Chapter Text
Regulus had spent his entire afternoon practicing, until his afternoon had morphed into the evening. He wasn’t quite familiar with this pool, and always had a hard time flip-turning at the right moment. He still needed to get adjusted. His blind spot with the blurriness of his vision underwater made it hard for him to make sharp and accurate movements at times, though he was getting better.
It was always like this; with discipline, he could bend his body and his mind to his will. Swimming was no different. He had made three consecutive perfect repetitions and six flawless flip-turns. Sure, he could do better, but his arms were strained, and all of his limbs ached. He would need to stretch for a while. His stomach was empty, too, gurgling in protest.
He hauled himself out of the water with a slight hiss, spitting water. Everyone had left — Regulus was the last one in this wing of the school. At this time of day, people were either in their dorms or in the cafeteria finishing dinner. With a little luck, he could perhaps get something quick there before the dinner hall closed.
Droplets of water fell from his shoulders, rolling down his back and torso, tickling him. He wiped his body with the towel he had left there before practice. He wiped his hair too, rubbing it, knowing a warm shower would definitely be nice after exercising so much. He walked towards the changing rooms, only the sound of his wet feet hitting the wet tiled floor disturbing the silence, his towel hung around his neck. He got inside the shower, and allowed himself to relax a bit.
He missed having a practice buddy like he did back at Atella. Regulus hadn’t learnt to swim all by himself. He had had swimming lessons, before the accident. Then, he got his blind spot. He was almost ten when he had to practically re-learn how to swim all over again. His flip-turns had suffered from it, and he had a hard time staying in his lane. Several times, he had considered quitting, and his coach had advised his parents to take him out of the swimming team. For some reason — Regulus genuinely ignored why — his parents hadn’t. Maybe they felt guilty, though he doubted it. He doubted they were or had ever been able to feel such emotions. But maybe they had, after the accident, and seeing that swimming had always kept Regulus going, decided that taking him out of the swimming team would really make them look bad.
In the end, Regulus had found a supportive coach and supportive teammates, and he had gotten used to it. It was a good thing, in a way, that he had been so young when it happened. He didn’t know if he would have been able to re-learn how to swim now like he had back then.
Unlike in his hometown, Regulus had no one to support him here. No swimming buddy to guide him and practice with him. Regulus was fine with that. He was getting used to it.
He turned off the water, ready to get out of his shower, when he heard a door slamming shut in the distance. Maybe it was the wind.
Getting dressed, he felt his stomach grumble once more. Putting a hand on it, wincing slightly, Regulus was already imagining the food he would grab at the cafeteria before going back to his room. Drooling, he glanced sideways, the snack and drinks dispenser of the changing room entering his line of sight. Maybe, maybe he could grab a chocolate bar here first . The temptation was strong — at least until the voice of his mother, like a distant echo, seemed to tell him in the corner of his ear that he had to follow the strictest diet to become a good athlete. That having a snack was bad. That he could wait a little more.
He had gotten rid of most of these thoughts when he had left and gotten out of his parents’ manipulative reach. But sometimes, they made a comeback in his brain, as he had been conditioned, like a damn pavlovian dog, to fight his own hunger. Regulus hated this. Just on principle, he would have eaten the chocolate bar because what could his mother have done to stop him? But he knew she was right, somehow. A chocolate bar wasn’t a balanced meal. He needed to have a good diet to become better at swimming.
Skipping the idea in his head, Regulus looked back at his bag where he was stuffing his wet towel before he closed it, and sighed, tired. He would have to hang the towel quickly once he returned to his room after grabbing something to eat for dinner. He passed the bag over to his shoulder and walked over to the door, but as he grabbed the handle, he was met with resistance.
The door was locked.
Insisting, Regulus shook the handle a bit more aggressively, refusing to believe what was happening. He had asked the coach to leave it open. It couldn’t be.
Despite his several attempts at opening the door, it didn’t budge.
