He?d been so calm. That was the part that kept her up at night. Lay sighed, her heart rate slowing. Her hair was damp with sweat, her t-shirt clinging to her. She cradled her face, eyes closed, and just focused on breathing. Her cheeks were tacky beneath her fingers.
As she breathed, she felt the vines that trailed around and over her bed brush against her skin. Gently, almost as if it were human; the touch of a concerned younger sibling in the night, and when she fisted her hands against her eyelids, pulling her knees in closer to her chest, she felt the wide, cool waxy texture of the palm leaves brush against her calves.
But the plants weren?t human. There was nobody in the apartment to hear her cry, and yet she tried to keep it silent anyway. And in their own way, the plants did know; they sensed that sort of thing. Reacted to anger or sadness. And people were so fussy about their breath-plants, these days, especially the people who came to Lay. But while they brought good business, they also brought numerous complaints, about the quality of their oxygen, about the vibrancy of their ferns.
As if any of them knew a single thing about keeping something alive.
She sighed again, and swung her feet over the side of the bed, feet sinking into the moss that covered the floor.
Across the room, the light outside the window burnt orange; dark red flames and smoke licking at the sky. But inside, there was only the quiet rustling of the plants, clambering out of their pots and spilling over their trellises. She breathed in deeply, the scent of the fresh earth she?d turned that day, the damp of the rain in the corner. It always rained over her bed, and for all that she knew plants she couldn?t quite work out why the ecosystem kept raining on her head. She?d moved her bed two days ago, which should give her another few nights, at least, before she woke up to another small storm.
She ran her fingers along the ivy, smiling slightly, and got to her feet, weaving her way through the forest she lived inside, to the one area she tried to keep clearer ? the bathroom. It was all well and good having fronds in the shower, the toilet was another thing entirely. She allowed the moss, though; it was soft. Soaked up smells.
The sink had a small terrarium nestled in its bowl ? perhaps, once, it had been porcelain, but Lay didn?t care to remember ?
Not while she was awake anyway.
She flicked the light on and splashed water on her face, staring down into the small curling leaves, before meeting her own bloodshot eyes in the mirror.
?You?ve had better days,? she murmured to herself. Then again, so had everybody else. So had the rest of the whole fucking world. She lifted a fist, but stopped, trembling, before she could thump it down again on the lip of the sink. It was barely hanging onto the wall to begin with, and if a pipe burst ? the plants.
It all revolved around the plants.
She was the best breath-plant tender this side of L.A. Her apartment was the most breathable place in the city, perhaps the world, though they didn?t know much about that anymore. The air outside? well. Lay hadn?t been outside for years.
Not since? not since. She didn?t need to go; she had her plants, she was safe in the glasshouse of her apartment with the plants that gave her oxygen and water and food and that was all she needed. She nodded at ,herself, firmly, as if that might help her believe it, and moved into the kitchen, or what was left of it.
She didn?t cook with fire.
She had a small generator, though. Powered by the run-off water from the bay leaves, and it was enough to have a cup of tea, to steep some of the herbs she allowed herself to keep and dry.
Fresh herbs were popular; people liked to breath in lavender, eucalyptus, rosemary. She didn?t have a lot left ? it was the last of the mint, she noted, as she emptied the browning leaves into the cup. She?d only got to keep them because the man had suddenly decided he wanted thyme in his bowl.
That?s what the plants were for, of course. The only way to breathe was from the plants? oxygen, and the only way to go outside was suited up. She tended the plants that went inside the bowls, recreated her apartment?s eco-system within endlessly varied shapes and sizes of glass. Miniature worlds.
But he?d been so sure.
?Damn you, Harry,? she muttered into her tea. A drop splashed off her nose and into the cup. She sniffed. ?If you?ve made my last mint tea salty, I swear to Mother Nature?? she half snorted a laugh.
Why had he taken the bowl off? Why?
He?d been so sure. That if they got high enough up that mountain, the air would be breathable, he?d been so obsessed with ?
?We?ll be on top of the world ? we can touch the sky, Layla! There?s no way we can?t breathe in the sky,?
And he?d lifted it off, his hood still up and ?
She could still see it. Could see the way his eyes, so green, had widened with realisation, the way the skin began to thicken and blister and peel, before his whole face had been obscured by smoke. That was when she?d started screaming. That was when she screamed, every time, every night, when she saw his hand reaching through the smoke to where his face used to smile and laugh and breathe and ?
Why didn?t she scream before then?
Why hadn?t he screamed? His skin had boiled from his bones, and yet he?d never made a sound.
Perhaps he hadn?t been able to.
She shivered, though it was rarely cold anymore, with the constant fires outside. Even with the aqueduct protecting the city from burning, only glass could keep you safe from the air.
She wondered if he?d been looking at her, before the smoke obscured his vision entirely.
If he?d seen her turn away, in those last moments. Or if he?d looked to the sky, that sky he?d been so determined to touch.
If he?d seen only ash, where he?d hoped to find life.
I didn't change too much, mainly messing around with word choice and sentence order. It's still a little bit too long, so going to have to cut another 80 words but I'm already late posting, so thought I'd do it now!
Topic: Lizzie - Second Draft (Read 1930 times)