These Hills Called Home | ONC 2024

[14] Love and Revenge

    She awoke into nothing. Dark tides lapped over Gemma's numb limbs, the shadows above her shifting and overlapping until their boundaries melted away. Deep aches hammered against her skull as she tried to move, and the dull flavour of rusted metal coated her tongue. Heat trickled down her cheek, a keen contrast to the lukewarm puddle that swilled around her hand and leg. Dire thirst raged across her throat like a wildfire.

    Swallowed in layer after layer of darkness, Gemma gave up on convincing her body to move, only for a light tingle of warmth to cross her dry hand. Her neck cracked as she forced it around to watch as the sensation returned, yet no sight nor sound came with it. As undetectable as it was, its memory resonated with a feeling buried deep within the archives of her past.

    A sharp shock stabbed through Gemma's left ankle as she pressed down on it, she shot out an arm to catch the nearest wall. Lightning agony flashed across her vision, yet through the storm, a weak, ghostly glow persisted before her. She reached for it, and the warmth enveloped her hand, its hold firm but comforting, strange yet all too familiar. "Jacob?"

    Propping her weight against the wall, Gemma limped towards the glow. Her foot collided with what, at first, resembled another wall, yet a speculative reach of her hand revealed it to be the base of the stairs. With a grunt, she lumbered up the step, the faint light drifting away from her. It was goading her, and her gut yearned to follow its path. "Jacob, wait!"

    The glow soothed the wounds across and beneath Gemma's skin, its enduring silence taunting her into one determined lunge for its light. As she managed a meagre leap forwards, it slipped away, and her outstretched arm battered against a barrier of rigid wood and metal. Dim lines shaped the darkness into the door's unyielding frame, and her propping hand stumbled by blind chance into the plastic casing of the cellar's sole light switch. She flicked the toggle switch, and the sensation gripped her hand one last time.

    You're going to be okay.

    With a fierce click, light flooded the room. Gemma shrieked and dropped her eyes, the glare firing another white-hot shock through her aching head. Colour dripped back into the space, first in the familiar guise of dull greys and off-whites, then in the creased blues and blacks of dishevelled clothing. The slick spills of tarnished crimson came last, their arrival signalling the restoration of her faltering senses.

    This was different to the impact of discovering Jacob's corpse. Gemma had not simply found Edmund and Nadine dead – they had died in her presence, their souls departing their frames in the very room she stood in. Morbid cold had razed the energy out of her brother's body, yet the two faces before her possessed the full colours of life. Behind the blood and physical trauma, their slack expressions and contorted limbs resembled sleepers caught in unending nightmares. Gemma almost felt grateful to be just physically trapped if such torment was a real possibility.

    Feeling the pair's life dwindle under her touch, Gemma brushed away the tears she had not noticed gather in her eyes and focused her thoughts. She had to get out. With a twinge of both horror and guilt, she peeled Edmund's bloodied jacket open to search his pockets. The discovery of his mobile phone brought a song to her heart, only to plunge it into her knotted core as it appeared smashed beyond any functionality. Her reflection mocked her from between the scars in its shattered screen.

    Another broad shape rested in Edmund's other inner pocket, and Gemma delayed her despair to reach inside. She hoped to find a second phone or other communications device, yet her first blind contact with the item struck away the need for such wishes. Whether through foresight, perception, or plain paranoia, Edmund had hidden the cellar door's high-grade padlock in his pocket, ridding Gemma of the biggest obstacle to her escape.