The False People

Part 4

I'm running. Sprinting hurriedly with every rapid, enhancing breath. I speed up without a doubt in my mind, through the blurred, green lines I call my homeland. I need to hurry before I run out of time. The death of my family is all in my hands. The thunder booms. The rain pours. My legs fling back by a brown, sharp creature. My body then falls in a downward motion. The darkness has awakened. And all I hope is that I'm not dead.

~~~

An hour must have passed, if the rain stopped. I struggle to move, aching at the soreness of my muscles. I wipe my eyes, unblurring them from the muddy raindrops. My body, weak, sore, and strangely, uncomfortably exposed. I see red, brown and tan colors mixed on my arms. I look down at my right leg. It has a massively long, thin cut down the front of it, with half of a peice of stick, tucked in the bottom half. My leg bursts with pain as quick as a snap at first glance. I grunt frustratingly, waiting for the pain to reduce for just a second. I tremble, and shiver, my mind shocked, as I thought I'd be immune to the rainforest's cold shower of liquid already. "I guess I wasn't." I shake my head. I haul my soaked, bulky backpack on the ground closer to me. I relax my leg on the smushy, with specks of blood, mud, and I unzip my bag, still wincing at the pain. Thank the Earthly Gods that my wound isn't deep, only on the surface. I shake out the contents, my First Aid Kit bobbles out on it's side. I grab it eagerly, and pop the lid open. Bandages, tweezers, rubbing alcohol, needle and thread and more injury supplies are inside. "Thank the gods." I whimper, grabbing the bottle of alcohol, tweezers, wipes, and bandages.
"Taking this stick out is going to be the worse." I cry, my heart rate increasing. I tense up, wringing my hands. "Alright. Here we go."

Once I finish wrapping my bandages around my cut, the pain has receded. I get up and grab my backpack, and start wobbling through the middle of the forest trail. "Okay," I mutter breathlessly. "The tunnel, they said, the grey, wide tunnel."

As I continued to travel through the forest, I spot a wall of grey, mixed with brown and purple splotches. "This is the place." I mutter, looking back at the map I was given to make sure.

I hear moans and sniffles the closer I walk to the tunnel. I tip-toe, cautious, and always alarmed. "I'm never this aware of my surroundings..., unless I'm carrying food with me." I silently chuckle. "Don't want someone taking that."

My foot slides through the squishy mud, I fall forward, with a silenced grunt. I look up immediately, my arms pushing my body up, my right leg keeping me down, blood staining the thick bandage. My tightened moans, echoing through the tunnels entrance.

I finally get up, a bit crouches. My hand slightly grazes the chipping off, dried mud on the tunnels entrance edge. I see a small, neglected, child, with large holes in it's pants showing gory skin and tissue, like a wolf chewed up it's legs, sitting on the train tracks, clutching itself. When it looks up at me, the child exhales a breath of relief, happiness, anxiousness, and numbness tightly packed all together on it's face. It looks like a boy with it's short, grimy, ruffled hair, that falls over his forehead, and it's dusty, old looking, sunset red t-shirt and deep space cargo pants. A boy that was left for dead.

I check the train track's rail on the ground with the tip of my fingers, to see if it's warm or not. It was still cool and dry.

I start walking towards the little boy, slow enough not to scare him away. "Hi," I say. "I-I can help you, if you want," my voice loud, traveling across the entire tunnel, in decreasing echo's.

I clasp a hand over my mouth. "That was pretty loud." I murmur. I stop and continue, walking closer to the boy. "Or, if you want, I can stay with you, until someone else arrives? I have some free time to spare."

The boy lazily nods his head, as if he still has the smallest patch of jolliness inside of him.
I nod back, and step on the tracks to sit next to him. I don't know why I did it. My body just moved on it's own, as if it were the right thing to do. I check the rail on my left. Stone cold. This tunnel may or may not be abandoned, but I'll know that from the temperature of the tracks rails.

As I tinkered with the thick bandage on my leg, the boy silently moaned in pain, as he turned his head. He releases his dark red arms from his legs, and immediately holds me. I shudder nervously, at his freezing, cold touch. I watch the dried blood unstick, from the ground from his legs. I wrap my arms around his frail, lovesick body, holding him in my arms. He reminds me of the little brother I had but never got to meet.

He lets go of me after minutes that felt like eternity. "Go, Dylan will be okay by himself." he says in a shrill, raspy voice.

He sounds like a normal, happy, 8 year old boy. It's as if he was never broken or pained in the first place. That hug must've somehow helped. I scratch the back of my head, in discomfort. "A-are you sure?" I reply, my voice in cracks.

He nods his lazy nod again. I giggle a little. He shoo's me away just as my Grandmother did. "Shoo, shoo," he says.

"Well, alright then," I shrug, turning my head sideways in wonder. "I guess I'll see you-" I hear a trains horn blow. CHOO, CHOO!

My body flips around. The trains flying through the tracks, coming right at us. I jump off the tracks down the hill's short slope. Dylan's still sitting there. "Dylan!, Jump!" I shout, assuming that is his name.

I facepalm myself. "His legs are gone." I remember. I hurry back onto the tracks in a flash and try to tugg Dylan off the tracks. "Dylan says go! Go! Dylan will be fine!" he screams happily, with tears dripping out of his eyes.

"What do mean! You'll die if you don't get off, Dylan!" I shout through the loud trains horn and chugging wheels. I try to grab him, but he doesn't budge. The the train's getting closer. I'm running out of time. I jump back off. "Dylan is already dead!" he says. My throat tightens, as I stare at him dazed. "Bye! And thank you. Thank you Amber!" Dylan shouts with joy.

The train smacks him. And his body perishes into dust. "No!" I scream, sobbing.