Both breathing heavily, I roll over next to her completely exhausted, soaked in sweat and lust.
The smile on her face is too much. I can’t help but smile back. She throws her leg over mine and slides a little closer to me.
My arm wraps around her glistening body as my lips place a kiss on her forehead.
“Wow,” she says interrupting the symphony of our hearts and lungs. Her fingers trace the spade-shaped birthmark under my ribs.
“Wow is right.”
“About time you come around. We could’ve been doing this weeks ago,” she adds, still smiling, still fixated on my birthmark.
“We should be doing this every chance we get. Every day, do nothing, just stay in this room and fuck. The perfect life,” I half-joke.
Her head nods on my bare chest while she continues to catch her breath. I can get used to this.
A silence fell over us for a few seconds. It was in those few seconds I realized I want to stay in this moment for the rest of time, forever if I must. With her lying next to me, not caring about a single thing in the world except each other, all our problems seemed to disappear. Nothing to remind us of our pasts.
“So, you were right by the way.”
“Well obviously,” I laugh, “but what about this time?”
“Something beautiful coming from something tragic. I believed you and you were right.”
My arms wrap around her bringing her closer to me. Something stirs within the hole in my chest.
We let silence comfort us for the few hours of the night we had left. Her head rests gently on my shoulder. One leg straddled around me. I feel completely at ease with the world like nothing else exists other than us in this moment. Every instant of my life, both the
good and the bad, has faded from my memory. Right now, she in my arms is all that is.
“Will you be ready?” she asks without moving.
“What’s that?” I smile drowsily without opening my eyes.
“The time is near,” she replies, lost in her thought.
The time is near? I smile, kiss her head, and crack my eyes open. Every muscle in my body tenses.
Her silky blonde hair isn’t pressed on my lips.
Someone has replaced her.
Who is laying on me!?
The dim luminescence of the room begins wildly flickering.
I hear the banging of a drum right outside my door. It's gnashing against my eardrums, growing louder and louder.
I hesitate for a moment, slowly backing my lips away from the stranger's long, dark hair.
Her head snaps up at me!
She’s inches from my face.
Kalli glares at me with no emotion as she screams around a smile that will forever haunt my dreams, “The time is near, Palin!”
A fury of knocks collides with my door, loudly rescuing me from the night’s terrors.
Another nightmare. Thought I was over those, along with the blackouts. It’s been weeks and I haven’t had an episode since the pit. I’m not sure if there’s an exact science to it, but I’m hoping I won’t lose myself after all. This place has given me something to live for. I’ll starve to death before I poison myself for Lethe again. Another mindwipe could hit any minute though. I must be ready for anything.
Cyrus’s words yesterday quickly dawn on me decapitating any peaceful thoughts that decide to float into my mind. I’ve been brainstorming a hundred excuses not to go. It’s pointless though. I know I’m going. I have to. People are counting on me. Plus, they need a reason to let us stay.
Jacee’s eyes meet mine before she wraps her arms around, bearhugging me.
“I’ve got to go,” I softly whisper into her sleepy, little ear.
“Nooo…” she whines as she digs her face into my chest.
Cyrus beats on the door with audible impatience.
“Okay. Okay. He’s coming!” she screams out while releasing me to the cool morning touch of the cave floor, but not before stealing another kiss. I never thought I would feel like this again.
Forcing myself to get dressed I steal one more glance for the road, then open the door. Jason and the two oddities that shadow him are waiting with Cyrus and the others outside my room. Two more faces stick out from the group that I don’t recognize - a bearded guy that twitched every few seconds, and an older fellow that could easily pass as a younger brother to Jason. One look at the dark spots on his skin and you could tell he’s never seen the inside of an infirmary. That goes for all of them. They have more scabs than teeth, and there’s a weird rash on Twitchy’s face I didn’t notice until now.
We gather our supplies and perform the same routine as we did what feels like mere hours ago. The Outland’s sun blazes with the same intensity. The air suffocates with the same heat as before. The only difference is the silence. Everyone feels the same way, even the new guys I suppose. Words are elegancies that we didn’t care to afford.
Seconds slowly fade to minutes as they too turn into hours. The bright sun sails across the sky as my mentality begins to evaporate. It’s fucking with me again. The harder I try not to think about something, the more I think about it. I’ve come to the long, thought-out conclusion that it is absolutely impossible to not think about anything, even for a second. There is no such thing as quiet, especially in this silence.
Moments before dusk, after an all-day hike, we finally arrive. I must admit the longer we trekked, the more skeptical I became of Jason’s mystical Argo, but sure enough there she waits.
Capsized in the deepest trench of this desert valley, the ark he spoke of lays. A R G O still printed on its bow. The remnants of a cargo ship forever lost in time. Gigantic. Some of the containers,
wrapped in rust, rest half-swallowed by the
