Immunity

Immunity - Chapter Eight

I present to you: a short ass chapter.

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I don’t know when my hand slipped away from Brendon’s but it did and eventually I was running too fast for him to catch up. All that was in my mind was Cale and Ria, Cale and Ria, dear god what have I done? Of course they would go out. They would go out and try to find me because all I was supposed to be doing was getting water for Ria. Ria. Ria, my little sister who’s probably laying sick on the couch with no medicine or water because her big sister screwed up. Her big sister who couldn’t even get a simple bucket of goddamn water, water, for heaven’s sake! If she used the bottles of water we had then we might run out and we’d have to drink the water from the creek and it was childish of me but I didn’t want to drink water from there. Bottled water was luxury, it was normal. I want things to be normal. I want things to be so painfully normal. Was that too much to ask?

I feel lightheaded as if my brain is empty and my body is made out of clouds and soft cotton. I’m stumbling but my vision distorts and I don’t know whether I’m lying on the ground or on a dark angry sky. All of a sudden my throat closes up and I can’t breathe. Or I think I can breathe but it’s hard to, I feel like a fish out of water. I’m drowning. I must be dying. I can’t die, I don’t want to die. I fall to my knees not even caring if someone finds me and kills me. But I can’t die. Not like this. My arms shake underneath me and I lay on the ground, scrambling to get up. Everything’s blurry and I don’t know what’s going on. What’s happening? Why is it happening? Am I dying? I’m dying aren’t I? I can’t die, I can’t die, I can’t die. Ria, Cale, Ria, Cale, Brendon, Tanner, Adeline. I feel like I’m falling down a rabbit hole and I struggle to breathe as my mouth catches puffs of air.

“Leigh!” A voice. It’s too loud, too overwhelming. I want to cut that voice off. I need to cover my ears. What am I going to do? I’m a terrible sister, I couldn’t get Ria help. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t help Tanner. I couldn’t help my parents. I can’t help anyone. Wet. My face is so wet and I’m crying and I can’t breathe and I don’t know what’s going on. I’m such a failure. I can’t protect those who I love. I’m a coward. I’m weak. I’m pathetic. Everything I’ve ever done is screaming at me. From breaking a glass to hiding behind a window while others died while I could’ve so blatantly helped.

A sob breaks out of my throat and someone’s beside me, shaking me. Stop! I want to yell but I can’t find my voice. Friend or foe? Which is it? A hand is on my back and I find the strength to shove them off. Don’t touch me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me. Where was this sudden terror coming from? Why was I feeling like this?

“Leigh I need you to look at me,” The voice says. I shake my head with my eyes shut tight and it feels like a demon is ripping at my heart and filling it with unimaginable horrors that I can’t see but only feel. There was no security for what was happening to me and I was stripped and vulnerable only to wither in primal fear.

“Leigh, look at me.” The voice demands in a stern matter. I look up and try to focus on the person in front of me. Distraction. I need a distraction from this overwhelming fear. Okay: a face, dark hair, a body. Who is it? I strain harder to focus and am held back by the fast intakes of breath that I take. Blue eyes. Tanner? No it’s not Tanner, Tanner’s dead. He’s dead because of me, so is everyone else. It’s my fault. It’s my entire fault. I look closer. No not Tanner. Brendon.

“Brendon?” I ask with another heaving sob. My voice is shaking like a leaf, like my arms, like wind chimes rattling in a hurricane. Brendon nods and he looks around worriedly.

“I told Beau and Veronica to go help your brother and that other girl. Don’t worry, they’ll be fine.” I panic even more and I’m so dizzy and my breaths become a rapid flurry of tears and gasps.