Page 26

26

A Beautiful Dream: Silene

N ight rapidly approaches as dark clouds begin to blot out most of the remaining light, and I’m becoming more and more unsure of our plan. It’s been quiet. Our importance and the want for our deaths may not be worth the uncertainties that lie in the darkness of the forest. But when we finally begin to question each other aloud, I hear the crunch of the leaves and snap of a twig.

“Are you ready?” Ronan mumbles, gripping a blade in each hand. He turns to look at me as I twirl both hatchets in my own.

“It’s about time something interesting happened. I was quite bored.” I joke, feeling the way he laughs as his back presses against mine.

Just as we expected, it wasn’t just one person who showed up to secure the bragging rights of taking either one of us down. It was at least a dozen. Men of every size, with just about any weapon, and for a second, I question if this is a fight either of us walk away from. Then I remember how incredibly angry I am to have been stripped of my identity and thrown to the wolves with the expectation to just take it and die.

That fury blinds me as we begin to fight, and I don’t see anything other than red. Blood red spattering onto my body with each slice. I don’t notice when my hair tie is torn causing my braid to come undone. I don’t comprehend how many hits I’ve taken, knowing that none were fatal. I hear and see nothing until I am standing alone in a sea of bodies that litter the ground in a heap of blood and bones.

Scanning the scene, I realize that while Ronan isn’t among the dead bodies, he is also nowhere to be found either. With a racing heart, I frantically trace and retrace the area around me, hoping—no, praying that I’m just missing him. But as I search every bit of land, every single body scattered at my feet, I know that there’s no him. Anywhere. He’s gone, and I’m not sure if I should be thankful or begin to mourn this loss a second time in a completely different way.

The beating of my bruised and bloody heart is so loud and violent, I can hear it with every pump. It grows claws as it rages inside me, ready to tear its way out of my chest. A monster, that’s what it has become as each breath becomes more strained.

Breathe. I say to myself. I have to repeat it, but I can’t remember how, as each beat of my heart feels like a painful struggle. Deep within, this pounding becomes harder and harder.

I just need to breathe, but my hands are shaking, and my steps are wobbly as my vision blurs and the forest seems unforgiving and too large. Too large, yet it’s closing in on me.

Breathe. Even if it feels like swallowing a million shards of glass, I have to fight through it. Deep gasping breaths, in and out, as I attempt to think any kind of rational thought. Slowly, I take cautious steps backwards. Far enough to remove myself from the field of death. I turn myself around to look at the trees that seem like they’re closing in more and more, no matter how much I know that’s not what’s happening.

Before I know it, I’m taking one step at a time. Confident and determined steps back to the tunnel entrance where I left Carmen, needing my little dreamer to tell me something real. To distract me, give me an answer, or even tell me what I need to do next. Anything really. I need her to do anything because I’m not sure I know the way right now. Not when Ronan is lost.

But then I hear it.

Deep breaths sounding out from the trees ahead.

Loud and rattling breaths that instill a different kind of fear in me than before. A fear that maybe I’m already too late. Late for something I never should have been gone long enough to miss. And suddenly I’m running. I will my legs to move faster than I may have ever ran before, one step in front of the other, taking in every bit of my surroundings when I see her.

A sob, one I didn’t realize I was holding in, escapes me at the sight of her. The dullness in her pale face, the blood that clings to her clothes, and the dirt covering her skin. All of it brings me to my knees, panting as tears begin to coat my lids and lashes. The sound of my grief is so foreign to me, I’m not sure I’ve ever made it before as my throat tightens. I don’t remember a time in my life where I’ve ever been allowed to feel in such a way—so thoroughly broken, but this might be it. This might be too much to bear.

Pale face, bloody chapped lips, chest rising and falling fast and shallow, eyes sunken and closed.

A knife slicing all the way through her abdomen.

Blood pours out of her, and the warmth that resided within her now soaks my pants—covering the skin of my knees as it seeps through the fabric of my clothes. It’s all I can do not to rip her body away from the trees and cradle her in my arms. Instead, I take her slim face in my hands and whisper her name.

“Carmen, honey. Open your eyes for me.” It comes out as a broken whisper, the plea that I’m not sure will be answered. Even if she can wake up, our time together won’t last long.

“Please wake up. I need you to open your eyes and tell me what happened. Carmen, please.” My voice, no matter how much I try to keep it steady, wavers. It breaks and shakes just as much—if not more, than my hands.

Her eyes flutter open, though I know it’s a battle. I can tell by the way she draws her eyebrows together and lets out a whimper so small that I wouldn’t have heard it if she didn’t have my full attention. Our gazes meet each other and a small smile graces her lips. Her bloodied, pale lips.

“It’s okay, Si. I was never meant to make it out of here,” she says as a cough wracks her body. She releases another cry. Her eyebrows tightly pull together, the blade still moving within her body with each breath that she takes.

“I was never meant to live.”

