REAPING INNOCENCE ◦ STILINSKI [3]

xviii.

xviii. GROUND ZERO

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THE AIR WAS heavy and silent and still, she lie listening to her pulse on the slab of rock her head was perched upon. It was the only way to get through it.

That's how it went, like a feather on a drum, bristling and quick, barely there. It was a microscopic sound, elusive, somewhere between her earlobe and her neck—a meter of nanometers—and she almost had to strain herself to find it, closing her eyes once more and holding her breath...feeling for it without actually feeling for it, because the slightest movement disturbed the rhythm, makes the blood slosh around and the heart stutter, turns the whole thing into a giant production, which was precisely what you didn't want in a situation like this, lying in the dark with bony-creatures lurking about, in some dusty place somewhere, unbearably pained, tethered to the leaded silence of moment, sinking into the darkness. She was an anchor for an anchor.

Because then the anxiety comes, or the guilt (usually both), and she starts to think that she's living in the middle parts of Great Expectations, right before things go really wrong for Pip, and of course she's Pip, because it's her tiny violin playing this one, because everything has to be about her. And that makes her angry, makes her head pound and her blood foam up and all she wanted to do was get to her feet and escape, only it wouldn't make a difference because she'd just be running from herself, and you can't do that no matter how hard you try, and trying hard is what got you in this predicament in the first place.

    And then there was the sweating and rolling, pitching fore and aft. Seasickness in a dry-docked vessel. She felt like she was going to vomit. She doesn't move, she doesn't breathe, and eventually, she heard it: the soft, muzzled beat of her pulse, against the rock, ffft ffft. ffft ffft. She focused a bit—carefully—and it grows louder, firmer, until the sound fills the area around her, blocks out her fear. ffft ffft. ffft ffft. There was something almost comforting about it, because it always sounded the same—reminding her that she was, in fact, alive. It beats in its own perfect biological rhythm, blood vessels and capillaries thumping in precise, sanguinary syncopation. Her body is a metronome, keeping time for the universe, the maximal and the minimal. All of it. It makes her feel less cowardice. ffft ffft. She thought of phrases like cilia and eukaryotic, stuff from science class, and she can feel her body relaxing. ffft ffft. She thought of the planets and the veins of stars, stuff from movie theaters and planetariums, and she can feel her head clearing. ffft ffft. She thought of her plan—something she had been dreading for weeks.

And then, as if on cue, a cold breeze gusted around her. It's gruesome. It's gorgeous. After everything, she was still able to feel the crisp night air. She had long since forgotten what that felt like—ever since the beast inside her had awoken in the fire in her chest like a purling dragon.

Oh, who was she kidding? She wasn't Daenerys Targaryen—and dragons didn't exist.

No matter how fire proof she was, she always seemed to be the one getting burned.

Her head is swirling when another breeze passed, surreptitiously as if it were a promise. It passed like taking the new communion. Whispering across her skin. She wasn't prepared for what was going to happen next. Yawn. Squint. Darkness surrounded her. She hated the way the dark felt against her skin, as if it knew everything she'd been up to. She sat up, using the slab of rock as leverage—flashes of pain shooting up her sides—eyes darting to every dark corner. The ground beneath her was uneven and jagged; parts of it shooting up at random. She began to shift away from the rock she was leant up against, she felt bits of the ground roll beneath her. Her spine straightened, slowly fixing her eyes upon the ground. A scream bubbled up in her throat as she realized that she had been lying upon a pile of bones.