TIES [EN]

Chapter 6 - What's wrong with Liz?

Part 1
LIZ

The first thing I feel is the grass at my fingertips. Fresh, even icy, and a little wet.

I have a headache, especially in a place towards my right temple. I run a finger over it, there's a slightly sticky liquid too and it hurts me. I open my eyes and the first thing I see is nothing. I only see the brightness of the sun that blinds me. I close them right away, the day is too bright. I must have hurt myself, it must be blood.

I just woke up. I don't even know from what. From my sleep? Did I sleep outside? Yet I feel tired. It's as if all the energy has left my muscles, and there's this pain spreading through my body. I feel it swelling and it's as if everything in me is sore. I can't say where it comes from, where it comes from, it's right there. It hurts me, much more than the wound on my forehead. Sometimes it gets stronger, it kind of throws me off. One of these launches makes me moan in the silence around me. I open my eyes again.

At first, I thought it was a dream. I really thought I was dreaming, it could only be that. It couldn't have been real. That's why I blink now, I plunge for a moment into the darkness of my eyelids. To think. Think about what? On the one hand, I have to know what it is, what's going on and on the other hand, I have to think rationally. It can't be true, it's a dream. Yet when I reopen them, nothing has changed. No, that's not possible. This is insane. I stand up on my elbows and look around.

My eyes stop on the meadow and the few trees around me. On their leaves and trunks. On each sprig of grass. On every living thing that surrounds me. On absolutely everything and everything has no color. The whole world is in black and white. A dark black and white as if the darkness was slowly gnawing at him. It's more black than white. And it's red. Blood red. It is as if the thing that illuminated our world was red, as if it had replaced the warm yellow light of the Sun. So I look up. And the Sun that I saw a few seconds earlier, the Sun that I didn't want to believe, is there. Red and spreading its blood-red rays all over the world. It is very real. No, he can't be. Just like all those dark or reddish clouds in the sky. Black even, and not black like those who announce a storm. They're really black and ready to swallow the world and me.
Me. I look at my clothes and my skin. Everything is the same. All the colors have disappeared, it's only black and white. Only the red rays of the sun remedy this. But not to my fear. It seems like I'm burning in hell, like that pain that's interfering and burning every cell in my body.

I also have this strange feeling in me. The feeling that I need to find someone. Not for help, I just need to be in touch with her. To feel her skin against mine, to touch her with your fingertips. I have to do it, I need it right now because I know deep down inside that if I don't do it, I won't get away with it. I know that the pain that tears my body will not stop as long as I don't touch anyone and I know that this could kill me. I don't know why, I don't know how: I just know it. It's as if all this information suddenly came to me and at the same time it's as if I've always known it.
I have to find someone. I have to find Oliver. I think I was with him last night at the campfire, I was supposed to meet him there anyway. I scream:

-OLIVER!

No noise in response.
I have difficulty getting up, tired and almost twisted with pain. My balance on my legs is not perfect, my head is spinning. I take a step and fall. I manage to catch up on my hands but one of my knees, the right one, hits a stone hard. A scream comes out of my mouth and tears the world's silence. It is a cry of pain, exhaustion and distress. I can't take it anymore, someone has to help me. I have to find Oliver. Quickly.
I look briefly at the wound that formed on my knee and the blood that flows from it. A wave of fear passes through my body when I see that it is black and then I remember that the whole world around me is black too.