Deborah of the Forsaken

Revelation

I needed water. My mind was filled with the need for this simple thing I'd always taken for granted. Water! My body was screaming as dehydration and the sweltering heat played tricks with my mind, twin demons using me as the rope in their tug of war. A couple of times I'd been absolutely sure that there was someone walking beside me just outside of my peripheral field but when I turned to see who, there was nothing.

I'm loosing myself, I realised, not at all distressed.

My foot struck a rock jutting up from the ground and I stumbled, falling sharply on my knees. Pain shot up through my legs and blood streamed from the cuts down my shins, pooling in my hiking boots.

"Fucking hell!" the curse echoing off the rocks around me.

Pushing myself back up, tottering forward with the heavy pack strapped around my weakened body, I knew the situation had become critical. Problem was, the rivers all around the city were badly contaminated with both sewage and industrial waste. Everyone knew it was a death wish to drink the water but maybe that was what I was after, an easy way to die. The water systems in and around the city had run on a combination of atmospheric water collection, rain water and boreholes, sources easily filtered.

I should just drink the damn water and get it over with, I thought for the third time in five minutes.

No. My fists balled and the nails dug into my palms. I will not give up. Not now. Not after all of this.

Still, I found myself fingering the Glock hanging at my side contemplatively. Two bullets left. Maybe...

The hum of a car engine drew my eyes to the deserted road a few hundred metres before me. I frowned, feeling the same pit in my stomach growing again, warning me of trouble to come. That feeling of impending danger approaching fast made me crouch down, trying to make myself smaller, less visible. Whoever was driving that car was bad news, so much so that my sixth sense was nearly screaming.

The car parked just up ahead and four men got out. They were filthy as hell, clothes covered in a crusty brown substance that looked suspiciously like dried blood, hair hanging limp and disheveled. The biggest guy turned to the others and pulled out a mean-looking large knife with a nasty curved blade.

"She's here somewhere. Roger said he'd seen her walking on this road. You know what to do when you find her," he barked, and the others snickered. "You mutts remember I get her first. After that you can do as you please with our little traveller. No one touches the bitch without my say so."

My heart sank into my blood soaked shoes. I got up to leave, but stumbled again as my vision blurred from the sudden movement.

I don't have the energy to fight back, I thought grimly. This can't be how I die.

A hand clamped down on my forearm,  yanking me backward and propelling me into the row of trees to my left. My lungs filled to scream with both surprise and fear, but that same hand swiftly slapped over my mouth, hard, stifling the sound. Fear was quickly replace by astonishment as soon as my gaze snapped to the electric blue eyes staring back at me out of a face adorned by two dimples on either side of a lush mouth now pulled into a thin, grim line.

I must be dead already. This is impossible.

His body was pressed against mine and I could feel his heartbeat through his shirt under my palm where my hand rested. This was real, or this was a damned good, vivid hallucination.