The Aliveagainers

9 - Asunder

The cold air stirs me, my skin goosin' up, and I draw in a breath.

I feel a strange ticklin' sensation in me, a fragment of somethin' I feel is from another place flips and flops all fishlike. Warm and soft I try to grab at it but it slips away and is gone.

A sound comes, raw but bright. A crow cawin'. 

It's cold.

I look around and see Késhaun beside me, half-awake but snuggled up. He's icy to touch and I stare over to Priya, standin' a few feet away.

The little English teddy bear lays between us on the ground.

"What the hell happened?"

She turns away.

I move to touch the boy, grabbin' him and liftin' him up. There's somethin' strange and warm within' me, and I find myself strugglin' to shake a thought. Half a memory from a place that couldn't be more different to now. A mornin', down by the river.

"Késhaun, wake up darlin', I think we need to go."

We gather ourselves up and Priya sighs in a huff. "We might want to go this way. It's away from the road."

I look around me and the forest seems to close in. I hear somethin' up high and look up and see a crow. It's sittin on a low branch, tiltin' its head to stare at us. Then I see another. And then another. The whole tree above is filled with black birds.

I can't shake the feelin' that there ain't no way to go all of a sudden, that we could wander in any direction and get nowhere. So I just nod and we make a move.

Késhaun walks alongside me, holdin' my hand. We move in silence, but I give him a squeeze every now and then. The woods here are dark and a lot of trees have fallen around us. Their trunks seem ripped up outta the ground itself and the shadows play tricks on me. I'm feelin' on edge again, that warmth faded away and the memory mostly gone.

We're movin' our way up, and soon find outselves stumblin' out of the woods onto a clearin'. I realize quick it's actually the edge of a cliff and we're lookin' out across the valley.

"Let's take a break," I say and sit down, holdin' Késhaun close. He's so groggy and tired.

We stare outwards. Far across the valley there's a ridge, and behind it we see flickerin' lights. It's cloudy or somethin' out there so the lights seem to pulse and flare, dancin' round shadowy like. As I watch I notice I can hear somethin' too. A tappin' rumble seems to follow the lights.

"I'd like to hope our boys could fix this," says Priya. "My nephew might be out there. Bless him."

She's sittin' beside me, starin' out at the light. I see the light reflectin' in her eyes.

"We should go," I say, standin' woozily.

Sprinkles of sleet start to fall around us, soft and silent like. Késhaun don't like it and rubs it off his arms. He holds my hand as we move through the pine forest.

The temperature's droppin' and I think we best be findin' somewhere safe we can pass the rest of this night. We move further along the cliff edge, back into the woods, and start slowly descendin', movin' along the needle covered ground. These trees make it easier to see despite the gloom of the night. There ain't as many bushes, shrubs and small trees in the way here.

I know we are well and truly lost, ain't no idea where we comin' from or where we are headin'.

I'm guidin' us down and away from the direction of the explosion. Priya keeps mutterin' and talkin' about terrorists and Russians and stuff and I try to ignore her.

"Késhaun?" I ask quietly, so as not to let Priya hear.

He looks up at me, his face tired and drawn.

"What you do to me back before, Késhaun? What happened?"

He looks down and we keep walkin' a bit further, then I hear him breathe a big, heavy sigh.

"In the car, we hit one. Well, kinda."

I try to recall what happened but it was just a blur. I remember the slightest hint of seein' someone on the road and swervin' the wheel but then it was just blank until I'd woken up in the woods a little while ago.

"We hit it I think, and it went into you."

I draw a blank. But I remember what happened to Priya, and the thought makes me shiver. I feel like I've been tryin' to fool myself with her, not acceptin' things.

"It got in you," says Késhaun softly, "I had to take it out."