Lost But Not Forgotten [On Hold]

Chapter 3

Jemma's P.O.V

November 5 to 6, 2026

We entered the forest. I wandered as far into the canopy as I could still afraid something would follow us. I set Austin down on his feet I could barely breathe. My legs collapsed from beneath me as I was overcome by exhaustion. I crawled the little bit further into the bush. My eyes just half open severed no help as salty tears blurred out the shadows of settling nightfall. I sat leaned against a tree then shut my eyes. I couldn't move. I was terrified. The last thing I felt was Austin adjusting to rest snuggled close beside me then sleep came to cut off reality. We had survived.

Austin was screaming deep within my head it echoed! His face flashed before me ten times larger than life still he looked up at me. His eyes were sunken and face stricken with fright. I was so close but it was not enough. I began to walk to him yet it seemed I got no closer to him. Then between him and me was a reflection like a ghost of myself staring back at me crying and calling it seemed to Austin. I then reached out to him but touched a solid surface midway. I then realized I was suspended in the air above Austin surrounded and trapped within a tiny glass bottle. I pressed up against the glass trying to speak out to him but though I felt my voice did ring no sound came.

I was mute and made deaf by the sound of Austin screams. Suddenly a great hand engulfed my bottle! Through gaps between the fingers, I could see Austin quickly disappear as I was carried away. All at once the hand was gone as the bottle was hurled thrown through the air! It was then my spirit stepped outside of my body which was still inside the bottle. I stopped in the air and watched as glass bottle crashed into the wall and shatter into a billion pieces in the instant of impact.

I awoke. My back was wet from sweat. I sat there panting fearfully trembling. The vivid dream left me disoriented and I tried to recover composition. It was morning. My eyes were still foggy I felt for Austin not wanting to wake him if possible. He was not beside me! I sat up rubbing my eyes to look about. Not here! Then where? I stood up mad and scared them started stumbling off abandoning the tree where we'd slept the night. This was just like Austin and one of his childish innocent games that now could be so life threatening. But what if this had nothing to do with his games?

"Austin," I called as I drifted down a decline.

It was then I stumbled upon a clearing in the woods where the morning sun shone brightly upon the small boy who was bending down to pick a flower. He stood and seeing me he waved and came bounding my way all smiles.

"These are for you." he said proudly holding up not a single flower but a mini bouquet of tiny yellow and white flowers.

"I see," I said receiving them.

I knelt down to his level as I had seen our mother do my heart still pounding from the adrenaline that had quickly rushed through my body. I did this while realizing how unacquainted I was with interacting my younger brother.

"You really shouldn't run off without telling me even if I am asleep!" I pleaded trying to sound calm though I wasn't. I was sure however he saw right through my act and sensed the fear in my voice.

He nodded his head in bold agreement while staring at the ground.

"Mom would have thought the flowers pretty," he said his way of changing the subject.

"And that they are!" I answered knowing my mistake in not saying so.

We both rose and began to walk from the clearing and yet farther from where we had slept that night. Carrying all we owned the clothes on our backs and now these tiny flowers that would soon wilt into nothingness.

As we passed through that woodland and away from the field it struck me how undeniably picturesque the place was as a whole. It was a secret and forgotten beauty perhaps the last of such kind for miles to go. The bombings had made sure of that.

"Where did Mom and Dad go?" Austin asked all the sudden.

His question meet me as the verge of imprudent. I turned to look down on him as he walked gaze a front. As I did so it was I who met my own judgment to be utterly self-condemned. How insensitive I am to the point of which unsensible.

For here stood the child who had heard seen and felt all the same as I, just the afternoon before. The screams the faces and the grotesqueness of every moment that passed before his eyes were the same as those that passed before mine. He however still saw it with the eyes and thoughts of an innocent child all the while being spared from no evil.

At this, I thought to answer him with only honesty even if he was just a child.

"To heaven." I soon replied in what I thought was a light but sincere and serious tone. Still, shivers went through my entire body as the mournful truth left my lips.

He chuckled grinning.

"No silly," he said but no more.

I was bewildered.

We walked in silence for just a while.

"Would you like a piggy back ride?" I asked thinking to keep the child from getting too tired.

"Sure!" he exclaimed.

I knelt down and he hopped on my back. I walked on through the forest terrain which was uneven and rigorous to traverse. I knew we could only go forward fleeing or chasing, but away from the city and away from here.

For miles, I busied my mind with what had dumbfounded me. I had hit a wall. A part of me wanted to stop and just weep but it was the other part of me that still didn't believe this could be real that kept me moving. I knew I hadn't come to grasp reality but what Austine portrayed was more far-fetched than that.

Did he really think Mom and Dad, Leela and Lehanna were not dead? Could they be alive? No, I answered myself and again came the shiver with notes forming in my throat and stomach. We were way ahead of them and had just barely made it across that field.

I pushed the thought away and returned to the mystifying question of the world Austin was seeing. How far had his imagination taken the child who should be terrified but somehow wasn't. Was Austin lost in a dream?