The Last 384 Hours

3

Song: WHEN I WAS OLDER by Billie Eilish

~

"Rose!" William's scream ringed in my ears as I searched for him in the dark. Even though his voice seemed a vast distance away, it seemed to be my only source of security in this foreign place.

As I paced around with my arms stretched out, hoping to bump into familiar objects, my mind was buzzing with blurry images. They were all scattering around, out of reach, like ink in water. When I tried to focus on recent events I was pierced with a blinding light. But even it was blurry, almost opaque.

I didn't let it stop me, though. I called for him. "William!"

"Rose!" The reply came a second later, and was followed by heavy breathing.

"William, I'm over here! Can you hear me?" This time around, the echo of my voice stretched far, bouncing around to unknown corners. But nothing returned. Not even heavy breathing. "William, please!"

Sluggishly, my chest tightened. The storm was taking its time, savoring every millisecond of anguish it inflicted in me. It was licking its way out up my throat, scratching to plop up to my mouth. I found myself exhaling, but inhaling oblivion.

For a flashy second, the unseeable world seemed to be shifting, or maybe I was. I couldn't be too sure. But the ground on the delicate skin of my face was jagged and moist. And when I felt a warm, thick fluid build up on my upper left cheek, I knew I'd fallen. Time seemed to stretch into a long, loopy band. And occasionally, William would start calling out my name again. But I couldn't respond anymore. The storm was still licking at my throat while it simultaneously scraped at my lungs. My breathing was better this time around; rugged, but existing.

I couldn't bring myself to get back on my feet, and my eyelids were a heavy weight. If I could just close them...

"Don't close your eyes, Rose," William told me. He was near me now, very near.

I forced my eyes to stay open, hoping he'd come into view. But the darkness was overwhelming, and the looming figure of William was nothing but a figment of my prospective imagination. William was gone again.

Subsequently, I allowed myself to fall into a realm of scattered images and water dyed by swirling fragments of bloody ink. My eyelids were resting, and I was grateful for it. My breaths were normalizing, and the storm, too, just like me, was slipping away.

~

When I woke up I was drenched. My clothes sent a surge of iciness across the impressionable planes of my skin. Groups of strands of slick, glacial hair stuck onto my face like a leeches.

A demanding sort of thrumming filled the air, and it beat on my body too. Its tiny fingerpads constantly slapped against me with the same rhythm that thrummed, stretching far to the end of an unknown distance. And the air smelt...wonderful. Fresh, just like pertrichor.

My thoughts seemed to pause all at once. Of course: the moistened clothing and hair, the thrumming, the pertrichor. It was raining. And the whole time I'd been thinking that the universe had rebirthed itself, wiping out everything and everyone I knew. Leaving their shadows and voices for me to speak to whenever necessary.

I aborted my prior mission of finding William. Now it wasn't about him, now I had to find a way out.

The air-as wonderful as it smelt-was freezing and strong. It stung me as I started making my way around the pitch black world and occasionally it would pull me into another direction. My arms were stretched out, and I tried my best to keep my eyes open, even though yellow-faded spots and shadow images kept on popping into view. I kept on moving, unstopping.