Regulus sighed, his hand still resting on the handle, refusing to resign. He looked down. There was another door, an emergency exit on the pool’s side. He could use it to leave, but Regulus would have to take more time to walk around the pool and leave this wing of the campus. Maybe he would even miss dinner.
Sighing again, he let go of the handle, and turned around on his heels, before walking to the other side of the changing room, where the door leading to the pool was. But there again, he was faced with the hard reality that he was really stuck here. The second door was also closed. He wouldn’t even be late for dinner; at this point, he was going to entirely miss it.
“Fuck,” He let out, through gritted teeth.
A wave of tiredness washed over him. He really needed to eat something. Being stuck here had to be some kind of stupid joke. He was going to have to eat something from the vending machine. His mother be damned. Sighing one more time, Regulus rummaged through his bag, found his school card on which he had fortunately a bit of money, and walked to the vending machine. Maybe a chocolate bar? Or a bag of chips? Something filling.
After a few seconds of hesitation, he ended up going for a pack of biscuits. Leaning down to grab it, he reluctantly realised he would have to send a text in the swimming team’s group chat to ask someone to come and get him. He opened the pack of biscuits, sat down on the bench next to his bag, and took out his phone. Fortunately, he still had a lot of battery left.
He knew that even if someone had accidentally closed the door without actually meaning to leave Regulus stuck here, forgetting he was still there and practicing after hours, the emergency door wouldn’t have been locked. This was definitely some sort of stupid prank from one of the guys on the team. Regulus was a bit used to that. He always was the butt of their jokes, somehow, and he assumed it was because he was the newest. Maybe also because of his disability.
People in his school back in Atella had been rather nice about it, and Regulus had gone through his school years with no big issue — until the incident, of course. People there had grown up with him, knew about his blindness, and treated him rather normally, including his old swimming teammates, despite the several times Regulus had struggled to stay in his lane during practice. Back there, it was generally known and accepted.
But here, people just seemed to enjoy making fun of him, all the while pretending it was “not that deep”, and “just for fun”. Regulus was still searching for the fun in their jokes. But he didn’t want to go through the whole expulsion process all over again, so he just… Pretended it didn’t exist, and ignored them.
Since the first day he had arrived here, he immediately knew what type of people these guys were. Insecure, angry, and stupid, the kind of boys you would typically see cast as the bullies in a coming-of-age teen movie. They always needed to make fun of people they viewed as lesser than them.
Regulus didn’t take them seriously, which helped with their jokes and not feeling terrible about them. What else could he do? His parents surely weren’t going to do much about it if they heard about it. And the administration of the school would probably try to make them become friends, if anything. Anyway, Regulus simply couldn’t wait for this year to be over so he could go back home to Atella, find Sirius again, and leave their parents. Go live somewhere else.
Despite his lack of enthusiasm towards the idea of sending a message for all his bullies to read, as it felt like an umpteenth humiliation, Regulus reluctantly typed a few words.
Hey, can someone come to the swimming pool? I’m stuck in the changing rooms, someone closed the door.
Typing the text only took him a few seconds, and when he hit “send”, he realized the text was taking too long to be delivered. There was little to no service in the changing rooms, but here, his text simply wouldn’t send.
Maybe he was just meant to spend the night here, miserably, after all. Maybe it was a sign of the universe. Maybe this was part of the humiliation.
Honestly, this was by far the worst one he had had to face. Usually, it wasn’t going much further than misplaced jokes.
Putting his phone away, back in his bag, and taking another bite of his chocolate bar, Regulus relaxed his back against the wall.
At least they didn’t know he was gay.
He couldn’t begin to imagine the amount of jokes about gay people he would then have to face if they did. Being blind, socially awkward, and not the best swimmer on the team was already getting him enough remarks. Of course, aside from jokes openly directed at him, Regulus had heard them say a plethora of degrading comments about various minorities, once again under the excuse of jokes, which really, only made them more pathetic in Regulus’ eyes. An opinion he was keeping to himself.
