UNWANTED

CHAPTER 7 - J.15.13 - LIZAVETA

I didn't know what caused the cracking sound. My first thought was my pelvis, which hit the ground first several feet from where I was standing a mere half second ago. Writers always wrote that 'the breath was knocked out of me' and I never understood that until that moment.

Chinese fields.

Ilyaas's arms wrapped around my shoulders before the blast blew us off our feet, but they were not there to break my fall. I felt the vibration of the thud he made when he landed right next to me, but I couldn't hear a thing. A firestorm was blowing over my eyelids, wondering just what the actual fuck happened.

Looking up, flat on my back, the sky was moving...

In seconds he was hovering over me, his mouth forming words in screams I couldn't hear. With one touch, my hand came off my ear slick with blood. Ringing. Everything was ringing.

My hands found the grass in the wide field, my forearms prepping me up. I needed to stand. I needed to know what was happening.

The world spun as hundreds of people ran the opposite way. The fire was bellowing in front of me, clouds of black smoke rising to meet the stars. Fireworks were still flying into the sky and every other direction like meteorites hitting the ground.

The people didn't know where they were headed, but they kept running knowing they were getting far from here. I felt another vibration in the air, maybe the collective screams or thundering footsteps of hundreds of people seeking safety. But then I looked up and saw in horror the reason for the prickling sounds. The sky was... falling.

I found my balance and stood, the grass seeming uneven underneath my feet. The field was littered with shrapnel, pieces of the pyramid's side which already came lose. I felt a hand, then a whole arm tugging me away. Ilyaas was trying his hardest to pull me to run, but my eyes were fixed somewhere distant.

A little girl.

Amidst the smoke and the stench of powder, I saw a little girl. Her dress was smoldering at the edges, her strawberry blonde hair breaking out of her pigtails. She was crying, standing over a limp body of what seemed to be her brother.

Before I knew what I was doing I ran to her. I was the only person running to the direction of the fire instead of away, a move that metaphorized the story of my life more than anything else I've done in it.

And so, I was running to her... How could I have not run to her?

"Mano! Diesperta! Diesperta!" I could hear her panicked shrilling voice now, as she shook him again and again, willing for him to wake up. One look at his body and he seemed lifeless.

My hand immediately checked his pulse. With a breath I felt it, it was weak, but he was alive. A sigh of relief escaped me, just as another wave of fireworks landed on the pyramid's glass-like petal above our heads, cracking it more, raining down sharp snowflakes that could cut arteries.

The girl looked at me and pulled my skewed hood off my face. "Princesa Liza?" She whispered. I heard her. I could hear again. With that, the sound of the world came barreling into me. Screams, shouts, feet... and as I looked at the inferno closer now, I never realized fire could make a sound.

"No, pero me parezco a ella, ¿no?" I nodded at her, letting her see my face, convincing her I was just a look-alike. Spanish... she came a long way to die like this. "Tenemos que movernos, niña. Vamos, déjame abrazarte, si?" I pulled her up into my arms and signaled Ly to carry her brother as he skidded to a halt right next to me, his face a combination of anger and disbelief. He obliged. With a crack that sounded like lightning the pyramid's petal hovering over us buckled, and we ran.