The Rain - Josh Wheeler

The mall was dark, the shadows were illuminated by the glowing ball of white light that hung above Glendale and even the slightest of noises echoed throughout the shell of a building.
Josh and I clambered into the store, most of the people who were there earlier were no longer there. The only ones left were all sleeping on sofas and beanbags. Josh took my hand and guided me past the cash desk and toward the back room. He switched the light on to reveal a room with a sofa bed, a mini fridge, a tv and a whole lot of dvds. He helped me sit down before leaving the room quickly.
He came back into the room, his arms filled with blankets and bed sheets. His eyes lit up and he smiled mischievously. "Let's build a den!" He exclaimed, jumping onto the sofa bad, throwing the mass amounts of materials onto the bed. I got up and hobbled into the main part of the store, I took several cushions and pillows off of the shelves and took them into the back room. As I entered, Josh left- minutes later he returned with a staple gun and we began to assemble the den. He took one large, grey bed sheet and stapled it to the ceiling and then to the arm of the couch, he then took a green bed sheet and did the same before stapling more sheets and building a den. I placed the pillows and cushions around the perimeter of the couch and Josh layered blankets and throws onto the sofa to create padding. He left the room once again and came back with a duvet in hand, I lay on the bed and he joined, throwing the duvet onto us both.
"So Cade, how come I never saw you around?" He smiled, leaning into the pillows.
"Uh well, I was homeschooled. I never really left the house and I didn't have any friends." I shyly replied, rolling into the duvet.
"Well, you've got me." He swept his hair out of his eyes and shifted himself to sit upright. "How are you feeling now?" A genuine sense of care riddled his voice.
"Pretty good, aside from the almost completely amputated foot of course." I laughed, Josh rolled over.
"Ah come on, you're only missing three toes and some layers of skin." He laughed, looking directly into my eyes, we gazed deeply at each other before I broke the gaze to stare at the material hanging above us.
"I'm going back out there tomorrow. To where you found me, you can tag along if you want." I said nonchalantly, fixating on the staples embedded into the ceiling.
"Yeah okay." A slight happiness stitched his voice. "You sure you're gonna be okay out there?" He said, panic in his voice.
"I'll be fine." I said with confidence. "So Josh, tell me about your old life, before the bombs went off."
An unnerving sense of awkwardness settled upon the room as he let out a sigh, fixing himself up into a seated position. "Well, I was new here, I didn't have any friends and my grades were average. I got bullied a lot by Turbo and his jerk squad, my dad died the day the bombs exploded, so really my life before wasn't that great. How about you?" He smiled, wiping a tear away from his eye.
"Well as I said, I was homeschooled. My older brother looked after me but he got killed when the bombs went off." We gazed into each other's eyes yet again, the light bounced into his iris- the pools of blue twinkled as they refracted the light.
"I'm sorry then, we've got each other now." Another tear formed in his eye, he blinked it away and shrugged it off. "If you could watch anything on broadway, what would you watch?" Excitement radiated off the boy as he talked about a topic he was more comfortable with.
"Definitely Wicked, but Hamilton would also be amazing!" I smiled, reminiscing on how my brother loved musicals.
"Hamilton? No way! It's my favourite musical." The boy shrieked in excitement. "I'm now legally obliged to be your best friend." He laughed, rolling closer to me.
"Well hello there, best friend." I joked, reaching to my duffle bag and pulling out a bottle of Gatorade before gulping three mouthfuls and handing the bottle to Josh for him to drink. "I'm getting kinda tired, it's been a long day." I yawned, the bandage on my leg tightened as I stretched.
"Yeah, you're right." He nodded. "I'll go grab some blankets and sleep on the bed that I put you on earlier. I'll be back in the morning Jae-Cade, goodnight." He smiled as he hung onto the door frame and slowly faded away into the dark.
The image of his smile imprinted on my mind as I lay alone, I took my jacket and beanie off and threw them onto the floor. The pain in my foot had dissolved as I sunk into the cushions and pillows we previously placed on the bed. Soon enough, my inability to stay awake for more than 12 hours had shown and I had fallen into a deep sleep.