Inachevé

Eight - In Better Hands

The girl’s voice was soft, weak from screaming his name.  It was almost too sore to whisper her affections in his ear, “They told me I’ll never find you.  But I did.  And I love you.  No one can separate us now.” 

There was a deafening blast in the sky.  The girl ducked, and shielded the boy to which she had been speaking to.  Piercing, agonized screams were heard above the rumbling machinery and the sharp clashing of metal tore at her ear drums.  The ground rose like an ocean wave, and then crashed ferociously back to the rubble it come from.

“Lydia, you must get out of here!”  a man called out as he flung his arms around the young girl’s shoulder’s.   He tried desperately to pull her to her feet.

“I can’t leave him!”  the girl screamed, clinging to the lifeless boy in her arms.  Her nails dug into the boy’s clothing, tearing it slowly.

“He’s gone, Lydia, we have to get you out of here before another explosion—.” the man warned, pulling both the girl and the boy she was grabbing.  “Release him, he’s dead.  We can’t do anything about it!”

“He can’t be gone, it isn’t true!”  Lydia cried, yanking hard against the man’s weakening arms.

There was another explosion.  This time, it tore through every bit of London soil around them.  Surrounding buildings were thrown to bits.  People who had foolishly left the bomb shelters had their bodies ripped apart and were thrown into the air with the other flying rubbish. 

“We must get back in the shelter, Lydia!  He’s dead!” the man shouted before a huge wooden plank crashed on top of his head.  His body crumbled underneath it.  He was gone as wells as the boy now. 

The girl trembled in shock before she leaned down and kissed his bloodied forehead. “Goodbye, my darling.  If I am meant to see you beyond this hell, wait for me.  Wait for me like you’ve always done.”  Seeing his ratty bangs in the way of his gray-blue eyes, she felt the need to sweep them off his face.  But as she lifted her hand to do so, she found difficulty in moving it.  It felt as if it was air she was moving rather than her entire arm.  Thinking something had landed on her wrist, she looked down.  Her hand was no longer there.  A terrible chill ran up her back.  Blood, dark blood, flowed from where her hand had been.  She looked at her other arm; it was whole.  Taking her whole arm, she grabbed her maimed one and held it to her chest.  “Oh, Lord,” she whispered.  “Save me from all of this.  Protect me; let me know You’re there!”

A sudden thump beside her made her heart miss a beat.

Lydia turned her head and looked into the most beautiful face she had ever seen.  The blue eyes burned through her brown ones.  The face was perfect and divine.  She had never seen such a being before.  Is this God? She thought.

The man, dressed in a gray suit and hat, took her by the arm and walked her to a bomb shelter.  He knocked upon its door.

The trap door opened just enough for the stranger to push Lydia inside.  She fell in and the door was slammed shut. 

“Lydia, we thought you hadn’t made it!”  A small boy declared as he emerged from the darkness.   He shined a torch in her face.

Lydia tried to recall the voice, as she had it heard before many times.

“Lydia, is that blood?” asked an older woman’s voice.  There was rustling and movement.  Lydia could feel the muggy air move aside for someone else to come to her.  She soon felt the heat of another body against hers.  “Andrew, more light please!”

Andrew.  Lydia repeated to herself.  The name was familiar. 

Andrew, the boy who had greeted her before, took the light off of Lydia’s face and onto her body.  There was dark blood covering the entire front of her cotton-patterned dress.

“I lost my hand,” Lydia said dryly.  She could hardly think.  It pained her to remember what had just happened.

“My dear girl!” the woman announced as she reached for rags or towels.  When she had found a bunch, she wrapped the towels around Lydia’s amputated arm as carefully as she was able to.  “As soon as this air raid ends, we’re getting you to a hospital!”

Lydia looked into the woman’s kind face and remembered who she was.  It was her next door neighbor, Cathy Woodlawn. 

“What were you doing out there?”  Andrew asked curiously.  If he had been older than seven, he would have known it was a stupid thing to ask.

“Andy, hush!” came another voice.  The voice was that of his older sister.

“I was walking,” Lydia began slowly.  “There was a crowd.  I was walking,” her voice cracked.   At the thought of the boy she had held in her arms, she shut her eyes quickly, wishing to be rid of the image.  It was useless; the thought of him brought both terror and peace.  Tears stung her eyes at the remembrance of him.  “I was walking and I saw him.”

“Don’t talk, Child, come over here,” Cathy said gently, taking Lydia gingerly from the entrance of the room to the center.  “Mellie, turn on the lamp over there.  Andrew, get some water.  The dear girl is bound to pass out!”

“I knew it was coming.  I heard the warning.  But I didn’t listen,” Lydia rambled, her eyes staring off into the distance.  “And then, everything went away when he touched me.  I couldn’t let go.  I should have listened, oh, God, I should have listened to him!”  Lydia let out a surprising wail before passing out into a dark dream. 

When Lydia woke up, her eyes saw a bright, white ceiling.  She at first thought she was in heaven because there were noises, no people, no planes—nothing.  As she moved her body into a more comfortable position, a huge, throbbing pain struck her right arm.  She groaned and bit her tongue in agony.  This was not heaven.

“Peter!” Lydia screamed into the empty room.  She stopped short, for her own voice haunted her. Her lips moved slightly; enough to whisper the name she dearly loved. Peter.  Apart from memories and photographs, his name was all she had left.  The large, gray blue eyes were still staring up at her.  The pale, cold face still touched her body.  She remembered seeing his tattered uniform and the badge that told everyone he was a British soldier.  She reminisced bitterly when the suit was crisp, clean, and straight.  He looked like a hero.  He didn’t look like a boy; he looked like a young man.  That was two years ago, he had been seventeen, she only fifteen.  Now she was a tender seventeen year old, and he would have been nineteen. Lydia thought harder, striving to bring back the memories.  Sadly, the harder she thought, the easier it was for the memories to slip away. 

“Child?” came a voice.  It echoed in the large, white room.  Lydia hardly noticed it.  “Lydia, you’re in the hospital.  The air raid is over.  Lydia?”

Lydia turned her face towards the door and looked into her mother’s calm, brown eyes.  “Mother?”  Lydia mouthed questioningly.

“Oh, my darling!” her mother declared as tears spilled from her eyes.  She went up to Lydia’s bedside and threw her arms around her daughter’s head.

“Am I dead?”  Lydia asked, not quite able to believe that she was alive.  The room in front of her faded in and out, she lost clarity.  Her body closed in sleep, and she fell into the bottomless pit again.