one Melody talked about a lot,” Gabriel introduces her. Arran gives a small wave in our general direction.

“Do you mind if I tell her about-” I ask slowly but before I can finish he shakes his head in the reply of ‘no’.

“Arran lost his sister to zombies after we lost Melody. Melody, I and Gabriel met him after you left. We thought you should meet because it’s hard to cheer him up and we thought maybe you could try,” I say simply but calmly.

“It’s not so much I’m hard to cheer up, it’s just I feel lost without Quinn,” he says quietly. It’s the most I’ve heard him say in the two and a half years since he lost Quinn.

They start talking but she doesn’t say anything about my and Gabriel’s situation and that’s when we figure we can leave them without worrying about anything. We do and it was like we were never there. They seem to get along well. I guess my vision could become a reality for them.

We find another deserted classroom and sit in the darkness.

“She was bond to find out eventually,” I tell Gabriel quietly.

“I know I just wish it was our choice when we told her so we were ready and all. I knew she’d hit me, I was expecting it. I guess after everything I’ve done I deserved it but why did she hit you? What did you do?” he says it slowly and quietly.

“She believes I tricked Melody like you tricked her. But at the time I believed I did love her, I believed I was acting like a boyfriend but since she now knows I’m gay she thinks Melody was an act or cover up for my own embarrassment,” I reply.

“So she thinks you knew you were gay well you with Melody but you didn’t,” he comments.

“Yeah,” I say looking away.

“Well, maybe it won’t be a problem anymore because Arran will distract her,” replies Gabriel.

I don’t reply now. Emily doesn’t forgive and forget easily. I highly doubt she’ll forget about what we did any time soon.

“Don’t worry about her right now,” he says taking my hand.

I look away nervously. I’m even more worried about getting caught then I was before. I don’t mind Emily knowing, I was going to tell her eventually but anybody else...