As minutes passed, Regulus laid down on the bench after putting on his sweatshirt. It wasn’t so warm in the changing rooms, and lying down was uncomfortable. He tried not to let his thoughts drift too much, but he couldn’t help it. Since he was stuck here for the night, he only had this. His text still hadn’t been sent.
At least he had food and running water here. He wouldn’t spend the best night of his life — he missed his comfortable bed already — but he would survive.
After a few more minutes spent looking at the ceiling, Regulus was already getting bored. He picked up his phone again, and tried to find a place in the changing rooms that had service, holding his phone up as if it would magically send his text faster. He was caring less and less about the humiliation of admitting he had been pranked. But his text remained unsent, despite all of his efforts. Regulus gave up after a dozen minutes of trying everything. He had no idea what was going on with his data, but he hoped it would come back soon. It was an awful coincidence to be stuck there with no service.
For the first time in months of being here, Regulus considered complaining to his coach about this prank. He was getting frustrated.
Regulus decided he would simply sleep on one of the benches, with his sweater on, and that would be it. Lying down on the hard wood of the bench, he immediately knew his aching back muscles wouldn’t enjoy this. He could only sleep on his back, and the only pillow he had was his sports bag, with his wet towel, his school uniform, and his history schoolbook inside.
After he had stopped moving for several minutes, the lights turned off, and Regulus was plunged into almost complete darkness. The high window above the door was letting a bit of the outside light come in through the smoked glass, but aside from that, there was no source of light. June was around the corner, and the sun was setting later and later lately.
Regulus’ mind started to wander again. He couldn’t hear a single noise as this wing of the campus was completely empty at this time of day. The cleaning staff only came to clean the changing rooms at the beginning of every week. It was Friday, which meant there wouldn’t be anyone visiting Regulus here except for his teammates the next day, when they would eventually show up to practice. Or maybe before that, in the morning, when they would remember they left Regulus there to rot. Which was very unlikely. Regulus was betting on the first option.
He wondered what Sirius would do in his situation. He would probably fight back, create problems, punch these guys in the face. Maybe he would make other friends. Regulus, however, knew he was unable to do any of this. His temperament was way too different from Sirius’. And he didn’t know how to fight; he would barely touch them once before getting beaten up.
He sighed. Regulus was tired, but the bench was really uncomfortable.
After a little over an hour, though, Regulus fell into a very light and unrestful sleep.
*
Regulus woke up several times during the night, feeling too cold or too warm, with a migraine that refused to leave. He got up one time to drink some water at the sink near the toilets. His sleep had been more tiring than restful. He was definitely pulled out of his slumber when the light started peeking out of the window of the door again.
He roughly guessed it must have been around six in the morning, or something like that. The sun rose early at this time of year.
Unfortunately for him, it meant it was Saturday morning, which meant Regulus was also probably the first student to be so painfully awake so early on a weekend. No student in their right state of mind would wake up sooner than lunchtime on a Saturday — at least, that was when Regulus woke up on weekends. He sighed, knowing that he wouldn’t fall back asleep this time, and he tried to sit up slowly.
All of his limbs were numb, and his head felt dizzy. He really missed his bed. Maybe tonight he could try to go to bed early to get a good night of sleep.
Reaching for his bag, Regulus pulled his phone out to check the swimming team’s conversation. His text was still irremediably unsent, which Regulus thought was very odd, once again. But he had nobody to call, nobody to contact with no service, so he put his phone back in his bag.
Now, Regulus had to think of something to do for the entire day while waiting for his teammates to show up for practice. At least, it was the weekend, so Regulus wasn’t going to miss any classes. Here, if you missed one class, you would miss three chapters and far too many details about the next test. He wasn’t less upset at his teammates, though.
Regulus sat there for a moment, considering taking another shower just to get his muscles to relax a bit, before concluding this was his only option to distract himself. He was already very bored, and his back hurt. A warm shower seemed like the remedy to the effects of his terrible night.
He got undressed and walked into the shower without worrying about someone showing up. Regulus knew it was now or never. The more he waited, the more likely it would be for his teammates to find him naked in the shower.
