Just Hold Hands

Chapter 16

The forest quickly became a maze. The leaves interlocked into an increasingly dense weave overhead, leaving the forest floor in shadow. The ground was so hard to see that Theo or Catherine tripped over a rogue branch or pile of slippery leaves every few minutes. Theo wanted to grab her sister by the elbow and support her as she wavered, whether from the rough terrain or her feverish symptoms, but they'd probably just throw each other off balance, crashing onto the sharp twigs lining the ground.

Catherine huffed and blinked a few times. Theo's head hurt, it was hurting more and more. She assumed it was dehydration, but as they had no water, she dismissed it as just another part of a really shitty few weeks.

Catherine paused, reaching her hand out against the nearest tree as she braced her body against it. She closed her eyes in a wince.

"You okay?" Theo asked.

Catherine gritted her teeth and nodded. "Fine, you?"

"Never better."

Catherine took a few more breaths and pushed herself off of the trunk, continuing into the dense rows of trees. Theo followed behind her, keeping her eyes trained on the furthest tree visible. It had been easy to tell Catherine to veer into the forest when Theo thought that there'd be something on the other end. In the thick of it, though, with no real map or gauge of how far they'd gotten, she was starting to feel hopeless. She estimated that they could make it another day or two without water, maybe three if they got lucky. As their pace slowed with dehydration and hunger, though, that last day or two wouldn't matter much. Her breath caught as she thought of dying in the woods, alone with her sister, clawing at her dry and flaking throat. She tried to slow her breath as she pictured it, her throat closing up around nothing. She felt the phantom emptiness, stuck in her throat like an acidic stone. Theo prayed to no one that they'd make it out of the forest before then. She prayed to the aliens.

They kept stumbling through the woods, both aware that the other was growing weaker, but neither willing to admit it. Even as the rain started, a slight drizzle at first, hardly enough to make its way past the thick layers of leaves, they pushed through. Theo was afraid to stop because if she did she didn't think she could get her legs to cooperate any further.

The rain gradually grew thicker, gaining enough strength to drip through the leaves, then enough to force its way through, falling onto the tops of Theo's head and shoulders in thick drops. She shivered as the rain soaked through her hair and her shirt. The rain was loud, drowning out any other noises or thoughts. Theo's thoughts were pretty weak, anyway, it didn't take much to push them away.

Theo wanted to tell Catherine that they were almost there, almost out, but she couldn't believe her own lies. False hope would be cruel, she thought, especially when they'd both already lost so much. Even more, she didn't think she could speak if she wanted to. She opened and closed her mouth like a fish, unwilling to push sound past her throat. She was afraid that her words would come out in a frog's croak, or that a ball of dried up guts and organs would come pouring out instead. Theo was so very thirsty.

They hobbled on through the woods. Theo's back ached from her bag, her soles screamed out in pain from the body they'd carried for so long. Still, they kept on, because if nothing else, neither had the voice to ask the other to stop.

Eventually they stumbled onto a path, dirt packed into something resembling a road, and it was all Theo could do not to collapse onto it, pressing her lips into the ashy dirt. Her hair and shirt were entirely soaked through, water dripped from her and Catherine both as they stepped onto the path, leaving dark splotches on the ground.

Catherine did fall down then, wobbling for a brief second, then falling to her knees, still for a second, before throwing her upper body onto the dirt road. She made a noise between a sob and a shout, remaining in a contorted position, like she was hugging the ground. She sat up, dirt clinging to her shirt, muddying the blue butterfly design into a brown. "I'm sorry," she croaked.