The Woodlands

He looked at me but right through me. He blinked once and then he exhaled slowly. I watched his parted lips, waiting for him to inhale. One second, two seconds, three seconds…Hysteria rising, my own breathing fast and uneven. I shook him. He lay limp. The others had reached me.

“No!” I screamed. “Do something. Help him!” My voice was alien, panicked and high pitched.

I threw myself across his body and wailed. I kept screaming, “Wake up, wake up. I can’t do this without you. Wake up.”

The pain was immense, like someone had stuck a live wire to my body and jolted me with electricity. My skin prickled and vibrated, tiny needles jabbing me all over. I put my head down to kiss his cold lips, shaking uncontrollably, hardly able to co

Wind whipped my hair around, like a tornado had come from nowhere to pluck me from this place. I held onto him tightly. They would have to tear me from him.

More pain. It started in my back and crept around to the front of my stomach, hardening as it went. Like fingers reaching around me from behind, it clasped tightly around my belly and locked like a stone vault. Wind and buzzing filled my ears. Careen screamed over the noise, “They’re here!”

Arms dragged me backwards. Someone whispered, “Let go,” impatiently as they wrenched me from Joseph. My eyes focused on the crescent-shaped wounds on Joseph’s good arm, filling with blood from where my fingernails had been digging into his flesh.

“No, no, no, no!” I screamed, until I was suddenly rendered silent as more pain shot through me, making my legs spasm and my head cloudy. I watched my deadened feet plowing the ground. Leaving a path of dug-up dirt back to where my heart lay.

Apella was kneeling over Joseph, pumping his chest with her folded hands. Leaning down and blowing into his mouth. I craned my head, waiting for his hand to move. Waiting for him to sit up and laugh, telling Apella to stop kissing him, he was spoken for.

Nothing.

Above her a chopper was hovering, a man climbed down a ladder a rope ladder that was swinging uncontrollably. Shots rang out, splitting the air like a whip crack. The man fell dead from the ladder but another was descending after him. More shots, this time ringing out from two different locations. Joseph and the others were getting farther and farther away. I couldn’t put the two scenarios together. It was a jumble of images. Was he dead?

I heard a massive explosion, booming thunder. The ground shook. Alexei and Apella were ru

The dragging stopped. People ran past me. Two men had Joseph under the arms and someone was holding his feet. He was grey and lifeless. His body didn’t respond to being jerked up and down as they carried him.

He was dead.

I felt myself spi

I heard voices but the words were nonsensical.

“The monkeys must have turned it on.”

“They followed the signal.”

“Yes, six of them.”

“One fatality.”

Was I going mad? I clawed my way out but the pain was dragging me back under, working its way into my ribs, trying to part them and pry me open like a can of beans. Where was Joseph? I needed to see him now. I grasped at imaginary fingers, craving his touch like it was the only thing that would stop me from sinking into the dark forever.

“Joseph!” I shrieked one last time as a door shut in my face. The green of the hills disappeared. The smell of damp dirt filled my nostrils. There was no air here.

I was underground.

How can I do this alone? Everything has been turned around and I no longer know where I am or what I am supposed to be d oing. The guiding light is gone. The gold has turned to lead. I’m sinking and I have no will to fight it. I hate you for leaving me here. I hate you both.

The impatient voice was speaking to me. Less impatient and more irritated. Asking me to get up, could I walk? I didn’t want to walk. I didn’t want to move. The ground was hard and cool. It felt like as good a place as any to give up. I lay with my cheek pressed to it, waiting for the next onslaught of pain to attack me. Hoping it would tear me open and kill me right there.

But it wouldn’t leave me alone. I wanted to sink under water, drown in my grief, but it wouldn’t let me. It pulled me to sitting and tore at my arms. Get up! It rumbled and tightened until I couldn’t stand to lie there anymore. Get up!

Apella approached me, her perfect face shadowed with concern. She seemed far away, turning her head and muttering quietly to these strange people dressed in greens and browns. “We need to move her; she’ll be safer further underground.”

No.

“No!” I cried. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I tried to stand but my legs strained and more pain hit me like a sledgehammer. My body vibrated, as if struck like a bell.

They whispered to each other and then Apella nodded minutely.

Strange, covered feet were in my vision, white canvas shoes with dark stars on them, muddy and worn, one lace untied. The wearer leaned down, a dark shadow of a face, and squeezed my neck between his thumb and forefinger. Everything went dim, muffled voices, a sharp intake of breath, and then it was black.

I half-hoped I was dead, but the intensity of the pain that woke me was so strong I actually started scrambling backwards to escape it. I hit my head on the back of a bed. Apella and Deshi were both there, looking at me with pity or fear, I wasn’t sure. Apella placed a cool hand on my forehead.

“You’re in labor, Rosa, it won’t be long now,” she said calmly.

I hated her. I focused all my anger on her tiny, pale face. Willing it to crack and crumble like a shattered plate. How could she be so calm? Joseph was dead. We were captured. I surveyed the room quickly. There were things I recognized, like the hospital bed and the white sheets but there were other things I didn’t get, like the roof of the room was carved rock. And why was Deshi allowed to be in here with me? There was one other person in the room, a tall man with blondish hair. He walked over to me and held my wrist. He was wearing tan pants and a colorful check shirt with the familiar white coat over the top. He looked to be in his late thirties. He smiled at me. I just stared blankly back. Things didn’t fit. Where the hell was I?

I was about to ask when the pain and hardening began again. I held my stomach as it rippled across my body and cried softly. A small whimper. Closing my eyes, I tried to dig right inside the pain. Any distraction to stop me from thinking about Joseph’s lifeless body, or kissing his cold, cold lips.

Someone took my hand. It was cool and damp. I didn’t open my eyes. I clenched them closed. I would pretend it was him. If I didn’t look, I could hold onto him for just a little bit longer. I gripped onto the hand tightly. I can do this, I’ll get it out, and then I can leave.

“You’re doing great, Rosa, keep going. I know it’s hard...But Joseph...” Deshi couldn’t finish his sentence. I could hear him sniffling.