Irene, My dead best friend [Wattys 2015]

Chapter 28: Death

The air suddenly turned a torrid black, engulfing the entire forest, wind picking up and adding to the mix. My heart was beating at an incredibly fast pace and all I could do was scream. I was screaming out loud at the top of my lungs while the wind gushed past me and I flew in a backwards direction.

Like that sudden push back wasn’t enough, the black horizon exploded, fire and embers flying in all directions, lighting up the sky, making everything a bright red and orange. If I could scream any louder, I would. I was out of breath from the screaming and the heat from the explosion made it feel like my skin was burning. I was still flying backwards, unable to comprehend what the hell was going on, fear taking over me that the explosion had been in the general direction where Irene had been thrown back too. The myriad of emotions wrecking through my body were so intense that I was sure my heart would fail.

The wind picked up just then, making it difficult to hear anything but a storm of air. The wind however, changed its direction, causing me to be pushed back into the direction of the explosion and where Irene might be, alive or dead. As I got closer to the fiery, red explosion, the wind slowed down and everything was getting more and more silent. I was about a couple of feet from the actual source of the explosion when it felt like the wind chucked me right to the ground causing me to topple over and rolling in the grass until I came to a slow stop.

Breathing rapidly, an aching sensation taking over my chest I quickly got up and felt a sharp pain shooting through my leg and fell back down. My fall had struck me straight into a part of a sharp tree branch which was now successfully lodged in my right leg. The pain was so intense, I was starting to see blurry but I knew what I had to do. Laying down, I covered my eyes with one arm and reach out the other to hold the tree branch firmly. With every bit of strength I had, I yanked it out, causing myself to scream so loud, cussing out in incomprehensible terms. The trauma of yanking took a toll on me but I sat back up as slowly as I could to assess the damage. My leg was bleeding, it was steady but not too bad. The pain however, was excruciating and the hole in my muscles wasn’t a pleasant site either. I quickly took off my over shirt and tied it around my leg, forming a tourniquet of sorts, hoping it wouldn’t let me bleed out too much.

When I was partially satisfied with what I had done, I finally got up, pain radiating throughout my leg, causing me to throw my weight onto my left leg. It was when I could finally absorb the pain to the best of my ability was when I had a chance to look around.

“What the fu…ck..?” was all I could manage because once again I was standing right in front of Irene’s house. I was standing in front of her house except now it looked exactly like Irene’s memories. It was painted crisp white with blue window sills, the door was intact and stood in its grandeur. The rose bushes were blooming at full peak. My mind, however, felt like it was tumbling down a hill. The explosion had caused me to fly quite FAR away from the actual origin of the house yet here I was standing in front of it. My mind still muddled up, I heard a slight rustle behind me. Absolutely terrified, I turned around which caused pain to shoot through my leg reminding me what had happened, only to see Irene walking towards me.

She was alive. Alive and tall and beautiful. She was wearing a dark blue dress that hung off her shoulders, going all the way down, covering her feet. She was walking towards me and smiling.

“Do you like my house?” she was all teeth and beautiful blue eyes but all I saw was red. Red rage engulfing my view.

“What the hell happened, Irene?! That explosion….how? How are you alive?! We landed here but the house was back there,” I pointed furiously at midair, “and the house looks all new all of a sudden and how’d you get a change of clothes?!” I was rushing through my words, my breathing becoming ragged and the pain taking over my entire body. The shirt around my leg was slowly turning red, absorbing my blood, reminding me of my impending doom.