The Scream of Tribulation

Chapter 22

-Night 18
(Jackie Andreaux)
I catch Elliette before she crashes into the sand. Gently I lace her sweaty body meticulously on the vision of sand of where she stood, and let her rest. I feel her forehead for fever and to this, my hand jerks back to the surprisingly feverent forehead. "Jesus!" I exclaim. I point assertively to Barry. "You, get me two bottles of water, a towel and a bucket of ocean water!"
With a choppy set of neck twitches back and forth around the scene, he hesitantly begins jogging to the water station, as his thick layer of blubber in front of him bounce rhythmically.
    "What exactly do you need all of that for?" Sandy asks in a way as if she was asking if I was mentally stable.
    "Heat exhaustion. We need to cool her down before the heat bakes her brain! That's why, now you can make yourself useful if you give the girl some goddamn room! You're crowding the poor girl!" I lightly gesture everyone to back away. I can clearly feel the radiating of everyone's body heat cooking me and Elliette.
"What the hell is all of this?" Garret bashes through the crowd of odorous people. I for one had my hands tied with a patient in need of attention, leading me to ignore Garrets existence.
"Elliette, she's back, but Kandel isn't. She said something about Kandel before passing out." La'Shawna answers for me.
"Damn, so no supplie or newcomers?" Garret replies.
"What is wrong with you?!" One scolds to Garret.
"Seriously? Kandel is missing!" Someone else adds.
"Supplies are just as important!" One says, defending Garret.
A great storm of debating and judgmental slurs are slung back and forth all around me. My temples begin to cave in and my temper falls out of my grasp. "Shut the hell up!" I crack, tensing up all the joints and muscles in my hands out of frustration. "Shut up for ten fucking minutes so I can focus and save Elliette! After that, then you can blabber about your immature arguments, but for now, shut you worthless hole up so I can have a slither of concentration to fix this poor girl!" I lecture infuriated, speaking partially in my native language, my eyes bulging as I stare everyone down. When I make eye contact with one, their gaze drifts. I can hear my breathing is the only sound heard, with the waves crashing in the background. Simultaneously as the noise breaks, Barry stands awkwardly distant, gently placing the bucket of ocean water down, and placing the bottles of water and towel next to it. I say nothing, as I stomp to the bucket, feeling the refreshingly cool night water. I start feeding Elliete's skin the water, and begin my work, in hopes Elliette comes out of this with no serious damage.

    I'm left alone by the edge of the forest, desperately trying to bring consciousness back to Elliette. Minutes have passed and she shows no sign of waking up anytime soon. It could just be plain exhaustion that also keeps her asleep, considering she spent much of her energy traveling two days worth of trails in one day. "I'm gonna fix you up honey." I whisper to her, well aware of her unconsciousness. It's more or less a calming mechanism for me. As a nurse, I've learned my own ways of calming myself. I have to with such a high pressure job. Especially in my home country, where chaos is a consistent feed into the hospitals.
    A shrug of the shoulder disrupts the sand. My head glares in the direction of her shoulder. She moans faintly and purses her lips for a second. I crawl over her waking body. "Elliette? Elliette, can you hear me? It's me, Jackie. Elliette I need you to to respond." I need a response. All I need is a response. A response to make sure she's okay.
    "Jackie, run!" Someone Hillary in the distance. "The night crawlers!"
    After hearing the word "night crawler", I gaze into the tree line to see two gleaming eyes, sparkling from the obscure moonlight. The two gleaming eyes tower above me three times my size. An outline can merely be made out. Sharp edges are curved on this body with two blade-like curves limped in front of its scale-like torso. Two antennas twirl and sway above its head and the low buzz of wings flutter on it's back. It almost appears to e like a... preying mantis.
    My first instinct was to take off running. I wasn't going anywhere though. Not without Elliette, I haven't give up on my patient. The preying mantis hovers above ground, watching me poorly drag Elliette's legs the the nearest fireplace.
    "Jackie run!" Garret shouts, but I ignore his absurd demands, just as I always do.
    The mantis hones in on me. I can feel the wind currents of his humungous wings fanning my hair. I was for sure this was the end of me, until I see that the winds picked up a trail of embers in my way, and surrounding me, a mellow orange light protects me, repels the wretched bug away from me and Elliette. The preying mantis retreats back into the treeline, releasing a few abnormal noises before fleeing. I look behind me to see little Ollie holding a stick with flames licking away at the stick like sweet ice cream. His arm well above his adorable blonde curls, hair so thin and light, I can almost see his scalp thanks to the light that he has provided.
    "Oh Ollie that was dangerous!" I inform him, worried sick about him. I embrace him for a hug, glad that he's okay, but he rejects my embrace.
    "You're welcome." He says lowly. It's unnatural for a kid his age to stalk the way that he does now. It's all thanks to that irresponsible, but slightly charming, Garret feeding all of this authoritative energy to the impressionable child. "Let's get her by the fire." Ollie commands, just as one of the newer ladies, Marylin lifts up Elliette by the shoulders. I pick up her legs and set her by the fire. Marylin sets her head down gently and swipes the back of her hand across her forehead, brushing her hair slightly. A lock of her defined yellow hair falls in her face, and she readjusts the lock back to her neatly cut, straight edge hair that comes to an abrupt stop right below her ears. She walks back to her sleeping bag without saying a word.
    "She looks like one of those ladies from a video game. Like a fighting game." Jack obnoxiously adds.
    That man has been nothing but a nuisance since he has arrived. Makes me almost wish he was taken by the other group of people. The only thing holding me back to that claim is that Elliette would be with them too, and we need her brain. She is a valuable asset to our people, and a decent person, which is coming harder to find here as more people arrive.
    "I think she's waking up!" Garret announces it's as he approaches our fireplace.
    I look over to see Elliette, propped up with one hand as the other rubs the bridge of her nose. "Not so quick honey. Lay down a minute, and I'll get you some water." I jump up from where i sit to retrieve a bottle. Sandy passes me just as I arrive to the water. I jam my hand into the water container and yank out the first bottle i get my fingers on. Walking briskly back, I see Sandy's arms around Garret's waist, watching Elliette wake up. I quickly look away, trying to avoid my cheeks to turn from brown to scarlet. "Here honey." I offer the bottle. "Take little small sips."
A long five minutes went by with me demanding she take smalls sips, but it's about every time, she insisted on gulping down the bottle. It took her the brink of almost throwing up all that water for her to learn to take small sips. I laugh as she gags. "Jackie's always right!" I joke.
A drift of silence falls over for a hot second. "So what happened?" Sandy asks.
Elliette looks around, seeing as everyone stares at her, and sees her eyes well up with tears. The dam breaks and she burst into a crying fit. She digs her palms into her eyes, hiccuping and unable to get any words out. "It's okay sweetie, whenever you're ready." I comfort her. 'Whenever you're ready."
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Hi! So yeah ha didn't proofread this cuz I'm irresponsible and rebellious but anywhomst'tve, I hope you are all liking this story, I'm having a blast writing it aaannnd as you can see, shits starting to kick into gear so I hope you're ready because there will be blood and lots of it!

Make sure to like this chapter if you liked it cuz why else would you like it? And even if you don't feel free to speak your mind in the comments, I love feedback whether its good or bad, and be sure to follow me and add to your library if your interested in my works for some reason!

Peace out, baiiiii!!!!