The shower did relieve the pain in his back and made the stiffness disappear. Somehow, it also woke him up properly, so much so that Regulus even surprised himself by thinking it was too bad he couldn’t swim this morning. It was genuinely too bad he was stuck in the changing rooms only. If he had access to the pool, Regulus would definitely have gone for a little dive and a few laps. He sighed at the waste of motivation and got out of the shower when his fingers started to look like raisins.
He dried himself with his towel — and he realised uncomfortably that it hadn’t dried properly during the night — and tried to drape it on the radiator in the corner of the room. Drying himself with a half wet towel had made his skin crawl.
As soon as he was fully dressed up again, with the same clothes he had been wearing the day before, he sat back down on the bench, trying to think of something to do now. He was slightly hungry, so he got himself a second chocolate bar, without feeling an ounce of guilt this time. He didn’t have any choice, and these chocolate bars were really good.
After finishing his first chocolate bar of the day, he decided to put his good energy to work out a bit, and he did a few sit-ups and other exercises. He quickly realised that he should have done this before taking a shower, since he had started to sweat, but Regulus simply decided he would take another shower tonight.
Once he was done working out, and he was back sitting stupidly on the bench with nothing to do, Regulus bought himself a third chocolate bar, which he finished slower than the two precedent ones. And once he was done doing that, too, he resorted to the last thing he had to do, which was reading his History schoolbook. He liked History as a subject, and it was maybe the subject he had the best grades in, along with English, but maybe not to the point of reading the schoolbook outside of class.
He didn’t have much else to do at that moment, so Regulus did that anyway. He skimmed through it mindlessly at first, reading only the pages that really intrigued him, before realising that he had too much time to kill in his hands to be discriminatory towards the pages he wanted to read like that. So he started reading the pages he hadn’t been interested in at first. He ended up liking some of these, though some of these were indeed a bit boring. Reading with a blind spot made it all the more complicated and tiring, but Regulus didn’t stop reading, closing his disabled eye to avoid a headache.
The light through the smoked glass seemed bright and strong when Regulus finished reading the entirety of the History schoolbook. It must have been at least 1 p.m. or even later in the day. Practice only started around 3 p.m. on Saturdays. 4 p.m. on weekdays.
Fighting the boredom, Regulus started to invent all sorts of games and activities to make time pass faster. Like undoing the laces of his shoes and redoing them, undoing them again to redo them another way. In between, he wasn’t failing to play with them, making knots and braids. Regulus had gone to a scout camp at some point during his childhood, with the other kids that went to church, and had learnt how to do knots. He had left the church a while ago now, not without some fighting with his parents, but the knot skills had apparently been engraved in his mind.
Another game Regulus was playing was to try to count up to one thousand. He started keeping count of the tens on his hand, giving one finger for each ten, before it transformed into a finger for each hundred. Counting up to one thousand was a fastidious task, and it made his throat dry, leading him to only mouth the numbers.
After a few other tactics to trick his brain into not imploding with boredom, Regulus was slowly getting less and less inspired. He had gotten a soda from the vending machine after another round of sit-ups he had done thinking that it would be a good warm up for today’s practice.
But Regulus was getting a bit worried. He didn’t know if he was completely crazy or if the sun was really declining outside, the light dimming slowly at the window. He couldn’t really tell with perfect accuracy, since it was smoked glass and since there was no other window in the changing rooms, but he felt like the light was getting less and less intense outside, which was weird because practice was at 3 p.m., a time where the sun was still glowing pretty strongly. It was the end of May, and the sun wasn’t setting before 7 p.m., or even later.
Checking his phone, Regulus was horrified to discover it was way past 3 p.m. now. His phone was telling him it was 4:37 p.m..
Confused, Regulus checked the conversation once more, but he hadn’t received any text saying practice was cancelled today, nor any e-mail from the coach. But worst of all, Regulus’ message saying he was stuck in the changing rooms since yesterday evening was still unsent, staring back at him almost defiantly.
