Glitch (The Write Awards 2013 Winner)

Glitch - Chapter 14

Numb.

Empty.

Cavernous nothingness filtering through her body and gathering in the base of her stomach. Like placing a foot down to find no solid surface in waiting; the shock to the system had ensnared her breath in a chokehold. Her eyes widened as far as they could to devour every aspect of the scene unfolding before her. The billowing smoke rolled across the lawn towards them as the occasional ember of burning material gleamed on the sombre flutter towards the ground; flashes in the engulfing charcoal clouds. A large expanse of glass had collapsed outwards in a tumbling wave of malignantly sharpened tips. They had clinked together in a chorus of bells before. Now they lay silent. The prongs of fire, unfurling their gestures towards sky, ignited her vision; filling the scene with an aching brightness that implored her to look away. But looking away was not an option. The scene held her gaze with an irremovable force.

“Freya… you’re bleeding.” The groans of rubble competed with Mat’s tremble. Neither noise was loud enough to drown out the screams of silence claiming her attention. It took her a moment to crawl and clamber back into movement. She raised a hand to the area of her face that Mat gestured to. Carefully peeling her attention away from the remains of the East Wing she studied her fingertips. Her tremulous hand struggled to uphold the trail of scarlet. Reawakened from a daze she felt the sear across her cheek where a shard of stray glass had carved a path through her flesh.

That pain didn’t matter. It almost didn’t exist. As if a voice was telling her about a character in a far-removed world. But it was her blood on the hand and her tears shivering down the cheek. It was all a reality. The realisation shifted open a door allowing a whimper to escape. She drifted away in the flood. Her breaths could not keep up with the weight of her tears as they lapsed behind. She tripped over the air and wheezed an erratic chorus of shrieks as she scrabbled for something concrete to grasp onto. Chokes echoed in the back of her throat as her control slipped out of her grasp and shattered to the floor.

On impulse she took a step in the direction of the rubble. The clouds of explosion had reached a proximity that coloured each of her breaths with a thick layer of smoke that needled the back of her throat.

“No…” the word spilled out in a guttural moan; a sound that had no planning in its origin. Mat’s hand enclosed around her wrist and provided another jolt to her mind.

“We have to try and rescue her. She could still be okay…”

“Freya…” Mat released her name folded in a sigh. His eyes bore into hers with a pitiful intensity. She didn’t want to listen to what he had to say and so she pressed on regardless.

“She might be waiting for us, waiting for help…” Her words were audibly desperate; rushed with barely enough breath to sustain their pronunciation.

“Freya…”

“We have to at least try…” This time she screeched in furious irritation. Her chest heaved with the force it took to expel the words through the gathering smoke now weaving around them. She wanted Mat to break, for him to offer some softened words of comfort, to help her wade through the rubble. Together they could save her. He just needed to fold the edges of his hardened exterior. Just for now. Just for a moment. But his scowl remained in place. He placed two hands on her shoulder in a grasp that lacked any comfort.

“Freya! Look at it!” he demanded while turning her to face the East Wing. “Would you just look at it? There’s no way she’s alive and you know it. Right now we need to keep it together. Right now we need to go.”

“We can’t just leave!” The world blurred under a seal of tears that coloured her outburst with a scratching hoarseness.

“We have to. Right now, all that matters to me is getting you safe…” And there it was. For a moment she caught the flicker of something warm in the depth of his eye. The grooves in his brow smoothed. The tone of his voice hummed with a subtle comfort. She took a breath; the first one with any depth for quite some time. There was calm to be found in this chaos. But it was only there for a moment. Before she had any chance to claim it Mat had withdrawn back to the scowl with a clearing of his throat.