My body tensed. My last breath was caught in my throat.
Don't you dare turn around! Keep your head forward and don't stop running!
The forest was thick with smoke, but I had to find her.
Help! Please, help, she screamed.
I kept running, following the sound of her frightened, shrill voice.
The ash burned my eyes, now red and puffy. My cheeks were laden with soot and the flying pieces of bark pierced my skin.
The green and brown began to blur until all was consumed in red.
You're too late.
I stood there, looking at him holding her. She lay lifeless in his arms as he cackled over the remnants of her voice.
I stared at the shapeless figure, raindrops welling up in my eyes. I didn't have the energy to cry, so the tears sat there, taunting me.
I crumbled to the floor of the forest, snapping twigs and crunching leaves beneath me. There, I sat limp, allowing the smoke to take my lungs and the heat to wear my skin. As my lungs began to full, my vision began to blur -
and suddenly, I became one with the forest's ruins.
YOU ARE READING
pal·pi·ta·tions
Poésie"and in the end, we were all just humans...drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness" -f. scott fitzgerald