Her voice is strained with each word, but she keeps going, tears slowly falling down the length of her face and onto the palms of my hands. “Falling is so quiet, it’s so…” Her eyelids flutter as another cough escapes her and more cries of pain sound out in the space around us. “It’s so quiet, but so is death sometimes. And I wish we would’ve been able to make it out together. My friend…the only one I’ve ever had, really. The only one who cared long enough to be one. Thank you for,” she weakly starts, but I cut her off before she can say anything else.

“Don’t thank me. You’re going to live. You’re going to.” The lids of her eyes seem to get heavier as each blink takes longer. The rise of her chest is getting harder and harder to recognize. “Carmen, please. You have to stay awake. I just have to find a way to safely remove the blade and stop the bleeding. You’re going to be okay, you have to be okay. You—”

Weakly, she brings her hand to my arm, and I stop talking for a moment at the feeling of her cold, clammy skin covering my own. She says nothing as more tears escape the both of us.

“You’re the only person I can say with certainty I will always love. You’ve always been such a beautiful dreamer and I just—” Tears gather in my eyes, blurring my vision, and I can’t get any more words though my mouth. Can’t seem to get out the words she deserves to hear from someone before life escapes her grasp, but I don’t know how to say them.

“I will thank you. And I will always love you too…I just need you to p-p-promise me some- something.” Her voice is getting smaller now. Her breathing is inconsistent, and her head is getting heavier in my hands like it’s getting too hard to hold it up herself anymore.

“Anything,” I say in a rush, knowing that there is nothing I would deny her anymore. I would promise her anything in this life or the next if it means her last moments can be as peaceful as possible despite the pain.

“Live. Escape, and live. Live a beautiful life and love. For me, don’t deny yourself this anymore.” She looks at me with such clarity and so much pleading that I know this is something she would have wanted for me regardless. Her last words, her last desire in this world before her soul leaves me behind is for my happiness. And for her—only for her, do I know I will find a way to be that. So I just smile at her, nod my head, and move my right hand down to her left, linking our pinkies together for the last time.

“I promise.” It’s then that she lets out one last breath. One last word, a barely there whisper of “okay” before her eyes glass over. Two final tears fall from them as her whole body sags against the tree. Tears continue to slip down my cheeks and into my mouth. Bringing my lips to her forehead, I give her one final act of affection, a goodbye for the both of us. Then I whisper one more thing. A wish that I hope she somehow is able to hear.

“Dream something beautiful for me.”

And then I scream. The most gut wrenching, soul crushing sound, and I don’t even care who hears it as I fully cradle her lifeless body, rocking her in my arms. Her blood covers most of my own, but I don’t care. I can’t bring myself to care about much of anything as I wrap myself around her and let myself mourn the loss of the most beautifully misunderstood woman I have ever had the pleasure to know.

I couldn’t tell how long I stayed there. I couldn’t tell how long I cried and rocked her body in my arms and prayed for her peace to a God I’m not sure I believe in but know she did. I don’t know how long it took me to crack my eyes open after they had all but swollen shut so I could close her eyes for the last time and watch her dream. I couldn’t say why I whispered to her the whole time. The little “something goods” I always wished someone would tell me when I was little, those were the things I whispered in hopes that maybe her soul lingered nearby to listen to.

It isn’t until a cool breeze brushes across my bare shoulders that I slip back to reality and check my surroundings. A chill sweeps through me and the all-consuming silence that devours me whole while her body lays stiffly in my arms that are now caked in her blood that has long since dried.

Softly, I lift her body off mine and lay it on the ground. Nausea threatens to take over as my stomach roils with the realization that I’m meant to just leave her body here for the bugs to devour.

She deserved better.

More.

She deserved someone who would have been able to save her.

I’m not sure I’d be able to carry her back to the house, but it doesn’t stop me from trying. Even though my bones are weak with exhaustion, I attempt to lift her into my arms. But her limbs are longer than mine, and we’ve been here so long that her body no longer has any free range of motion—each joint incredibly stiff.

Hot tears well in my eyes again as I set her lifeless body back down and push the knotted and filthy strands of hair away from her face and behind her ears before forcing myself to stand, finally walking away from her. Each step gets harder to take than the last, as it just feels wrong to make the journey back to the last place I want to venture on my own. It won’t take long, though. If I decide to run, it would only take five minutes. But I am in no hurry to put distance between her and me. Not when I still feel as if her wound is my own.

Not when my own heart stopped beating with hers.

So I walk.

Slowly.

I painfully feel the growth of distance with each step.

And when I turn back around, she’s nowhere in sight. Her body is nowhere to be seen, and I wish it were because I had unknowingly gone too far, but I’ll never forget the stretch of Earth that soaked every bit of her blood that it could get.

I can now only find solace in the life that will one day bloom in favor of what had been stolen from her.

And for now, that will have to be enough for me…at least, almost enough. I fear, though, that my bones may become a gate for the wasteland that now resides within me. The absence of my withered heart—taken by grief—just might leave my body without a trace of blood to flow through my veins. I may very well become a sorry excuse for a carcass that not even vultures would dare feast upon because I would only taste of the bitterness and sorrow I am now entirely made of.