War

Chapter One

Part One

Amity

I remember what it was like when I was running in the moments before I met Luz. The pain and the fear and everything else in between. The vision of Edric, the dreadful realization of using my last bullet, the dead end, and the girl who saved me. I remember what it was like that time, but this time, this truly terrifying time; it was nothing like it. Because the last time was far less scary. Far less...

A shot went off cutting my thoughts as I threw myself into cover behind a car. I placed my back against it attempting to catch my breath as my heart raced against my chest. This was not the plan and I had to calm myself enough to think of a way out of this mess. I'd been mostly cornered again. Much like I had been before Luz saved me. 

I closed my eyes and let my head rest back against the car until the bullets ceased. And once they had I pushed myself up and stumbled forward while holding my side. My ragged breaths and staggering steps remind me of how long I must have been running for. I gasped for air but my intake of breath was lost behind a heaving wheeze.

I couldn't go like this for much longer. My legs were about to give out on me and there was nothing I could do about it but to push further forward against it all. I had to get to the location where Edric directed me to meet the group that would take me to him. To the truck that held the flare gun, I'd need to signal them. I could figure everything else out once I got into contact with them. I turned down a street I recognized from the map and pushed myself to go faster knowing how close I must have been by now. So close. I could make it. I could do this. 

But then I fell to my knees coughing violently. It seemed that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get any air into my lungs. Everything burned, my entire body in pain I could no longer feel the strength to bear. I was so close. So close.

I fell on my back and stared at the sky like I had before I met Luz. When I'd imagined Edric reminding me to keep moving no matter what; no matter the pain or the fear, none of it should've stopped me. I wasn't supposed to let it. I almost gave in now as I almost did back then. I watched the black dots flood my vision and my will to keep moving wavered.

But then it all hits me suddenly, sending my heart to an abrupt halt. I took a moment, and in that moment I found myself still unable to breathe, as if the air was no longer there anymore. Those few moments, felt like hours until it all passed. I pushed myself up and took a deep breath of air acting as if it could disappear once again at any moment. My heart caught up before surpassing me entirely. Racing far ahead of what I'd been prepared for as the realization sunk further in. No, it won't end like this, it can't. They are looking for me; Jerbo and Viney, Edric's group, Emira and Luz, and I will not allow my final moments to unfold now. Not without ever seeing them again. I would not settle for this kind of ending after everything I've been through. Everything I've fought for.

So I forced myself up onto my shaking legs barely handling the task of keeping myself up. But I spotted a truck up ahead that matched the description I'd been given. It took everything in me to stumble my way there. The black dots in my vision returned and my head flooded with warmth. The earth felt as if it were moving beneath me when I finally made it to the truck and threw the back door open. My hands shakily and frantically searched for the bag they told me about before gripping it and ripping it open. I felt the flare gun before pulling it out. I immediately lifted it over my head and shot a flare up into the sky. I remembered the radio Viney had given me  I'd been using and I pulled it out noticing blood on my hand. I slumped against the truck and slid to the ground with a wave of relief washing over me. 

Everything I had been through, all of the impact these weeks have had on me, started to catch up to me. My heart, one torn and worn apart and all its disconnected pieces coming together to form some semblance of a person. One who is broken. One who is not whole. I am merely a multitude of atoms put together half-hazardly anymore. And all I have left besides the aftermath was the hope that after all this time, and even in the form I came as now, I could still deserve what I had, what I lost. Even if I did find them; my sister, my brother, even Luz, how would they look at me?