Dreams

Safety

Elisa had panicked and put up her defensive shield at the last second. It wasn’t strong enough to protect them entirely, but it kept them from getting crunched like potato chips. She couldn’t say the same for the car. Elisa released her mental hold on the car and it vanished. Elias lay, moaning on the rocky soil and coughing up blood. Elisa sat, holding her left arm. It felt like the bone had been broken. Emi didn’t seem to be hurt any more than she already had been, thanks to Elisa being a human shield. She just had a terrible headache and sat rubbing her temples in an attempt to calm the throbbing pain. Elias glared at Elisa. “What?” she asked innocently. “Why didn’t you make the damn car disappear earlier?” Elias asked, his voice rising. Elisa held up her hands in defense. “It’s not like it would have done anything but kill you! The velocity at which our bodies were moving would have slammed us into the rock with just as much force. The resistance of the psychic matter wasn’t as strong as a real car, but it was strong enough to keep you from becoming human mashed potatoes! Honestly, you’re intelligent; I thought you could figure out a simple physics problem like that.” Elias rolled his eyes and sat up. “Whatever.” He wiped the blood from his mouth and stood up, brushing himself off. Elisa stood as well and held her hand out to Emi who took it and pulled herself up. Elisa winced as the weight put on her thigh. She put a psychic bandage over it in an attempt to keep her blood in her body. Elias began walking off in the direction they were originally heading. Elisa and Emi limped after him. He was walking pretty fast for someone with an injured hip. He must have been able to lock his pain away; either that or he was just damn determined to get somewhere. Emi looked up at Elisa. “How far do you think we went in the car?” Elisa seemed to think about it for a second. “I’d say about one mile, possibly one and one half. But, we’ve probably still got a while to go before-” Elisa ran into Elias who had stopped abruptly. “What is it?” Elias just stared straight ahead. Elisa and Emi followed his gaze to find a sand dune, in the middle of a field of rocks and gravel. Not only was it enormous and stand-alone, but a small wooden door could be seen on the east side of the dune. The three escapees just looked at each other for a minute or two. “What is that?” asked Elisa. Elias’s solemn expression turned into a gleaming smile. “Isn’t it obvious? This is the place to help escapees! This is the place Ignatius told us about!” Elias stepped forward, but in his excitement forgot about the rough terrain below and his ankle twisted in an odd angle. Elias let of a yelp of pain before tumbling to the ground. It seemed as if all the pain he had held back hit him then and there. He tensed his jaw and shook, his hands balled up into tight fists and tears pouring out of his muddy brown eyes. Elisa bent down to help him up. She draped his arm over her shoulders and dragged him toward the strange dune. This was their last effort and she put all of her energy into it. She needed to get these two to safety.