The Way Back Home

Chapter Eight: Shallow

CHAPTER SONG: "Shallow" by Bradley Cooper & Lady Gaga (from the movie 'A Star Is Born')

Emmanuelle swam closer to shore, her limbs aching with the effort to keep both herself and Schofield's limp form above water.

His arm slung across her shoulders, his weight against her smaller body threatening to pull both of them beneath the river's surface.

She spat out water from her mouth, the rotten taste on her tongue causing her to gag.

One of her arms was occupied with holding up her Lance Corporal above the water, the other used to keep her swimming.

Her vision was blurred with the sting of blinking the river's remnants out of her eyes. Emmy's free hand reached forward, desperate to grab out for maybe a tree branch or a rock. All her fingers touched were the cold stream surface at first, then something else.

Clothing, then something solid similar to another person's arm...

By instinct to keep afloat, she grabbed onto it, blinking away the rest of the water from her eyes. Her vision finally cleared up enough to where she could see what she had latched onto.

The bloated remains of a human arm, floating in the water...

Choking on a startled scream, the stench of rotting corpses caused the bile to rise in her throat. The tears of disgust and bone-shattering exhaustion flowed down her face as another body bumped into her side. She pushed it back with a wail of reaching her mental limitations, forcing her body to move forward through the water closer to the blessed shore.

Schofield groaned into her arm, possibly beginning to regain consciousness.

Emmy's feet was able to touch the mostly smooth rocks at the bottom of the river, allowing her to grab ahold of her gallant soldier, her hands holding him underneath his arms and dragging him with all the energy sustained within her to the riverbank.

And there was nothing heavier than the body of someone you loved...

A wave of dizziness overwhelmed her sense of balance. The bullet grazing on her leg... Now that she was out of the water, the blood continued to flow down from her calf and stick to the bottom of her foot and she bled still...

She collapsed backward onto the grass, landing on her back with her last ounce of physical strength to heave Schofield fully onto dry land with her. She managed to maneuver his head and shoulders into her lap, knowing he deserved a more comfortable area to wake up in than a bank shore where dead corpses floated only meters away from them.

Emmanuelle leaned herself against a tree, battling the urge to black out. She was losing blood and they had no supplies left...

Schofield stirred, his regal face seeming so peaceful to Emmy it made her want to cry, seeing him so tired. Ignoring the flare of agony in her leg, the she bent down and placed a feather-light kiss upon his lips, giving him a signal to awaken faster for her.

"William, please wake up. Please!" She placed one hand on his pallid cheek and the other on his soaking wet scalp, her fingers stroking his hair. She was dismayed to see his head bandages had washed away in the river. "It's morning! You need to find the Devons. And Tom's brother!"

Her tears splattered on his face and the sobs racked her small body. She felt prepared to implode with all the turmoil raging in her subconscious...

Then, in a God-given reversing of one of her childhood fairytale stories, her prince was being revived in the aftermath of her kiss...