A Duchess in the Pacific

Seven

I don't wanna die. I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all.

- Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody

Duchess laid on the hard ground of the jungle floor. The fighting had stopped some time during the night and dawn was now approaching. Desperately she tried to wiggle herself out from underneath Manny. His body was now cold and stiff, making it even harder for her to move. Still, even though he was no longer alive, Duchess struggled to bring herself to be as forceful with his body as she needed in order to escape.

Her eyes throbbed from all the crying she had done throughout the night, and her head was pounding. She felt as though her brain was expanding in her own skull, threatening to crack through it. Her legs were numb and it was getting hard to breath with the weight on top of her. Finally she could take it no longer. With an exhausted scream she pushed up on Manny's chest and heaved him off her. His body slumped over to the other side, freeing her from the weight.

She gasped in the sticky morning air, feeling sharp pain in her ribs with every big breath. She pushed herself up on her elbows and sat up, feeling slight relief in her back. She looked back to Manny's body, laying motionless in the mud. Her mind began to spiral.

This is your fault. your fault. your fault. The words echoed in her head, bouncing up and down her spine.

She heard someone approaching.

"Dutch!" John's voice called out to her. Duchess struggled to get to her feet. She stumbled forward and backward not being able to keep balance. Her legs were asleep and her unbooted feet sank in the mud.

John came running, with her boots in his hands. He went looking for her and Manny at the aid station and found her shoes instead.

He ran to her and caught her, holding her up with his side. Duchess embraced him tightly and began to cry uncontrollable into his neck. John looked down at Manny as he stroked Duchess' head and shushed her in quiet gentle voice.

Duchess sat on the beach, her bare feet nestled into the sand. She stared out on the horizon that seemed to go for miles and miles. Blue. That was all she saw. Unrelenting visions of blue waves that converged at a distance into the blue sky. It had once been a favored color of hers, now the unforgiving sight of it weighed her down until she felt like a Hephaestus was flattening steel against her head. Her eyes were puffy and swollen from crying the irises of her violent eyes were hardening with each passing moment. She closed them slowly. Childishly and desperately she wished to get off the island. It wasn't the heat or the humidity, the bugs or the lack society that bothered her. No, she decided that, if she had to, she could live on that island with the Marines for a hundred years, as long as no one died. The endless death, on other side, she yearned to be rid of.

"Hey, kid." John's voice gently sounded from behind her. He sat down next to her, stretched his back briefly and relaxed.

Duchess opened her eyes and turned to look at him. She noticed the straightness of his nose and the angle of his jaw when he clenched it. She let herself love him. Not in a romantic or erotic way. As a friend, she let herself love him. Because she had no choice. They were now forever bonded by Manny and his sacrifice. His death would hang on their minds forever, for different reasons- but he would remain there all the same.

"It's..." Duchess began to say. Her voice was hoarse and quiet. She swallowed and tried again. "It's my fault." She finally said out loud.

John immediately shook his head. "No." He said definitively. "Don't even say that kind of shit." He placed his arm around Duchess. She laid her head into the crook of his neck.