The Wounded

Everyone moved faster, a sea of excited people pushing, pulling, and bringing each other closer. I was separated from Joseph; he seemed on a mission to get to the front. I watched as his head floated further away, striding with force through the mass until he vanished. I slipped and stumbled, trying not to get knocked over by the swell of anxious people. A hand grabbed mine and pulled me in from the edge.

“Don’t let go of me,” Pelo said. I didn’t. I held on tightly as we made our way back to the edge of town.

We got to the other side ahead of most of the others. Just in time to see Joseph sprinting around the edge to where we had last seen movement. Now there was none.

Alexei bounded behind him, a thin, white streak against the dark green trees.

Through the wind, through the screeching, the dust sticking to our throats like talcum powder, his scream cut through.

“Apella!”

Something struck in me like a match. Apella, Apella, Apella. A song. A sound. Hope. Life.

I dropped Pelo’s hand and faced him.

“Can you take Orry home?”

He seemed surprised and flustered by this request. “I… I don’t know where you live,” he stuttered. “Where are you going?”

I patted his arm. “They know,” I said as I gestured around me. Someone nodded behind me.

I glanced back at Joseph. He had stopped ru

I handed Orry to Pelo and pressed both my hands against them, wrapping them together. “Please do this for me. My family is over there.”

He looked upset, left out, but his face forced a smile. “Of course. Of course. You go.”

Orry whimpered a little in the arms of a stranger. Pelo held him tightly as he watched me run away.

*****

Heat glanced off my back as my steps pressed desperately into the slurry ground, although the sun was a presence rather than a force. The heat was my fear and hope burning into my skin. I slammed into the scaffolding propping one of the ramshackle buildings up, as I spun sharply towards Joseph and Alexei.

Quickly and without warning, the trees took over and I was winding my way in and out of thick, rough evergreens and crunching down on pine needles, the smell of sap and dirt slowing me down. The thought that it wasn’t her slowed me down further.

When I reached the place, about fifty people had crowded around the spot we’d last seen movement.

“Where’d they go?” one man said.

“Maybe it was a trick of the light.”

Joseph’s voice rang out above the many bobbing, searching heads, and I followed it. “No. I saw her.”

Alexei stood next to Joseph, his eyes skimming back and forth. People were starting to pull away from the powdery ash edge as they gave up.

I pushed my way to Joseph and sat beside him, sca

Everything was black, black, black. Where did they go?

Black… black… pinkish white…

I lifted my hand and pointed shakily. There, cutting through the black, was the thi

I gasped rather than spoke, “Apella.”

Alexei was hysterical. Fear and excitement made a mess of his thoughts and actions as he danced back and forth across the bank

Joseph rose. “Rope. Get some rope. Now,” he ordered.

Voices carried the request, and rope appeared arm over arm until it reached us.

Apella revealed herself, flipping onto her back, taking a long, raw breath, and then coughing and spluttering as she tried to exhale. Her eyes were lined with black, her mouth and nostrils clogged with ash.

I made eye contact. She was so close, no more than ten meters down the edge.

She blinked and listlessly moved one arm, trying to find something to hold on to. We all watched in horror as she skidded further down towards the center.

I snatched the rope and threaded it around the tree, grabbing glances at Alexei’s panicked face. If he had to watch her die, he would end like a bad book. I tested the strength of my knot and then threw the rope down the cliff towards Apella’s body. It landed just a foot from the top of her head, which she lifted, her eyes deadened like she was ready to give up.

She looked from Alexei to me and made a grab for it, missing by a fraction and sliding slowly downwards, mouthing the words, “I can’t.”

“Yes you can,” I screamed. You have to, I thought. We couldn’t lose anyone else.

She laid one cheek against the rock and ash, shivering, beads of silky dust sliding off her skin like beads of sweat.

Joseph hastily pulled the rope upwards.

“What are you doing?” I screeched. “You can’t give up yet.”

He looked to me, his face stony, a tiny bridge of sweat forming across his perfectly crooked, freckled nose. “I’m not giving up. I’m going down.”

He tied the rope around his waist and turned to face me. I could feel the blood leaving my face in streaks. Inside I was thinking, No, swearing and thinking of ways to stop him. Outside, I straightened myself, kissed him, and sent him on his way into that black hole. “Be careful,” I said, wavering, swaying a little.

He winked. “I always am.” He grimaced, his face showing the strain as he slowly edged his way towards her, his legs buried knee-deep in ash after only a few steps.

I grabbed Alexei by the shoulders, trying to calm him down. He bit away at his fingers and pulled at what was left of his hair.

I clamped down on the bony cups of his shoulders. “Alexei, stop.”

His eyes had retreated, the pale blue sunk below his grief. He stopped moving and stuttered, “Rosa, yes, sorry. I’m, well, I didn’t expect this. She’s supposed to be at the hospital.”

I shook my head and pointed. “She’s right there. She was never at the hospital. Alexei, you need to get a grip. She needs you to be strong.”

I wasn’t sure if I got through to him, but he stopped jittering and watched with me as our loved ones tried to meet in the worst of places.

I think I held my breath the entire time and only let air in when the two of them collapsed on the edge of the hole. It was only then that we noticed the entire town was watching us. No one had gone to their homes. They all stood watching and waiting to hear the words.

Joseph gently laid Apella on her side and rubbed her back. She convulsed and vomited black sludge.

She looked dead but for a tiny rise in her ribcage. Maybe she should have been. We were waiting for something to flag, a noise, a cough, some hope.

And then she opened her eyes and said, “Alexei.”

I turned to the survivors and yelled as loud as I could, “She’s alive!”

The sound and surge of almost three thousand people clapping and cheering, and the sound of feet stamping with relief and joy was amazing.

Apella’s tiny, pale, crescent moon-shaped body lay in the grass in front of me. I kneeled down and kissed her cheek, the tears forming mud and sliding down her face.

“Look what you did.” I smiled at her.

I wrapped my arms around Joseph’s waist and pulled him closer, wanting to wrap the four of us into one giant cocoon. “You too,” I said. “You’re like hero or something.”

Addy was dead and Apella was drowning, slowly.

That was where we were. I knew the truth of it. But I couldn't accept it.

Matthew seemed at peace with Addy’s death. He’d expected it and had said his goodbyes to her before we left. I had denied it, and now it felt like my grief was dangling from a string just out of reach. I had no energy to jump for it.