Horror Island

Horror Island Ch 8

As her face hit the ground, sand filling every orfice, she thought, well, this is the end. Then the penny dropped.

She pushed up onto her hands and was promptly pulled forward by 2 strong hands. She spat and blinked, tears streaming down her face and mucus running from her nose. When she sat up and looked behind her, she saw a multitude of rats, sitting on their haunches and looking at her, blank expressions on their tiny faces.

She was on the beach, only a few feet from the line that marked the separation of sand and dirt, jungle and beach. The rats had all stopped behind the line, seemingly unable to go any further.

Yuri grabbed Mia's hand and pulled her up. She buried her face in his shoulder, using him as a human Kleenex, simultaneously crying on his shoulder and wiping the sand off of her face. After a few minutes, when she had calmed down a little, she looked into Yuri's eyes and began crying all over again.

"He's dead, isn't he?"

Yuri put his arms around her carefully and began to comfort her. "Shh, I'm sorry. There's nothing we could have done."

Mia extracted herself from Yuri's arms and began walking toward the waterline, toward the setting sun. It was beautiful, sending streaks of rosy pink and light purple across the sky and lighting up the few feathery clouds spread across the sky. She stood there, looking up at the sky, looking into oblivion.

Yuri sat down, placed his arms around his knees and began to rock. It was a nervous tick, a remnant from a mild case of autism as a child. This is what made him one of the best pilots in the business yet a controlled drug program gave him a normal life.

He closed his eyes and focused on the motion of the rocking, the calming and repetitive movements. Words started forming on his tongue, yet he did not know what they were. "I am... I am... you are...the body....the mind."

Mia cried until sun went down, mourning for Mark and what she had lost. She thought of him, and how he had made her laugh. She had thought she could love him for years and years, yet they had barely gotten to know each other. If they were going to enter into a serious relationship, she would have given up the space program for him. She would have stopped being one of the best engineers NASA had and become a housewife for him. Because that's how he was. And she was sure, absolutely sure that he had loved her back.

She fell asleep in the wet sand near the waves, dreaming of Mark, dreaming that he was with her. She dreamed that he told her he loved her. She dreamed that all three of them crashed on top of the stream. She dreamed that he looked at her, the flesh on his face missing. She dreamed that while he was dying, he took her hand and told her that he would remain, that he loved her, that he loved, that he would endure. She dreamed that he would stay there, holding her hand forever, loving her and looking at her and dreaming of her and loving her.

Her body became hot and feverish and she sweated into the sand even though the night was cool. Her knuckles cracked and her hair began to split. Her skin loosened from her body. Her lungs pulled at the air for each breath she took. As she slept and dreamed, her hands clawed at the sand. She grew older.