Frustrated, confused, and losing his patience for good, Regulus put his phone down loudly, and started pacing aggressively, circling the benches, trying to find a reason why they wouldn’t show up. Trying to find a reason why his text remained undelivered. Trying to find a reason why his classmates hadn’t shown up yet to laugh at him, telling him it was a prank, and asking him ironically how he had spent the night. At this point, Regulus wouldn’t have minded.
Practice was rarely cancelled; even when the coach was sick, he showed up. This school was under a contract, and the students had rich parents who paid a lot for their kids to have all these privileges. They rarely failed their duties. It didn’t really make sense.
Regulus tried to find a reason — a good enough reason — that would explain why the coach and his teammates hadn’t shown up. At least a few of them would have shown up. No? Regulus felt like he was going crazy. He had spent his entire day waiting for practice time, so much so that he didn’t know what was rational anymore. His bad night and his tiredness were coming back to him all at once.
He walked to the door, tried to open it again. Of course, it didn’t budge. Regulus could only shake the handle, hoping there would be someone outside seeing it move. But there was no sound, nothing indicating there might have been someone behind that door that could have opened it.
“Is anyone there?” Regulus let out anyway, desperately. He had spoken loud and clear, but only the silence replied to him. “Is there someone?” He tried, but his voice faded at the end of his sentence, as if he knew deep inside that there was no one to save him.
His hand rested on the door, and he let his forehead slide against it too, tired and almost on the verge of tears. Being stuck here was unfair; what had he done to deserve this? He was stuck here, and he didn’t know how to get out.
That’s when Regulus heard what he could only describe as a gut-wrenching scream. That startled him.
Wide-eyed, his body tensing, ready to run, Regulus stood there, his hand still lying flat against the cold surface of the door, listening to the silence that followed. But he couldn’t hear anything. The scream had been muffled by the walls of the changing rooms and as if it had been emitted close enough to be heard from here but far away enough to leave Regulus unable to discern who had screamed or if they had said something before or after.
His heart was beating fast in his chest, and Regulus didn’t even know what had happened. He had gone from angry and sad to relatively stressed and worried. He had no idea what was going on .
He waited for several seconds in silence, without knowing what to do. What could he do anyway? If someone was hurt outside, behind that door, he was powerless.
That’s when a terrible smell of rotten garlic invaded his nostrils, making him wince. He almost gagged from how strong the smell was.
“What the hell?” He let out, chills running down his spine.
He had no clue where that foul smell came from all of a sudden, and nothing made sense. The pool wing of the campus was very far away from the kitchens or any place that involved food. Even though Regulus doubted that anyone might walk around with a huge bag of rotten garlic. It was such a characteristic scent, Regulus could recognize it easily, but he had no idea why . He felt frustration again, stuck here and with more questions than answers, unable to do anything about it. He could just endure.
His time in the changing rooms had, unexpectedly, become worse than it already was.
The night came around, eventually, and the smell dissipated slightly — unless it was just that he had gotten accustomed to the smell? — leaving Regulus still hopelessly stuck there. He was going to have a second night of sleep in the changing rooms. He had started to consider finding a big object to throw against the door to break it open, or at least to break the lock to free himself. He hadn’t found any sharp object small enough to insert in the lock to pick it open yet, so Regulus had deduced that he would have to use brute force. He couldn’t stay here indefinitely, and the next day was Sunday. Which meant no practice, no coach, and no teammates.
He was growing angrier and angrier at them, by the way. How dared they leave him alone here? He was sure they had forgotten about him.
Regulus was getting angry enough that he didn’t care to break the changing room’s door, even if it meant his parents would probably have to pay the school back — too bad for his parents. Actually that made the idea all the more alluring. He was starting to understand Sirius’ behaviour better.
He was dreaming of his bed, his comfortable mattress, his soft pillow, and his warm blanket as he fell asleep, once again, on the cold hard surface of the changing room’s bench.
