Getting my jaw to slacken was the first hard part. The next obstacle was looking Mathew in the eyes when he walked back in the deep gray of a room. I managed to take a small peek into the pool of creamy brown, just enough to call it that. It was a gesture of acknowledgement rather than anything substantial. Nonetheless, my chest ached further. The sheer gush of air burning the back of my mind was unbearable. I was swaying limply, unable to do anything. Vines wrapped themselves around me. They prohibited all movement. I was trapped.

Mathew's eyes glistened beneath the breath of light above. What had June said to bring more wetness to the surface? Had it been about Morgan? The guy somehow looked sadder. His shoulders slumped in an odd angle. He stared the floor down like a confused sunflower, gazing anywhere but the light above. Mathew hadn't looked at Morgan since he entered the room, only giving the barest signs of life. Maybe the guy was breathing, but if he weren't breathing so heavily, I doubt I would have guessed life existed in him. Who would have expected life from a guy who seemed so lifeless? Being paler than grains of sand didn't suit anyone of his complexion. His face looked wronged, contorted too. Hair in the same predicament, I adjusted my own, hoping I didn't appear dead along with the guy.

I'm sure I did, though.

Somewhere in my core, I knew everything was wrong. That little huge bit of wrong existed even in myself. I was saturated in it.

My throat tightened.

Entirely, all that I was deflated. Everything that had kept my stem turgid was morphing into a flaccid state. I couldn't be a tall, strong oak forever. Something had to bring the tree down. Maybe the one in front of our old home didn't collapse under the moral weight of coiling infestations, but the feeling of dying was all the same.

Osmosis described the life continually being sucked out of me. High concentration to low concentration went all life from my body, dwindling my grasp on reality. The process felt oddly slow. Plant cells thrived in a turgid state, rigid in full. However, a plant being flaccid was a different story. Flaccid meant I'd end up with a wilted plant, every balance I tried to create in the soil and water meant nothing then. There was no survival. Maybe the vine had cut off the water supply? I hadn't seen a large glimpse of the thing, but maybe I should have spotted the slithering thing. I didn't. I would pay.

My head seemed lighter than before. Was the light above blinking?

Words trailed on the edge of my tongue, waiting to spill. I would wreck the entire environment. Not only was I dooming myself into biomass of brown destined to become compost, I would be dragging the flower box with me. I needed to hammer the nails back in, bring the walls up again. Mathew couldn't know I remembered saying those horrible, wrong words. I couldn't say anything. There were bigger problems at hand than words. Weren't actions louder than words? And why would an apology matter? Would Mathew even consider it sincere?

Placing a comforting hand on Mathew's shoulder felt wrong, getting up to get another round of water and juice felt wrong too. What could I do to make everything better? I could make a get well soon card, because we all needed one of those. Hugging Mathew was always an option too.

I shouldn't touch him. There was something inherently wrong with the action. A seed deep inside me wailed in protest but gave no alternative. Maybe it was wrong, but was there any other option without giving myself away?

You're cruel. A voice echoes in my head. It's the same tiny, impeccably loud seed. You're cruel.

I wanted to argue, tell myself a blatant lie while something real play on repeat in my mind.

My voice is distinguishable in the buzzing chaos. I wish it weren't. "And I say, never in a million years. You're dead to me, okay?" I kept saying the phrase over and over again, like it would gain a new meaning if I said it enough... like I would believe in the words wholly after a time. The truth, Mathew couldn't be trusted now. I shouldn't have trusted him before. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Right?

That was how dying worked. Plants did on my neighbors regularly. It had been too late to save them. Some of them drowned in the very water than was supposed to give them life. Others wilted because they didn't have enough sunlight. The opposite case had too much exposure. Then, others... They succumbed to an invasion of weed, taking what wasn't theirs. Some plants wouldn't survive the attack. They wouldn't remember what happened because they wouldn't be alive to remember. Those who did survive should have learned. How could they, though? How does one teach a plant to thrive in artificial conditions like that of the new apartment?

