365 Days

Day Three - Complications

I remember the fire, and the screaming, and the terror as if it were yesterday. The memory is so vivid - I've been able to push it away, keep it out of my mind for so long, but it's back.

It's back.

Gunshots ring through the corridor where I'm crouched. My breathing is ragged and heavy, coming in gasps and bursts. I don't know where my mom is or where my dad is or where anyone in my family is - scratch that, my grandparents are safe in the suburban area where they live.

But they don't really count - at least not right now.

Glass breaks and I hear men shouting, cursing and yelling at anything and everything. Something crashes through the door to the hallway, and I shrink back against the wall. Where are my parents?

I peek around the corner, and flashlight beams illuminate the dirty hallway. They dance around the room, and then focus on one thing - me.

Three men walk up to me, weapons drawn and pointed. I scream, my voice cracking and breaking, snapping and shattering under all the horror and shock and panic. "Only a child - take her downstairs, to the others."

One of the renegades points his handgun into my back and orders me harshly to get up, to move, to walk to the elevator. For a moment, I can't move at all; the rebel gets frustrated. I hastily jump to my feet, wiping the tears away.

The elevator ride is stressful, to say the least. I'm shaking and crying and having a full-on panic attack, and the rebel's face is indifferent. He's been trained not to care, trained to be an insensitive robot, and my six-year-old self hates him for it.

The elevator's doors open.

The only thing I see as I sprint towards the exit is my father's lifeless body, lying against dozens of others on the floor. My six-year-old self's world collapses, and I feel the sudden urge to throw up.

________________________________________________________________________

Something's wrong.

I feel terrible - my stomach is aching and I need to throw up.

The pain coupled with the intense memory I'd just experienced in my dream is too much; the tears flow easily now. Any sense of happiness that I'd had before is gone, erased away in the darkness of the night.

I sit up. It's late, and I can't see anything. All I can hear is the river burbling calmly beside me.

Something's wrong.

It must've been the water I'd had before. I'd boiled it though... 

Not well enough, it seems.

Not well enough.

It's only Day Three, and I'm not doing well enough.

Not well enough.

It's late, and my stomach hurts more intensely now.

I think I'm going to throw up.

I crawl beneath the willow fronds to the edge of the river and cringe, bracing myself. Then I heave - any nourishment that had been in my body is now gone, emptied into the river.

Not well enough to survive.

Exhausted, I lie beside the river, letting my hair dangle into the water and flow with the current idly. I feel empty; empty of food and water and joy and determination. All I can do is sleep, and hope that the memory doesn't return and that everything will be better in the morning.