The Restoration Project

2.12 - Lovely

Her legs were moving, but she didn't quite know how. It's not like she was willing them to walk, more like they knew to move one foot ahead of the other or get dragged along.  Her head was still fuzzy; her body still in pain.

Her left arm was draped over a woman, helping in this miraculous feat. When she realized this, Lovely recoiled away from her. This action caused her to lose her balance and fall to the ground.

"Whoah now," the woman said, lunging forward to help Lovely stand. "You're safe now. But you need to rest up."

Lovely opened her mouth to object but found that, too, was quite impossible. All that came out was a clicking sound from her dry throat.

"It's OK, just relax. We're almost there," the woman replied.

Lovely hesitated, but then fell back against the woman, leaning into her. She thought she recognized her, but couldn't remember from where. It didn't help that one of her eyes had nearly swollen shut. Her vision was blurry at best.

She instead focused on their surroundings, noting that they had left the intersection and now travelled along a dirt path barely wide enough for a single vehicle. Trees sprouted up on either side. Ahead of them, the shape of a cabin materialized through the trees.

"Uhm, you sure you should be doing this, Love?" Kyle's voice sounded from her side. She turned her head to see his blurry shape sitting on a rock. She liked it when he called her that.

She was about to respond when she was jerked to the side. An old and rusted truck appeared in front of her, with mud splattered up its side and a spiderweb of cracks through the windshield. The woman pulled Lovely around it to a series of stones leading to the front door of the cabin.

"This place ain't much, but it'll do for the night," the woman said, guiding Lovely up the three steps of the porch.

Each step sent an excruciating bolt of pain through her abdomen, jostling her ribs. Breathing was a chore.

"I gotta set you down to open the door, okay?" the woman asked.

Lovely thought she nodded. She wanted to, at least. In either case, the woman lowered Lovely into a wicker chair on the porch. Her head was ringing. Or maybe it was the birds singing in the trees. It sounded terrible. She closed her eyes in a desperate move to shut it out, which somehow worked.

She passed out.

When she awoke, she could see out of both eyes again, albeit her right one—the one near the kick—was distorted by the swelling. She was lying on an orange and brown fabric couch, something straight out of the '80s. Matching brown chairs flanked it, angled toward an ornately carved coffee table. The room was lit by the occasional oil lantern, although shafts of the late-day sunlight shone in through two large windows across the room from her. Beyond the windows was a serene lake.

She propped herself up on an elbow after someone cleared their throat behind her. She peered over the top of the couch at a small kitchen, with a window above the sink, an old tan refrigerator, and a circular table with four chairs. Kyle sat in one of the chairs.

"You're awake," he said. "Good. Was worried about you for a while there."

"Where are we?" she muttered.

"You're awake! Good!" A voice came from a doorway on the other side of the kitchen, echoing Kyle. "And don't worry about where you are, just know you're safe."

The woman that brought her here, saving her life, followed it. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, with bright red hair tied in pigtails. A spattering of freckles adorned her high cheekbones. She wore a pair of black jeans and a blue plaid shirt that matched her eyes.