*
The next day, Regulus fell into a routine. Before his morning exercising, he walked around the changing rooms another time, trying to find a way to undo the screws of one of the benches, to use it as a battering ram against the door. He had figured the emergency door would be easier to break open, after tapping against the surface. It was thinner than the main door. But he hadn’t found a way to unscrew the benches. He had tried using a lost pen, found in his bag, but it kept slipping, and was not strong enough to undo the screws, so Regulus had given up. He would find a way.
He ate his umpteenth chocolate bar, with a bag of chips as a breakfast — his mother would be ripping her hair off if she knew how he had been eating for the past two days — and then started working out. Then proceeded to re-read the History book. By then, it was more or less lunchtime, Regulus assumed from the light outside, and also by how his stomach was grumbling, so he ate another bag of chips. He was starting to develop certain thoughts around rationing his food, which worried him a bit once he realised what he was doing. He decided to eat two bags of chips to counter this.
Then worked out again, then took a shower, then the sun was descending again.
No one was coming to help him. His teammates had definitely forgotten about him.
And there was this lingering smell of rotten garlic, and it stayed until Regulus closed his eyes, trying not to cry, wondering why he was there and what he had done to deserve this. It seemed to be a bad dream, never-ending.
The next day, Monday, he redid it all over again. Except Regulus was slowly losing hope. He had no idea why practice had been cancelled on Saturday, and even less idea why it had also been on Monday. Because when practice time arrived, no one showed up. Again. His text still stayed undelivered on his phone, and he was starting to wonder if something really bad had happened to the coach, or maybe to the entire school.
He fell asleep trying to find answers, none of them reassuring him enough.
That night, Regulus barely slept. He had no idea how he would get out of there if no one opened the door for him. He was getting less and less hopeful to get out, somehow, and his forces were diminishing slowly. Feeding himself with chocolate and protein bars and bags of chips was not really helping him keep his body and mind healthy, on top of the terrible sleep he was getting.
He had always thought he was independent, introverted, a loner, liking the solitude and being left alone through and through, but now, Regulus just wanted to hear someone’s voice. See someone’s face. Even just exchanging a few words with someone through the door, without seeing them, would do it. He missed being surrounded by others, and he himself couldn’t believe he could have such wants.
He spent the entire morning of Tuesday crying, without really knowing how to stop the tears from flowing. He just felt terrible, abandoned, lonely, rejected. By mid-day, he gathered himself a little, and managed to go take a shower, to occupy himself, and soothe his mind and body. His muscles were sore from all the uncomfortable sleeping and exercising he kept doing to not get too bored, and no shower could fix it, but at least he didn’t feel too dirty, physically.
Mentally, however, he felt terrible. He couldn’t look at the History book without feeling a slight wave of disgust, with how many times he had read it. He had no idea one could get enough of a book from reading it too much. By now, Regulus almost knew it by heart.
He cried again during the afternoon but forced himself to keep himself moving, so he ended up trying to unscrew the same bench with his pen, tears in his eyes. Regulus had a feeling the screw was slightly looser, but he wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not. He decided to call this a win, a small one, and to leave it there before getting too frustrated at it.
A small nothing could make him cry. It had been four days, around 96 hours, since he had been stuck here. The smell of rotten garlic that appeared on his second day was still giving him chills, and Regulus hadn’t been able to quite get used to it yet. It woke him up at night, sometimes.
On Wednesday, Regulus started to lose all hope. He stood up from his bench anyway, rubbing his back, thinking about how much he would die for a massage, wondering if he would ever be able to swim again — that almost made him cry again, so he distracted himself with other thoughts. He did a few sit-ups, feeling himself growing weaker and weaker. The first day, he had been able to do at least a hundred of them before getting out of breath. Now, he was barely able to reach forty. He did them nonetheless, clinging to his precious routine, as he felt it was stopping him from going completely nuts.
That’s when the unexpected happened.
Regulus was in the middle of hopelessly trying to unscrew the bench, eating the last chocolate bar that had been left in the vending machine, trying not to cry, and thinking of happy memories with Sirius during their childhood to keep himself focused, laughing to himself here and there. Even to the point of talking to himself as if Sirius was there too, answering him and having a conversation. The projected image of Sirius was keeping him company and cheering him up. Until Regulus heard voices outside .
