Champion of the Bots ✔️

Chapter 27 ~ MARIOLA

Mariola laid immobilized under the skeleton of leaves. She watched the pounding and the skittering of the rain above her head and falling between her eyes. She let the drop of liquid blue cover her face with dots like jewels. She let the cold soak into her like tissue in water. She let herself slowly meld into the drippity-drops of the water until all she could see, hear, and think was drip drip drip drip drip—

"You're not trying to melt yourself into the ground, are you?"

Mariola didn't move. Drip drip drip drip—

"Is the tree saying something to you? What's it saying?" The voice eagerly gushed and knelt beside Mariola. "Never mind, don't tell me. I'll listen for myself."

Rolling her eyes to the figure next to her, Mariola raised a quizzical eyebrow at Loma. Mariola hadn't seen her since Loma brought her to the Trunk Council. Actually, Mariola hadn't seen much of anyone since she sassily left the large oak tree with her tool box. She had spent the day searching for a tree to build her home; and it had to be perfect—trunk not too barky, leaves not too skinny, neighbors not too many, ants not at all.

Sure, people nodded to her and smiled at her. Mariola only focused on finding a tree, a home, an ember of hope. Then the rain came. The hope dissipated. And Mariola laid down and gave up. Did they expect her to build a house in five hours? Did they think that she would somehow have the knowledge of using wooden planks, nails, and tiles in her fuzzy memory? The thoughts swirled around her and pounded into her mind like the rain, and she let herself become awashed by it.

Then Loma came. The woman now chuckled, squishing her right ear into the grassy ground. "I don't hear anything. What about you?"

"Go away," she muttered, her voice surprisingly hoarse.

"Well, technically you should go away. You're laying under my house."

Stretching her neck, Mariola looked up to see lanterns swaying on wooden posts by a door that she did not see before she collapsed onto the ground. "Oh," she merely said.

"So, you wanna come in or not?"

"No. Go away."

"Alright, alright."

Loma went away, the squeaks of the ladder in tune with the rain. Mariola shivered.

What was she doing here? Why was she here? Who was that man who sent her here?

A warm, fuzzy thing fell on top of Mariola's head. "Here," Loma shouted out from her house. "Dry yourself up before you catch your death."

Death. Mariola held the towel in her pale fingers then threw it aside. Was death better than the hell she had been placed in? Maybe. All she had to do was go out to the rain, let the cold seep into her skin and lungs and cells, welcome the darkness that wouldn't mock her empty memories, wouldn't dump her in a land of oak trees and rain, wouldn't make her feel so helpless and alone—

Warmth. It burst across her skin and left her choking as the warmth hugged her tight. Without realizing, Mariola began to walk out of the canopy of leaves and into the edge of the waterfall of rain, where Loma stopped her. The elderly woman continued to wrap her arms around Mariola, eyes squeezed tight, wrinkles creasing hard.