Conflagration

XLVII

Meadow retched and watched bile ran off her chin and onto her bare leg below. Her pupils, which had grown large enough to envelop the surrounding hazel, swam with the image. The urine stained quilt had fallen back onto the floor and she looked over at it dumbly as another tide of nausea passed through her.

She could not remember when she had come to but the shades of her dreams still hung heavy around her. She could remember being carried on a platform through blue deserts and hearing the cheer of townsfolk as she passed them sitting in their folding chairs. A sheriff reelection sign draped around her like a shawl. The platform continued on until she reached a mountain lake her parents used to take her to when she was younger. Some Adirondack scene where the peaks ahead and around fell into the black water under the warmth of an afternoon sun. Cattails emerging from the lake amongst the call of Loons.

That image had since dissipated and was now projected in fading visage against the yellow wallpaper of the surrounding room. Like a shadow resting along the wall of a cave. And despite the scene's regression she sensed that she could return to that dream at any moment if she chose to. Her skin still burned from the desert sun. The wind off the lake still cooled the surface of her face. Here in this space between worlds she sat and listened to her shallow breath and the faint trickling of her pulse.

Her faculties returned slowly. She found the ability to move her fingers and then her wrists and then her arms. At first she felt like she was dragging her appendages through mud, and she watched as they flopped and glided around her like some kind of species foreign to her own.

Vague recollections of crisis and fear reappeared in her mind, and through these and some subconscious understanding she knew that she was in danger. Her head lolled to the side. The inside of her right elbow was riddled with scabs and bruising. One of the wounds was still seeping blood and in the pooling of that brown and crimson she could see the eyes of a woman that was just on the edge of reality.

Memories, she told herself. Things that have happened. This woman from her near past winked at her, and then the image faded.

The door at the head of the room led to a hallway beyond and she could see someone pacing there. She knew that this figure was the source of the danger just as she had known about the danger's presence in the first place. She squinted to get a better view and saw that the woman had a mop of straw like hair and a collapsed face that hinted at a lack of teeth.

Her eyes turned to her right and left. Both wrists were tied around a dresser's legs with duct tape that had grown soggy with sweat and bile and piss. As her ability to move returned so to did her ability to feel. There was a stickiness on the inside of her thighs and both shoulders ached from being bent back towards the wall behind. Her right forearm was sore and she could feel a dull throb in its opposite as well, as if the figure in the hallway had grown tired of prodding one side and out of boredom tried the other. As she took inventory of these things she began to feel a sting along the underside of one of her legs. It took time for her to raise it but when she did she saw something shimmering on the carpet in dull light.

It was a razor.

For a moment she looked at it and wondered if she had faded back into her other world, but its reality was confirmed when she noticed the long mark it had left on her skin.

She looked back up and saw that the woman had stopped pacing in the hall. She was staring off in a direction beyond her sight. Her eyes were wide and her mouth had dropped into a small o, revealing the bare purple gums beneath. Meadow closed her eyes and could hear a percussion like sound from somewhere outside the cabin. It rattled endlessly until she could feel its vibration in the floor underneath her.

Something was happening, but her thoughts were still too slow and weighed down to feel any kind of fear or anticipation. With her eyes closed she leaned her head back against the dresser and allowed herself to return to her dreamspace, and there the sun glinted off the lake water, giving the ebbs the appearance of whitecaps. She sat and listened to the waves beat against the dock.

She had wanted to leave her hometown for as long as she could remember and now wondered if this had been the place she wanted to go to all along. And as the sun returned to her skin and the cattails rattled audibly beneath her she began to believe that she was truly there.

The sound outside had grown into a surge of pops and booms which now drew closer, drawing her back to realisty.

She opened her eyes. The razorblade continued to stare up at her. She lifted her leg again and kicked it back towards one of her hands. It bounced along the carpet and came to rest a few inches beyond her reach. The duct tape around her wrist had loosened and she wondered if she had enough strength to pull it far enough forward and pick up the blade. But she found herself wanting to return to that place within, where she did not have to work to escape her situation. She could simply close her eyes and listen as her breath grew thinner until there was nothing left but emptiness and even that was better than this place. But the noise outside was slowly dragging her away, and with each renewed distraction her dreamspace faded further. Soon it would be lost completely.

With her eyes shut she stretched her arms out and felt the tape give. There was room now and she wondered if she would be able to reach the razor and what if she did?

She pushed forward again and felt the cold metal touch the tip of her finger and thought about what she would do next.

And as she sat against the dresser and listened to the sound of gunfire she wondered what insanity would possess a person to make such decisions in this place between worlds.