Apella was kneeling over Joseph, pumping his chest with her folded hands. Leaning down and blowing into his mouth. I craned my head, waiting for his hand to move. Waiting for him to sit up and laugh, telling Apella to stop kissing him, he was spoken for.
Nothing.
Above her a chopper was hovering, a man climbed down a ladder a rope ladder that was swinging uncontrollably. Shots rang out, splitting the air like a whip crack. The man fell dead from the ladder but another was descending after him. More shots, this time ringing out from two different locations. Joseph and the others were getting farther and farther away. I couldn’t put the two scenarios together. It was a jumble of images. Was he dead?
I heard a massive explosion, booming thunder. The ground shook. Alexei and Apella were running, dragging Joseph across the ground, slipping and struggling under his weight. Deshi was running with Hessa, towards me, covering the baby’s face with his hand. Then a mass of people seemed to come out of nowhere, surrounding us. The burning helicopter, blades still turning slowly, whipped up the dirt behind them. I couldn’t make sense of anything I was seeing.
The dragging stopped. People ran past me. Two men had Joseph under the arms and someone was holding his feet. He was grey and lifeless. His body didn’t respond to being jerked up and down as they carried him.
He was dead.
I felt myself spinning out of control. I was trying to breath but I couldn’t suck in any air, it was too painful, it burned, crushing me under an invisible weight. I was drowning. The despair was more than I could stand.
I heard voices but the words were nonsensical.
“The monkeys must have turned it on.”
“They followed the signal.”
“Yes, six of them.”
“One fatality.”
Was I going mad? I clawed my way out but the pain was dragging me back under, working its way into my ribs, trying to part them and pry me open like a can of beans. Where was Joseph? I needed to see him now. I grasped at imaginary fingers, craving his touch like it was the only thing that would stop me from sinking into the dark forever.
“Joseph!” I shrieked one last time as a door shut in my face. The green of the hills disappeared. The smell of damp dirt filled my nostrils. There was no air here.
I was underground.
How can I do this alone? Everything has been turned around and I no longer know where I am or what I am supposed to be d oing. The guiding light is gone. The gold has turned to lead. I’m sinking and I have no will to fight it. I hate you for leaving me here. I hate you both.
The impatient voice was speaking to me. Less impatient and more irritated. Asking me to get up, could I walk? I didn’t want to walk. I didn’t want to move. The ground was hard and cool. It felt like as good a place as any to give up. I lay with my cheek pressed to it, waiting for the next onslaught of pain to attack me. Hoping it would tear me open and kill me right there.
But it wouldn’t leave me alone. I wanted to sink under water, drown in my grief, but it wouldn’t let me. It pulled me to sitting and tore at my arms. Get up! It rumbled and tightened until I couldn’t stand to lie there anymore. Get up!
Apella approached me, her perfect face shadowed with concern. She seemed far away, turning her head and muttering quietly to these strange people dressed in greens and browns. “We need to move her; she’ll be safer further underground.”
No.
“No!” I cried. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I tried to stand but my legs strained and more pain hit me like a sledgehammer. My body vibrated, as if struck like a bell.
They whispered to each other and then Apella nodded minutely.
Strange, covered feet were in my vision, white canvas shoes with dark stars on them, muddy and worn, one lace untied. The wearer leaned down, a dark shadow of a face, and squeezed my neck between his thumb and forefinger. Everything went dim, muffled voices, a sharp intake of breath, and then it was black.
I half-hoped I was dead, but the intensity of the pain that woke me was so strong I actually started scrambling backwards to escape it. I hit my head on the back of a bed. Apella and Deshi were both there, looking at me with pity or fear, I wasn’t sure. Apella placed a cool hand on my forehead.
“You’re in labor, Rosa, it won’t be long now,” she said calmly.
I hated her. I focused all my anger on her tiny, pale face. Willing it to crack and crumble like a shattered plate. How could she be so calm? Joseph was dead. We were captured. I surveyed the room quickly. There were things I recognized, like the hospital bed and the white sheets but there were other things I didn’t get, like the roof of the room was carved rock. And why was Deshi allowed to be in here with me? There was one other person in the room, a tall man with blondish hair. He walked over to me and held my wrist. He was wearing tan pants and a colorful check shirt with the familiar white coat over the top. He looked to be in his late thirties. He smiled at me. I just stared blankly back. Things didn’t fit. Where the hell was I?
I was about to ask when the pain and hardening began again. I held my stomach as it rippled across my body and cried softly. A small whimper. Closing my eyes, I tried to dig right inside the pain. Any distraction to stop me from thinking about Joseph’s lifeless body, or kissing his cold, cold lips.
Someone took my hand. It was cool and damp. I didn’t open my eyes. I clenched them closed. I would pretend it was him. If I didn’t look, I could hold onto him for just a little bit longer. I gripped onto the hand tightly. I can do this, I’ll get it out, and then I can leave.
“You’re doing great, Rosa, keep going. I know it’s hard...But Joseph...” Deshi couldn’t finish his sentence. I could hear him sniffling.
“No one speak, please,” I ordered, waving my hand around the room threateningly.
I imagined he was next to me, rubbing my back and pulling my hair out of my face. ‘You’re a mess,’ he would whisper, grinning. Sweat dripped over my brow and into my eyes, I swiped it away. If he was here, I could do this. If he was here, I could do this better.
Trembling, I could feel it coming on stronger now. So close together, I couldn’t breathe between them. Like an assault, with no way to counter. It felt like I was being stretched, a crowbar between every bone in my spine pulling me open, breaking me apart, piece by piece.
I screamed. An unnatural howling scream that came from deep within, carrying with it the physical and emotional suffering I was enduring at that moment. I heard glass shattering, metal trays hitting the ground, and people crying out, close by. “Stop, wait!” a woman yelled.
Something was telling me I had to get up. Get up. Move, now.
Eyes still closed, I dragged myself off the bed, stopping to bow over every thirty seconds, as the contractions hit and then passed. I opened my eyes and steadied myself against the wall, inching myself slowly towards the door.
The man with the tan pants walked towards me. I put my hands up, ready to push him away, “Don’t touch me. Please, I need to…” I pleaded through quivering lips. I didn’t know what I needed to do but I had to move. He didn’t try and stop me, he didn’t speak, he just gently pulled my arm around his neck and supported me as I walked. Apella walked next to me, “There’s not much time,” she whispered, telling me, or him I wasn’t sure. He nodded. I ignored her. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I pushed through my pain, breathing and timing my steps between. I was propelled forward by an invisible force and, with nothing left to lead me, no hope to hold onto to, I abandoned myself to it. I got to the door and Deshi pushed it open for me.