Five Minutes

*~ Chapter 2 ~*

I watch as the woman barrelled into the woods.  I fell to my knees in front of the little girl.  Her eyes were still paralyzed with fright, bright and open.  They were becoming dull, lifeless.  I let my head fall into my charcoaled-colored hands.

Cars began to ride by, oblivious to what heinous crime was just committed before their eyes.  

“PLEASE, STOP THE CAR!” I yell until my throat turns brittle, my mind going blank.  There’s nothing I can do.  I walk back to the girl, shoulders slumped and spirit crushed.  I tried to take the girl’s gelid hand, but she was still alive (barely).  I just shook my head and silently spoke to her.  I knew she wouldn’t be able to hear me, but I had to try.  

“It’s ok, try not to move.  Relax, breathe with me, okay?  One, two, three…  Look at the sky, isn’t it beautiful?  That beautiful blue, it matches your eyes.  I always wanted big blue eyes and blonde hair.  You’re so lucky, shhhh….it’s okay…”  I was beginning to whisper.  Her fingers started to relax, away from the tight fists she had before.  Her breathing became slower.  

She closed her eyes, and spoke in a low voice, “...Thank you…” Her eyelids lifted and she looked directly at me.  Could she see me?  Was it even possible?  She started to sit up, her hands filling with snow.  She appeared with the same ghostly appearance as myself and color returned to her icy eyes.  Her body remained the color of coal.  She started to readjust to her surroundings and focused on me.

“Who are you?!  Where am I, what’s happening to me…”  She began to scoot away from me, leaving no tracks in the snow.  She didn’t notice.  I stayed in my place, watching her with an expression of forlorn.  I didn’t tell her she was deceased.  Instead, I said, “Hey kid, how old are you?”  She cautiously replied, “Nine.”

I smiled.  “What’s your name?”  She shook her head and thought carefully.  

“I can’t remember...it might have started it with an ‘A...’ Or no…”  She couldn’t remember.  She truthfully had no idea.  “What’s your name?”  

I thought back.  What was it?  I look at her, very surprised.

“I don’t remember either.  But I know my age...wait, no...I don’t remember that either.”  Tears start to brim my eyes.

“I can’t remember anything before this.  Guess that’s what happens.”  I shrug my shoulders, but in the inside, I’m breaking into pieces.  The girl looked at me strangely.

“What happened to us?”  I took a sharp breath as I saw her take in her surroundings one more time.  I saw her take a closer look at the ground in front of her, seeing a little girl laying in a fresh coat of snow.  She whimpered, pressing her hands to her face and doubling over.  I rushed over to her and hesitantly patted her back, trying to calm her down.  After a couple minutes, she sprang up from the snow and hugged me, clutching onto me for dear life.  Her tear - stained face looked up at me.

“I want to leave now.”

“Ok, ok...let’s try to find somewhere we can go.”  

We stumble through the hail now slapping down onto our faces and arms.  Snow turned to sleet as the wind ripped through our skin to the bone.  I give the girl my long, wool scarf and wrap it around her face.  I watch the land carefully, barren, full with dark green pine and bright white skies.  Nothing in sight.  I trip and slam my face into the icy snow, sputtering.  My eyes are almost glued shut with the snowflakes.  

“We can’t continue like this!” My cry is lost with the wind.  I guide my companion, my arm around her shivering shoulder, underneath a grande pine where fresh grass is visible under its huge, needle arms.  I make the girl lay down under it, and I go back into the unforgiving storm.   My hands are cupped around my squinted eyes, and I start to inhale more quickly.

The power overtakes me and my knees buckle, the snow soaking through to my bones.  Irony.  I’m transparent and nothing but a figment of the past and I can still feel the elements screaming into my skin.  I starving, I can’t take it anymore…  My eyes shut close once again.