The Fifth Element

♡Chapter 12

A great feeling of relief came to me as I spotted the giant tree standing all by itself in the center of a field of black flowers. My feet kicked up countless petals as I ran towards it. When I reached the trunk of the ancient oak, I leaned against it, panting heavily. I looked around, and what I didn't see made my heart drop.

"Neeva? Neeva!?" I cried out, very much aware that I had no face to match to the name I was calling, but I thought I had heard that name before not too long ago. I became frantic when no one answered my call.

"I'm up here mommy," a small voice said from above. My head snapped up to the branches twisting above my head, in one sat a little boy,  around the age of six, wearing ragged looking clothes, and looking like he was barely hanging on to the low hanging limb. The little boy had straight midnight black hair like me and my haunting purple eyes. My heart broke when I saw the condition he was in. No mother should have to see her child in such a pitiful state.

I managed a weak smile. "Jump down baby," I cooed, holding my hands up to him. He let go, and I caught him and hugged him to my chest. I enjoyed the feeling of his little body in my arms, for what I knew was going to be the last time.

I reluctantly set him down and knelt down in front of him. I unslung my bag from my shoulder, and removed my water skin from it, before unscrewing the cap and pressing it to his parched lips. He eagerly gulped down the water and would have drunken it all had I not stopped him.

"You have to save some for later," I explained as I pulled the water skin from his lips, and sucked the water skin back into the leather bag. The little boy had been staring at it longingly as I had been putting away.

He looked up from the bag to my face. "Mommy should have a drink too," he told me solemnly.

I shook my head even though my throat burned with thirst. "Mommy doesn't need it, but Neeva does," I said, slinging the bag over his tiny shoulders. I leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead before pulling away.

Tears began pooling in his eyes as he looked at me. He knew I was going to leave him.

"I want you to listen carefully, Neeva," I said, wiping away the tears with my thumb. "I have a friend waiting for you over there under those trees." I pointed to a clump of trees off in the distance, barely visible in the moonlight. "You are going to run as fast as you can towards them, and I'm going to stay here and distract them."

"No!" he cried throwing his arms around my neck. "Don't leave me again!"

"Shhh," I soothed. "I'll be right behind you, after I take care of the bad guys," I lied.

He let go and looked at me like he really wanted to believe me.

From not too far in the distance, the dogs howled. I turn to see that I could make out their small furry shapes barreling towards us.

"Run!" I commanded him and pushed him away from me. He stumbled backward and gave me one last longing look, before turning and running towards the small clump of trees.

With my son heading towards safety, I turned towards my death and placed my hands on the dry earth. I felt the first movement of life as the first of the dead began to stir in their graves.

"HEY WAKE UP!" I was jolted awake as someone screamed in my ear. I found myself in the next instant on the floor tangled up in a white mess of sheets. I looked around to see white walls surrounding me on all four sides, they seemed to glow softly in the dim light. I was lying beside a cot, that I had, presumably, fallen out of when I received my rude wake up call. There were no doors to be found in the entire room, typical.

"Ah, finally you're awake." The red headed ghost's head appeared over the side of the cot. "You know you sleep like the dead," she said and began giggling as she realized the irony in her word phrasing.