Devoid [Bruno Mars]

Chapter twenty-one

Chapter twenty-one

The heat was the worse.

It wrapped me up in a blaze. Made my head spin, my tongue pant. I was dripping with sweat, but I kept moving, sluggishly, as if I were dragging my feet through quicksand instead of hard earth. There were things in the trees. Scurry things. Rustly things in the bushes. I ignored it all, focused on my one goal: the road. 

I imagined it. A pair of tire tracks in the dirt. I would follow it, and the woods would open up to a highway. There would be cars. Red, black, and silver speeding blurs. Maybe even a four wheeler. My arms would lift above my head and wave manically. A woman would step out of a car and I would run to her, half filled with relief and half desperate cries. The woman had rust colored hair. Auburn eyes.

Mom.

I gasped loudly, my knees giving out. I wrapped my arms around a tree, as if it could hold me up. I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe if I did, I could block out all the heat. The wind flowed through the branches and formed into a whispered voice on the inside of my mind. Adrian it said softly. Get up, sweetheart. Come on. Stand up, Dri baby. I screamed through gritted teeth and dug my fingers in the bark, hoisting myself to my feet. I went forward again, walking worse than before, like a drunk. With each step my strength sapped away, sucked into the void of the lifting and dropping of my feeble legs. I walked for hours, for years. Something painfully sharp pierced the flesh of my foot and a wave of dizziness hit me.

I collapsed. My face rammed into the ground. Since my tongue had been out it skimmed the earth. An unpleasant taste erupted in my mouth. Blood and dirt. I tried dragging my body, but everything shouted pain. It was useless. I knew I would not get up again. The heat used all of its weight to pin me down. I was going to die. From dehydration. From starvation. 

The cause of my oncoming death was whatever devoid of me.

I felt my lips form a single word, heard myself say Bruno's name, as if he would emerge from the bushes and enfold me in the strength within his embrace. In that moment I felt a fierce need, as fierce as the sun's rays, to tell him sorry. Sorry for not being a better girlfriend; for not finding the road; for being weak.

I pushed my dress down. I couldn't breathe. Every layer of clothing was suffocating. The heat built up in my lungs, squeezing my windpipe. Worms, gray as a corpse's flesh, and slimy, were crawling in front of me. I rolled the opposite way and vomited. All the water left in my system including the bit of food I had earlier, gone. Buzzing creatures attacked my skin. Buzzards, I thought. They arrived as if I were dead already. I rolled over one more time, on my side. I didn't want to die. I was afraid. I began to cry, but the tears never came. My body was drying up, I wonder, if like a raisin, curling in on itself because of the loss of moisture. I shut my eyes. Maybe death would be a cold darkness. At the last second, I was glad. No more heat. No more sun.

*

Death was cold. It slides underneath your legs and back. It holds you tight. Instead of falling, it lifts you up.

*

I felt the coolness on my feet. It rose to my legs and my waist until—splash. And then another—splash. I was sinking until an arm encircled my waist and I was brought against something hard. Cool water poured in my mouth, and I opened it wider, thirstily drinking.

I opened my eyes, closing my mouth and licking my lips. I was pressed against Joseph's chest, my head cradled in the crook of his arm like a child. Joseph held a bottle of water over me which he brought down, thinking I was done. “Thank you,” I rasped, resting my hand on his cheek. It was bristly with stubble. “I'm alive.”