•••
The overly large ties screeched as I speed around the street corner, leading me to yet another identical path that isn't the lash green forest we need to be heading to. Light grey smoke piles around us and fills the emptiness that follows the car. There's no sign of life, apart from a few people pulling back curtains from their apartment windows. The metallic odour wafting from the back is so strong I can almost taste it on the buds of my tongue as I rip the steering wheel to the left, making yet another burn out on the bitumen for those to come with curious eyes.
In the tiny, rectangular mirror above me, Eliana slouches against the firm seats, her legs laying limb against on top of them, as droplets of sweat bead down her ghostly features, her once bright emerald eyes that now dull in comparison, are glazed over as her head lops to the side. My jumper is no longer the light grey it had always been, but now a dark, ghastly crimson that drips from one of the sleeves.
I don't know why that person said not to go to the hospital, and that they wouldn't be able to help. That's where everyone else said they were going, it's where I took Nan-nan, and it's a place people would automatically go in a time of crisis.
I breath in.
Greg's cabin will have the equipment we will need. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. She's going to be fine. We just need to get out of the city.
The streets have begun to blur together, never ending, never changing. It's like a maze, and I'm but a lost child seeking the light at the end of the tunnel. At least an hour has passed since the attack, and I don't know what is to come, but I can't lose her. What happens after one of those things bites you? Do you become one? Does it poison you? Or does nothing happen?
I let my eyes wander back to the mirror as something crawls at the flesh beneath my skin.
It doesn't seem like nothing. Something is happening to her, and I don't know what I'm going to do to stop it.
"Nas..."
"Yeah, I'm here." I reassure her.
My hand grips the leather wheel, my knuckles turning white with the action as I round another corner. Trees towering over the large buildings greet my widening eyes at the end of the street, the deep green and dusty, dirt path so close it almost hurts to see.
"We're nearly there, Eliana. I promise."
I don't know how close we are once we enter the forest, all that I'm certain of is that I have to follow the dirt path and turn down the third diverating dirt road. And that this vehicle can reach up to one-hundred and fifty kilometros per hour and my foot isn't going to release from the pedal until we are there.
Her breath weakly slips past her pale lips.
"Get it out."
The engine revs as we make it down the last stretch of the street.
"Get it out."
Her voice is grunted out.
"Get it out."
My eyes dart to mirror again, my foot lifting slightly from the pedal as I do.
"What?" My brows knit together in confusion.
Her breaths are heavier now as her trembling hand reaches up for her shoulder, her fingers grasping at the jumper thats wrapped around it.
"Nas, get it out of me, it hurts," her words are firm as she pleads with me from the back, the car now rolling to a stop.
My head swings to the back, no longer the view of the reflective mirror.
"Wha-what's wrong?"
My body falls numb as I climb through the small gap between the front and the back of the car. Her head swings back, a cry slipping past her twisted mouth as her eyes squeeze shut, the clear, salted droplets sliding down and into the blooded hair.
"Get it out, please." Her words blend together as they are ripped from her throat, each one enchanted with a wailing plea.
I grab her unwounded shoulder as I push the loose strands of hair from her face, as her chest rises and falls, each time faster than the last as her widened eyes stare at the roof of the car, a terror swimming in the pools of green. Her mouth is gapping like one of those funky looking clowns at the show we went to as kids. Her throat collapses with each desperate breath she heaves in.
My fingers dig into the skin.
"Eliana, please tell me how I can help you, please," I choke out.
"Get it out. Get it out. Get it out."
"Get what out." I shake her, hoping something will connect in her brain. "Tell me Eliana please, get what out."
My eyes search her trembling body as her hand desperately claws at the woollen jumper tied around her bitten shoulder once again. My fingers slip in between the knot I had tied, the blood sludging between the grooves as I rip it apart and toss it to the bottom of the vehicle with a sickening slush.
What?
My gaze is vast as I stare down at her mutated shounder, bile rising up my throat as my stomach swims with the waves of nausea. There's no blood anymore. Nothing weeps from the rounded, ragged bite. The wound is hollow inside of it, but certain angles you can bear witness to the dark red flesh pulsing within it. I simply sit there.
"Get it out." Her hand reaches for the ragged flesh, her fingers slipping between the bite with a wet sludge as she pulls on a chuck of the exposed flesh between her fingers.
"Get it out."
Her wails shake a part of me, the vibrating pleads shaking the very atmosphere that surrounds us with the deafening pitch of her words. Between desperate gasps of air, the words slip past her lips this time small, murmured as her head lops backward, thudding against the seat as the salted tears wash away the drying crimson stuck to her cheeks.
"Please, Nas..."
Everything is blurring past me, as though time itself knows no concept, no motion of the here and now, but only what is to be seen at the end of the destination. And I don't want to see what waits for us at the end of that road.
I just need more time.
Through the shoots of electricity buzzing within me, my hand grapples at her wrist, ripping it away from the opened fresh wound. My gaze zeros on the gapping flesh before, my stomach sinking as my fingers graze the outer edges of the raw skin that's been stretched to the side slightly, the light shining through the tinted windows, offering me a better look at what lies within her skin.
There's something in there.
Gently, I shift my finger between the wet tissue until something velvety grazes against it and leisurely, I pull it out from where it was embedded into the heavy skin. It strains as I pull, almost like it's a part of her. It stops just as it exits the wound, elianas head lops to the side, her pale features pitching together, an agony painted across her tired face. My hand twists until my palm is facing me, the small, cylinder object carefully pinched between the blooded tips of my fingers. There is nothing but a harsh chill running through my veins as my thumb rubs over the wet crimson, a bright, vibrate green peeking through. I slip backward at the sight, as realisation of what is between my fingers and what has embedded itself beneath her skin, whats growing inside her.
It's a leaf. With a small sliver of a vine attached to the bottom, leading back into the wound. Into her flesh. It blurs as I seek past it, and into the dark red beyond it, clarity now falling upon me as I spot the green peeking through the bitten flesh, tangled within, some overlapping others as it buries itself deeper.
Elianas voice is soft, her lips barely moving as her gaze holds mine, her words now holding a horrifying truth behind them.
"Get it out."
•••
Chapter word count // 1441
Overall word count // 25,205