Cold, but Still Human

Chapter 12 - Eden

[September 4, 2016]

Eden looks up from Serena to voices approaching them. Her eyes shoot open after recognizing the voices.

"Ali?!" Toula runs towards the dead bodies of her friends, ignoring the bloodstained faces of her fellow classmates sitting against a tree. She also ignores the wailing cries of her group and continues to trudge through the puddles of blood among the grass. 

Eden watches as she feels her mind numbing. She's unsure of what's more disturbing to her; the sight of Toula's friend group watching in horror, afraid to run towards the bodies of their dead friends, or the once happy girl now charging through mud and blood only to fall to her knees and wrap her arms around whatever remains of Ali. Seeing this, the world begins to look distorted for Eden. Black spots start to cloud her eyes, growing by the second until she loses consciousness.

Eden stands, looking at the world around her; she was almost sure that she had blacked out. Maybe it was a little dizziness from the overwhelming smell of the corpses. She's in the same forest, surrounded by the countless bodies, all of her friends nowhere to be seen. That is, except for Toula, who was still trying to hold on to Ali, but all she held was an empty shell that used to hold his smile. Struggling to think of something— anything to say or do in that moment, Eden starts to make her way over to Toula. Her feet won't move. She tries to shout, to kick the leaves, to do anything that might change her helplessness, but she realizes that it's impossible.

The breeze picks up, and the fallen leaves swirl around her shoes, still drenched in bloodied earth. It whispers to Eden in a million different voices. All of her fears, doubts, and regrets swallow her whole while all the thoughts she'd been holding back rush into her brain and escape her mouth and ears. They begin to come to life before her eyes.

Toula turns around and locks eyes with Eden, tears rolling down her face, pain evident in her tortured eyes. She starts to walk faster and faster towards Eden until she breaks into a sprint and tackles her to the ground. Eden closes her eyes and feels the whisking of the wind and the bloody water soaking her jacket. Toula screams and pounds her fists, her tears now wetting Eden's face. It starts to rain.

Heavy, mournful drops fall to the ground, diluting the battlefield-like landscape, and they become sharper and faster as Toula's thoughts flash in her now furious eyes. The drops strike into the puddles like paint onto pavement, and Toula's screams are muffled by the watery darts, hitting anywhere but their targets.

Eden lies there in the growing lake of tears and blood. Ali's blood. All the others' blood. She hears a quick clash of metal against fabric, and-

Eden wakes up in a cold sweat, her hands shaking, her arms and legs speckled with goosebumps. She sits up, and her eyes dart around as Eden studies her surroundings. There's a warm, wet cloth on her forehead, and her uniform is nowhere to be found, only a blanket covering her tank top and shorts.

As she tries to stand up, her head starts to pound, and the blanket falls to the ground before Eden can catch it. She scrambles to wrap it around herself and closes her eyes tightly until the pain resides. When Eden manages to block out the pain, she quickly diverts her eyes to a sound coming from a few meters away and decides to go find out where it's coming from.

She traverses through an area of forest different from before, significantly more peaceful and cleaner than the scene in the dream she had. When she steps out behind a pair of trees, Eden enters a small, cleared area dimly lit by a fire pit and spots the group sitting around it, talking quietly. The area has an extremely awkward and funereal atmosphere surrounding it, including the expressions on her friends' faces. She makes eye contact with Toula who instantly averts her eyes to what appears to be a makeshift clothesline with her uniform and t-shirt draped over it. Eden quietly walks around the edge of the trees to the clothesline, grabs her clothes, and slips the uniform on as quickly as possible.