I’m here, Yates. I think, desperate for him to get away from that
blackness.
We trudge faster, at points
sliding down the slope, our hearts leaping from our chests with the panic of
it.
‘Yates!’ I call, but not too
loudly. I don’t want to startle him and cause him to fall. He must be feet from
the brink, simply standing like a diver on a board, ready to take the plunge.
He turns. Tears streak his face.
He’s deathly pale like a vampire, and his eyes are circled. How long has he
been here?
‘You’re not real,’ he cries. ‘Nothing
is. How can it be? Why would it be?’
‘I am real.’ I hold up a hand to
stop Upson in his tracks. I want him to be comfortable, I want him to believe
me. I want him to come home. ‘Yates, I promise, we heard you. This is Upson, a
man from a place we found. We can go back, I promise.’
I smile but my fear is difficult
to hide. I imagine what this place must have done to him. Amplified the
loneliness, cut him off from everything. I wonder could I dive forward,
concentrate and bring us back up, but I don’t even know how to take myself back
up to the town.
Yates moves towards the brink. ‘Is
this it?’ he says. ‘Is this what you want?’
‘No, Yates, no I don’t, I want
you to come back with me.’
‘It’s
just one thing after another isn’t it,’ he says. ‘I thought I was better, I
thought nothing bad would happen to me, I was – I was over it!’ He shouts the
last words.
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