Time Torn (The Lost Days Book One)

Chapter 2

Yet, here I lie acutely aware that if I don't find someone to rescue me, I'll meet my forever death this time around.

Somehow my little heart keeps pumping and I keep breathing. I strain my ears. My mom will find me. Maybe I'll hear my sister Mia calling for me? If I just remain still and listen. They will come. Jesse will come.

The thought of my friend with his long dark hair and kaleidoscopic eyes has my chest tightening. I may have survived, but he had been part of the sacrifice. The two of us, we'd had to die. It was us or the rest of the world. So where is he now if I'm still alive?

I expect to hear the cacophony of the after-effects of war but all I can hear is the gentle lapping of water, the ante-headache mash-up of hooting, sirens and the various yells and screams of a riot in the far distance.

I have no idea what the lapping belongs to.

My first guess is a harbour, but that is ridiculous. Johannesburg doesn't have a harbour. There has to be another explanation.

A boom shakes the ground beneath me. I freeze. My heart is a crushing weight in my chest. If I'm not mistaken it's the sound of a ship signalling another ship! Where in the hell am I and how did I get here?

The pain in my skull is a jackhammer. Maybe death had found me after all and I'm actually stuck in the liminal? The place between life and death. I sigh. No wonder no one wants to die. The light at the end of the tunnel and all that talk of a better, shinier place is just a lie - Death is turning out to be an eternity of pain and it's not like I'd gone into sacrificing my life blind.

I knew I'd end up dead, but whether I'd stopped to think about what happens after... Well, I guess I'd been too scared. Scared of the unknown. Scared of this.

My hope flickers out. My eyes itch with fresh tears and I don't think I can handle one more ache. My heart might actually give out.

The crunching of gravel alerts me to approaching footsteps. Heavy and quick.

"Mom?" I want to call out, but my tongue remains immobile.

Warm fingertips press into my neck.

"Aye. Captain, this lass here's alive." A young man calls out, his voice is high, his accent strange and garbled with just a pinch of an Irish twang.

Even heavier footfalls follow his. "Ye see. I told ye it was ta big ta be a bird lad." A grumbling voice replies.

"Aye, Captain. What shall we do with her? We can't leave her like this."

"I got her." He murmurs.

I have no time to prepare myself. Lights and stars erupt behind my eyelids as the Captain, I presume, lifts me into his sturdy arms. My wounds crackle and snap, exposing me to a new wave of agony. Dizziness envelops me. The Captain pulls me tight to his chest. The hardness of his muscles constricting beneath me.

I am sure I'm on the verge of losing consciousness but I can't. It would be like allowing fate to have her way with me. I'd already been dealt a shitty card from the bitch and I'm not about to let her screw me over again.

The callous smell of sea salt scalds my nostrils, and yet, somehow my nose remains congested. My ears tense, listening to the tireless licking of water against concrete and the creak of aged wood as a sticky waft of wind plays tag against my raw skin.

I want so badly to give up. It would be so much easier to just give up.

I swallow back a lump in my throat recalling the moment I died. The way it started; it could have been mistaken for a skyrocket firework. The intense white light that engulfed the sky was so innocent at first and then the fireball followed, surrounded by a halo-shaped ring.