Burning Sage

Chapter 19: Save The Savior

I stood up. My feet were numb, rest of me was sad. My head was hung like a horse. I plopped one foot in front of the other, putting my body physically through hell. I was ignorant because hell lasts forever. Hell has no escape. But I rejoiced. I had made it to solid ground, or so it seemed, with my feet aching terribly. I started my journey through the woods. I didn't have a definite plan. I was going to die if I didn't get warm, I knew that.

I looked around, hoping there was a piece of flint and steel along with a pile of dry firewood hanging around. But you already know there wasn't. All the potential firewood was completely frozen, along with being waterboarded. I slowed down my pace. I couldn't jog if I wanted to. I could faint, hell, pass out. I didn't have anyone to wake up to, not even God. He didn't care. He had lost me.

I pinched myself in the neck. It barely hurt, it was like I didn't even feel it at all. The only part of my body I could feel was my junk, and it'd been desensitized by all the distasteful love. I doubled over, and vomited into the snow. My stomach burned and my whole body was beaten down. I stayed surveillent for anything that could help me, but luck had already run its course on me. My whole body convulsed. I laid against a tree, veering off into the woods around me. I was alone, in the dark. I had been here before it seemed. I hated these mind games. When I killed my Dad that night I ran off into the woods. There was snow, and I was beaten down like I am now. That night was a mistake, one that's made in the heat of the moment. One that sticks to you forever no matter how hard you try to forget it. I wasn't ready for death, to let go, but I'd already dug myself a grave.

I figured the girls were looking up at me with Luke, watching me quiver and freeze in the North Dakota woods. I folded my legs underneath each other, trying to keep warm anyway possible. The unforgiving lake made my chest dully cry. I had nowhere to go, no shelter to stay in. No one's arms to run in and hide behind. For the first time in my life I cried with no-one to turn to. Not even my dad's death brought me to tears. I stayed dry eyed while I gave a eulogy in front of his friends and our family. I was the one who killed him. I had too. I remember looking down at my note-cards, stuttering word after word, people in the congregation bawling their eyes out.

I thought I was demonic. Only if they knew. His death was a bad dream, a litteral nightmare, and my whole life was this sleep paralysis. I wished me and him could've worked things out, maybe things would've been different. I wanted to know where God was in all of this. He had to be somewhere, looking down on me. Even his love proved short. I had no one to love and no one to love me back. And then I was empty, and I had no more tears to cry.

My stomach wanted to cave in. I wanted to end it all. I didn't have Hope either. I didn't have her smile. I didn't have her voice. I didn't have anything I needed or wanted, but I had everything else.

I fought the long, titillating battle of staying conscious. The built up sensation to just pass out and die overwhelmed my ill-fated self. I kept my head up. I tried pulling myself to my feet, using the tree to keep my body up. My legs shook, barely holding myself without doubling over. My hair was matted in snow, freezing my head.

I tried walking without the tree, my knees buckled and I fell onto my stomach. I rolled over onto my stomach, and passed out.