Across Acheron

Session 4

I ran away that night.

Or at least, I tried to.

As Cillian continued to hold onto the steering wheel with all his might, too busy muttering nonsensical things to himself to even take a good look at me, I pulled the lock and opened the car door. I still remember the immeasurable pain I felt when my body crashed onto the paved road. It felt like one hundred men pounding their fists in my flesh, their nails breaking through skin for fresh blood. But that didn’t stop me from jumping to my feet and running the hell out of there.

I wasn’t even sure where I was going; hell, I didn’t care. I had enough of playing pretend with two complete nutcases. I knew that I should have left the minute I got there, but I was possibly in too deep to get out of it.

I still tried, nonetheless.

As I was running to no place in particular, I heard Cillian start yelling after me. His voice sounded distant and somewhat tiny, so I figured that I at least made it somewhere. I couldn’t really focus on what was in front of me, though. I just let my feet pound against the road, soles screaming for me to stop but unable to. I actually thought that I was going to make it somewhere. I thought I was going to be free. Damn, I wish I could kick myself for getting so hopeful.

You see, I forgot he had a car. Devastation engulfed me when I heard the tires squeal against the asphalt and come screeching towards me. You can’t even imagine how petrified I was. I would’ve pissed straight through my pants if I wasn’t so busy trying not to produce fear induced vomit. I knew that once I got caught, I wasn’t going to be let off with a cute warning. That wasn’t how Cillian played.

I blinked once or twice and found my body twisting, moving towards the side of the road. A breath later, I tripped over my damn feet and went tumbling down the hill.

Everything seemed to slow down at that moment. I heard tires squealing, I smelt blood spilling, and I felt numb. I really thought I was going to die then. I kind of hoped for it. With any luck, someone would find my body and maybe they could trace it back to Cillian and save that woman. That’s all I was thinking about even though I was near death; that woman bleeding at the back of the van.

Something caught me halfway down the hill. My body slammed against a wall of soft flesh, the warmth wrapping around me like one of those heating blankets. At first I thought it was God, but when I opened my eyes, it was still night time. Dirt specked the slender light the moon gave me and drew my mind from the gloom, knocking me right back into reality. I wasn’t quite living, but I wasn’t dead.

Yet.

The numbness went away and everything started to hurt. For a while, I couldn’t tell if I was crying or if it was the pain blinding me. My lungs burned and my ribs ached with every breath I tried to suck in. I struggled to stay awake; I didn’t want Cillian to be the one to carry out my dead body. I’d rather rot with the rest of East Eldon.

I started hating myself at that point. You never know if you’ve made good choices or not until hours or days later, and I’ve definitely made bad ones. Bad, stupid ones. I wanted to go back in time; to fight Cillian’s gun rather than succumb to it. I closed my eyes and reopened them over and over again, but everything stayed the same. The sky stayed black, the moon kept shining, and dust kept finding its way into my eyes.

“Stop crying, Jack. He’ll hear you.”

I didn’t even know I was crying until he said it. Confusion struck me as I opened my eyes and turned my head slightly, watching Keenan’s worried face as he cradled me. He didn’t seem that interested in my wounds, but mostly by the blood that was coming out of them.