He immediately halted his task and stopped moving completely, sitting here in complete silence, trying to figure out if these voices were just a figment of his imagination, or actually real people outside, walking by, and who could potentially open the door to him.
During the days he had spent here, and since the scream he had heard, Regulus thought he had heard a few other screams, from far away, always muffled by the walls. He had no idea if kids were playing nearby or if people kept hurting themselves, but these screams always sounded distant, and Regulus had never been able to establish any contact. Several times, he had doubted himself, thinking his sick and lonely mind was making these up to cope.
But here, the voice kept getting closer and more distinct. It was a group of people. His teammates?
Regulus had been way past the stage of being angry at them. Sure, he wouldn’t forget it; but in the instant, Regulus would have sacrificed a lot of things to just have an interaction with another human being, even the assholes of his swimming team.
He scrambled clumsily to stand up, almost tripping on the bench, dropping his pen mindlessly, to go bang at the door.
“Hey!” He yelled, yanking on the handle of the door to make more noise. He could hear the voices stop outside, so he screamed even louder. “Hey! I’m here! Is there someone out there?!”
He heard noises other than voices, which he assumed were steps. His heart was filled with hope at this moment, his body felt suddenly lighter. As if all of his problems, all of his pain accumulated during these five days of isolation had been gone in a snap of fingers.
“Hey!” Regulus kept banging on the door, hoping the people wouldn’t go away.
After a few seconds, a wave of relief washed over him, almost making him dizzy, because he heard a voice actually replying to him. “Regulus?”
He was speechless for a whole second, ready to cry in relief. “Yes! Please open the door, I’m stuck here!”
He heard some indistinct chatting before someone replied to him again — he knew it was his classmates, for them to know his name, but he had no clue which one of them was speaking to him. “Wait, we’re going to open it.”
For another second, Regulus thought they would prank him again, run away, and leave him to die here. He had a feeling they would do that, and he felt dread infiltrate his chest, as minutes passed. But then, from the other side of the room, the emergency door opened, and light pooled inside of the room, leaving Regulus stunned somehow, as if he couldn’t believe it.
In so little time, this room had become his only horizon, his entire world, against his will. And now, it was all over. The door was open.
“Regulus?”
The first person Regulus saw was James. He recognized his soft voice even before James passed his head in the doorframe, and stepped inside of the room, looking around before locking eyes with a stunned Regulus who was already looking at him, quietly.
Opening his mouth, Regulus wanted to say something, but his throat was tight, and no sound came out of his mouth. He was still a little shaken.
And then, right on cue, Mulciber appeared behind James, like a mocking shadow. “Wow, you’re still alive,” He chuckled, totally blind to Regulus’ current state.
The latter saw James throw him a glance, but he couldn’t see exactly what emotion passed on his face. Regulus was already starting to be annoyed with him again. He, in fact, hadn’t missed Mulciber that much.
“Yes,” Regulus replied to the boy’s joking tone with a hoarse voice. “I wouldn’t die in five days. I assume you’re the one who thought it was fun to let me rot here for five days?”
“Hey, relax,” Mulciber tilted his head. “I just thought it would be fun. Plus, the others also thought it was. Relax,” He repeated, as if it would make it all more ok.
Regulus sighed, feeling tired all of a sudden. He was stuck here in this school with complete dimwits. “I don’t think it’s funny,” He replied, with a straight face. He gathered his stuff in his bag, and walked past them, getting out of the room before they decided to isolate him more. “In fact, I will tell Coach about it. I’m tired of your jokes.”
There was a silence, and it was so odd, it made Regulus turn around. James and Mulciber were looking at him with awkward faces, though Mulciber looked slightly less uncomfortable. Regulus saw them exchange a knowing look before Mulciber spoke again.
“That’s going to be complicated.”
Regulus frowned haughtily. “And why is that?” He had no intention of letting Mulciber, and whoever else decided it was funny, get away with it.
“Because the coach is dead.”
That shut Regulus right up.
