The Unavoidable Sun

[Cactus]

Great work, Morgan. Absolutely excellent work. His outburst had obviously touched a nerve within Andy, and little more than moments after he'd started to calm down, the bigger, usually quieter boy had torn a strip off of him. What was more — his words had a modicum of truth to them, so they fucking hurt. Morgan didn't have much to say in response to any of it, and one by one, his former companions left the area, leaving Morgan standing over the snivelling, mucus-filled form of Lucas Brady.

Mucus Brady.

Exactly.

This was all his fucking fault, of course. The pariah of the school had been not exactly Mr. Congeniality before he'd gone on his Nathan Coleman tirade on Facebook, and after that everyone had generally just kept their distance, save the whispers and looks that had gone his way. High school kids were cruel, that much was just a fact of life. Morgan knew that even he had it in himself to be a prick now and again. How many times had his own mouth gotten him into trouble? He wasn't a stranger to taking the odd punch. Except he knew better than to run his mouth on social media. You could take words back, you could apologize for things you said because there wasn't a record of them. People forgot.

People didn't forget what they could scroll back to and read.

"This is all your fault," Morgan said almost casually. Lucas had just wished death upon all of them, but the exit of the other three had really taken the wind out of his sails. Lucas had been scared and had attacked him, but really, in the long run — what was Lucas Brady going to do to him? Slap him? Whine a lot?

It dawned on Morgan that now that he had no more group, he had no more supplies. Shit. He was defenseless and totally empty. If there was ever a time to try and find his friends — assuming they were all still sane — this was it.

"I don't have to wish death on you, Lucas." Morgan dismissively shook his head. People probably thought that he was pathetic, having gotten his ass kicked by Wyatt and all that. But at least people liked him. "I wouldn't want to waste what little time we have left."

Morgan opted not to head the direction the guys went. That was probably for the best, at least for now. As he turned his back and started walking away from the mud-covered worm struggling in the dirt, he couldn't help but turn his head and throw one last jab as he headed off. In the end, maybe he would end up someone's victim, but Morgan Dragosavich would be damned if that person would be Lucas Brady.

"Prick."

((Morgan Dragosavich continued in Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)))

[Slam]

“FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!”

He screamed after Morgan as he walked away, not him nor anyone else even acknowledging what he had just said. None of them acknowledging how he felt. None of them acknowledging what he could do. They insulted him, shoved him in the mud and kicked him while he was down, then walked away without breaking a sweat. Like he was nothing but pitiful garbage; exactly how he knew they saw him.

He kept on screaming the words over and over, as they descended into a hoarse mess of nothing. He screamed that nothing as he went down to his knees, pounding his fists over and over into the inanimate mud. He kept on screaming as his throat went raw and scratched to hell, as his head pounded with a thousand hammers in frustration, as his eyes strained so hard they might have burst.

He kept on screaming over and over, long after his body had been able to keep on screaming. Even as it finally died down, as the sounds simply wouldn't form anymore, he kept on wanting to scream.

But they were gone, and no-one could hear him. No-one could hear his words of anger, and no-one would've listened anyway.

All he could do, eventually, was get back to his feet. He stomped at the ground a few more times, picturing their fuckwad faces under his foot, and spit what little saliva he had. Even as he walked away, even as the physical exertion sent horrible aches through his body and threatened to topple him over back into the mud at any moment, none of the feelings died down. Not a single goddamned one.

((Lucas Brady continued elsewhere))