This Was A Bad Idea

chapter 30 - egress

Sam

Sam doesn't remember much from the beginning.

Not those initial delirium-drenched hours, looking for a way out.
Not the first night, spent among corpses and candles.
Not the second night either, when she found the thin trickle of water slipping from a crack in the wall.
Not even the third, when she murmured the half-forgotten lyrics of songs to herself.

But she remembers the hunger. The kind that gnawed away at her bones. The sharp ache that slid into her torso like a knife. Her body curling in on itself, limbs caving in. Flesh wearing away like pieces of tattered cloth. The rancid taste of rotten water slipping past her cracked lips. The fog that steadied over her skull, that made her brain ache with dread. Clouds blotting out the sun, a sky swollen with rain.

But there was something else. A memory, resurfacing.
She doesn't remember slipping away, her consciousness flickering and ebbing out like a flame. But she remembers waking up.

The stifled gasp slamming through her lungs. The numbness pulling back like a curtain. Something solidifying above her. The blurry silhouette of a face, of features smoothed over like stone. But she recognized it. The person's name slipped to the forefront of her thoughts without even trying. Orion.

Apparently they heard her.
A single word reverberated back, drenched with disbelief.
Sam?

But Orion's lips had never moved. Their mind had slipped around hers, thoughts entwined in tandem. She clung to the thick stream of Orion's emotions. Some of the fog cleared and she struggled to surface against the haze that threatened to bring her back down again. But she was tired. Her blood felt thick, heavy and leaden in her veins.

She wondered if she had already slipped away. If her consciousness had given one final sigh and detached itself from her battered body. If maybe in the silent rush of death, her friends had come to see her for one last time.

But she felt the subtle pull of her heartbeat underneath papery skin. The dry rasp of her breaths. Her limbs slumped on the cold ground, clothes damp with old sweat. She was still alive. Which meant they were really here. This was a moment she'd wrung through her brain thousands of times, the hours closing in on her. She thought she would feel happier. That the exhilaration would slam through her in waves. Instead, all she felt was exhaustion. A sallow numbness that long ago stitched itself to physical pain.

Orion's words pulsed against her, their thoughts blurring together in desperation. Sam saw more names, more faces, half-forgotten in the ache of seclusion. Elliot. Xen. Painted like brushstrokes across the curve of Orion's mind, their head smudged with faded colors and fear. It was beautiful, it was terrifying, it was relief dripping down her skin like cold water.

But something else happened. A crack echoed through the light, splintering the air with darkness. Orion's mind shredded apart and hers came down with it. She felt herself slip, felt the ache of her skull as something drew her away. She was going back under just when she'd seen the sunlight hinting at the surface. Sam heard someone saying her name again, a train blaring through a broken tunnel. Sam. Sam. Sam.

That's when the fire started.
Everything went blurry again. Her memories came in short bursts, like slashes from a forbidden blade.

Someone screaming. The stench of charred flesh. The sound of something breaking, of deep fissures splitting across stone walls. Flames brushing over skin. Hands curled against her legs, her shoulders. Someone slumped over on the ground, the reminants of a tattered sweatshirt flung over their legs. The coppery scent of blood. The slam of a siren, the flash of red lights.
Sam, body limp in Xen's arms. Sam, staring at the leathery burns lacing Orion's ankles. Sam, fading in and out like flickering candlelight.