He blinked. “What?” It was a rhetorical question, and the two boys in front of him understood that, watching his reaction.
That… actually made a lot of sense. No surprise practice had been cancelled, now Regulus realised. He was still shaken, his hands trembling. He didn’t necessarily have a good relationship with the man, nor was he close to him, but the coach had still made sure to treat Regulus like every other swimmer on the team, and he had appreciated that. He couldn’t believe that he was dead. Gone.
“What happened?” Regulus heard himself ask, though his voice sounded foreign, not his anymore.
Another knowing look was exchanged, and this time, James was the one to answer. “Haven’t you heard, Regulus?”
He frowned more. “Heard what? What is going on?” He was starting to lose his patience. What had happened while he was stuck in here?
“There’s a virus spreading around… It’s very contagious.”
“Cut the shit, James,” Mulciber sighed. “It’s killing people. Coach caught it, and we had to put him down. He was trying to bite students, and geez! It started smelling so bad in his office!” He said, almost as if he was joking, punching James’ shoulder playfully. “I mean, stinking even more than it used to!” He laughed.
But he was the only one to laugh. James looked over to Mulciber with concern, and Regulus, on his side, was completely dumbfounded.
Mulciber, who couldn’t read the room, kept going. “All the teachers got it eventually,” He shrugged. “But then we got rid of them. Good riddance, as they say,” And he started leading the way back to the rest of the group.
Still stunned, Regulus caught James staring at him with what he assumed was concern. Regulus avoided his gaze.
They joined the others, and Regulus tried his best to act as if he hadn’t been on the verge of losing all hope just a few hours ago. He knew none of these boys would show an ounce of empathy towards him and his experience. They would make fun of him, like they were wont to do, or dismiss him completely at best; he didn’t need that. So he toughened up, and stayed silent, following them.
Most of them welcomed him back into the group with a simple tap on the shoulder, as if they hadn’t forced him into five days of complete isolation. Regulus grinned back, at least he tried to mirror them and their stupid smirks, and quickly their attention diverged on something more interesting. Regulus, definitely, wasn’t that interesting to them. And for once, Regulus was grateful.
He could feel the lingering eyes of James on him, but he chose to ignore it. Soon enough, he too would lose interest, and start laughing with the others again.
While staying quiet, Regulus learned many things.
First of all, the country had been invaded by hoards and hoards of zombie-like infected, apparently roaming the streets searching for new victims. Which sounded batshit crazy. At first, he had thought his teammates were playing another prank on him, collectively acting really convincingly to make him believe that, after spending five days out of the world, that same world was now living through a zombie apocalypse. But several things were off, and quickly enough, Regulus realised they were not, in fact, pranking him again.
They would have never been able to act so well, and James’ concerned gaze made it all off. It was confirmed when they reached the main building of the school, and half the windows were destroyed. Regulus saw impacts of bullets decorating the outside walls and suspicious brownish stains on the concrete floor. It looked like a warzone.
And most importantly. It reeked of this fermenting garlic smell that Regulus couldn’t bear anymore. Everywhere, even outside in the fresh air, it smelled awful.
Regulus hadn’t even noticed he was wincing again, but James must have, because he started walking next to him, still staring at him.
“That’s how we know they’re coming,” He said suddenly, out of the blue.
Regulus stared back at him. “Who?”
“The infected.”
He held the door open for Regulus to walk inside the building.
“Of course,” Regulus sighed, passing by James, who followed him again, apparently adamant on not leaving his side. “You can leave me, you know? I’m not going to melt. I’m ok,” Regulus lied.
Actually, maybe he was going to melt. He was exhausted, wanted some nice sleep, but instead, he had to come to terms with the weird situation they seemed to be in. He almost felt lonelier than he had when he was still alone in those changing rooms. Almost.
“You can be honest with me,” James simply shrugged, somehow managing not to sound too pushy.
Regulus rolled his eyes nonetheless. He and James had never been close, and he didn’t want that to change.
“Leave me alone.”
James sighed but walked away.