SOJOURNER (III): tmr gally

52: I should be in Hell

Ella 52

I am a sojourner, through and through. I wander the halls of a place I will never call home.

The metal is so cold beneath my fingertips that I can begin to taste it in my mouth. Between cold teeth, trying not to chatter. The metal is a thin wrap, coating my face. With every passing second, it becomes more difficult to breathe.

My hand finds the back of my neck, feeling over the scar. If I had just been a slip deeper, the chip would be gone. Perhaps I too would be dead. Buried in the ground just as those before me were.

"How can you take them down if you have forgotten?" He asks, pushing back. "How could you live having forgotten me?"

I don't live. My mind is blank. These bones are empty. I am not sure where Sonya is. Her real name escapes me. My real name is gone.

Who am I? Is Emily my saviour, or is Ella? Which girl has spent more days screaming for freedom? Who has clawed away at solid walls, trying to break them down? Which girl is enslaved?

My chest tightens.

I can't forget him.

I get up, storming away.

The ground is metal, and my steps echo through this building. Am I in a building? Hell is not fire. I have been through a desert, and through dark underground tunnels, and through cramped wooden buildings at night, and through forests. All of them warm, all of them awful.

Hell is worse. It is cold, it is clean. It is the scraping of metal against bone. I awoke in Hell, in a metal box, and there I have returned.

In that tiny dark space, where the metal cage scratched against the concrete, I erased everything from my memory. In those brief seconds, did Eli's face flash before my eyes?

Did Emily's?

"Eli," I sigh.

I lean over, hitting the wall with my hand. I feel nothing. I hit it again. I try to hurt it, to cut it open and rip it apart. Where is he? What have they done with him? Soon, Sonya will die. Emily is dead and buried.

There is a hand on my shoulder, and I turn around.

The girl behind me flashes before my eyes. Her face is taut, worried, held in place. The room is brighter than it is now, and I see her so long ago. The room was bright too, and her laugh lit up the room. She's back, and blue. Not violet. Never violet.

Have I ever known Sonya? Who is she?

I push past the girl storming through the crowd. Where is he? He would know if I truly know the violet girl. Have they even met?

Did they ever truly meet?

"Eli?" I call out between the sleeping people. None of the bodies on the floor belong to him as of yet, but I know one of them is his. He has to be here, right? That was the point of all of this. Reuniting with him?

Why did I come here? Was it to find a girl I never knew, or to get back at people who bruised him? Eli would know. He has to know.

Somebody killed him. The person who betrayed us, I can feel it in my bones. They are why Beth attacked him. That's the only possibility, so who did it?

Was it the girl who belongs to another group, the girl who had her friends back, or the girl who wanted their lover? Who did this?

"Ella, what are you doing?" The voice grabs my shirt, holding me closer.

Who are they talking about? "Let go of me. I need to find Eli."

"Ella," the voice continues.

"Let go," I pull back, stumbling on to the ground. My hands hurt from the metal that has scraped them. I pick them off the ground, the burning intensifying. I can't help but stare at the red running down.

He grabs my hand, ignoring the blood. He helps me off the ground, bringing me level to him. Eli is here, with me. He has always been and will always be.

"Ella," a voice calls over my shoulder.

My fist tightens, the stinging turning to fire. It rages through my fist as I turn to face the voice.

"I am not Ella," I insist. "I don't know who that is. Why do you keep calling me by a name that isn't mine? I've never been Ella. My name is Emily, and I'm looking for Eli."

Emily and Eli.

Emily and Eli.

Emily and Eli.

Eli grabs my hand, tugging at me to move, but my feet are stuck to the ground. I'm sinking into the metal, my ankles then knees and stomach. I'm falling through the ground faster than I could have anticipated.

We stop, standing still.

His eyes, darker than they've ever been before, are tearing up. One single drop rolls down his cheek as he looks away from me. I reach for him, but my hand falls through his face. He's gone.

I feel a pain in my side. My eyes grow weary, and I fall over.

I'll find who did this.

I won't forgive them.