I couldn't.

Remembering meant failing, and I had failed like moss baking in the sun, confused how I managed to get myself far away from water. My only wish was for the wind to pick me up and carry me to safety. That wasn't going to happen. That wasn't how dying worked.

My eyes fixated on Mango, waiting for something to happen. He would perk up any moment now. He had to. I needed him to. Maybe I would never feel the bliss of the energy he had or live in the same world he did, but it had to be okay. I didn't need the mango smoothie. I couldn't take it. Morgan was Morgan, and I was me.

Of course, Morgan didn't move. His body barely displayed any signs of life. His face was swollen and bruised, hair greasy, foot propped up. If I kept staring, would something surprising happen? Mathew might disappear at best, but I was kidding myself. Mathew would continue shooting me the same worried glance I had only now begun to understand.

"You're dead to me, okay?" I sucked in a deep breath, hoping the action went unnoticed as the phrase replayed like a broken hose. The thing tried to spurt water, never fully working. Eventually, one has to just give up and invest in some sealant that would probably ruin the thing in the end.

Words hurt. I batted the idea to the back of my brain. It sounded distant compared to my dead reply. Matthew had been the very one to tell me that. It had been something about saying sorry. Of course it had been. Why would I need to say sorry if words didn't hurt?

Though the memory was dull, I could feel the thing creeping about my brain, traversing the space like its own rather than a boom like that of an obnoxious intruder. "You're dead to me" felt like someone else's voice, my own present in words that weren't mine. Words hurt. If I said either phrase aloud, I had to wonder what Mathew would think, if he would recognize either he had been familiar with for some length of time.

But I wouldn't say anything.

For, fighting was all I could do. It was a teaming event of mental gymnastics like that of any working ecosystem. The producers provided the fuel while consumers wrecked chaos that somehow balanced itself out in the end. I doubted the consumers knew what they were fighting for or that the producers had any knowledge of feeding the fire gaining inertia as I stared at Mango, burning myself.

I didn't know what I was fighting against, only that the outcome was not one I desired. Here, I wasn't going to speak even an inch of a leaf in connection to the crash, while an invisible force battled my intentions.

I would not lose.

Wringing my hands together, I wondered if these events could have been different with a cup of orange juice in hand instead of the water bottle Mathew had set down and I had picked back up.

That was silly.

Nonetheless, my mind tumbled the idea about.

My cup was gone. There was no reservoir to fill up or empty. In simple fact, there wasn't anything to do but stare and listen to an intimidating yet imaginary clock beat its existence through my every cell. The first guy who peered through a microscope was right about a lot of things. The cells did look like small chambers, maybe not those of monks, but the distinctly familiar face of prison cells felt like fit. I knew without looking.

I wouldn't say anything.

Mathew's deep breaths caught in my ears. He hadn't changed his position. I hadn't heard him move. The repetitive action told me he was alive again. If I kept listening, I would be assured of the fact over and over again. So I did, opening my ears like the stomata on the underside of a leaf, letting air flood through my system. Let there be no mistake, the guard cells were on duty. Opening and closing the stomata depended on the two cells. That was the predictable way plants worked. It was the way I liked to look at them, each with their own instruction booklet ready to absorb like the roots of a tree.

The air felt wrong.

Was there not supposed to be beeping in the silence?

There it was, a second later, a symphony of a new Christmas jingle.

Listless clips and pops crackled from the other side, heavy breathes and machinery acting in its monotonous way carried themselves about the rectangle in a cyclic turn.

I let a long sigh escape my lips.

I shouldn't have.

A continuous electronic scream set fire to the forest.

Silence only existed in tropical paradise.

I should have given myself the bitter reminder.

I lost and was still sleeping.

__________

Chapter Word Count: 1,676
Total Word Count: 15,537