SABIS the SURVIVOR

Chapter 4: Small Eruptions

Chapter 4: Small Eruptions

Dreyis

I had been resting for almost half of a steam cycle when my Mother nudged me awake, urging me to drink something.

"Drey, drink some mineral tea. It can help to heal your wounds. How are you feeling, my sweet?"

"Ow, ow! That hurts." I turned slowly and gingerly onto my back. I felt like I had been beaten up, sliced open, and sat on. Wait. That had happened. Oh, Mother Earth. I opened my mouth wide and stuck out my tongue to make sure that my jaw was not broken. Then I sang a few notes to test out my vocal cords.

"La, la. La la."

I swallowed Mother's mineral tea. She recommended it for everything − coughs, congestion, sleepless nights, menstrual cramps, aches and pains, and even depression.

"Help me to sit up Mamya."

I sat up and coughed a wad of sputum. Up until now, I had been afraid to yawn or breathe deeply so secretions had collected in my lower lungs. Coughing hurt like someone stabbing my back with a sharp, hot metal poker.

"You have a visitor, Drey. It's the boy Ravis Griffin who defeated you in the Stone Games."

I held my breath and felt a sharp stab in my side again.

"Ow! Mother Earth, what does he want?"

"He said that he wants to apologize for what happened at the Arena. He also wants to talk."

I did not know what to do. Breathing was so painful. Every time that I moved air across my voice box it felt like a dagger being thrust into my neck. So how could I tolerate conversing with him?

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Ravis

I felt like I was trapped inside a stone slab. My immediate surroundings seemed to be closing in on me, forcing me to shrink into myself. My body did not want to obey my brain's commands, so I barely managed to cover Sharis with her wet tunic before I stumbled over her head just grazing it with my right leg.

I felt afraid. An inner, cold feeling froze me in place. I wanted to curl up and hide away from everyone so that no one would be near me. I worried about what would happen to Sharis. Would she be okay? Had I damaged her permanently in some way?

Where did I go wrong? I did not understand how I could go from feeling so happy that I was soaring like an eagle to feeling so much shame and remorse like I was a tortoise that needed to shrink his head under cover of a stone shell.

Somehow I wrestled these unhappy thoughts into the part of my brain that was used to storing and warehousing them. But this time my storage capacity had been exceeded. As the overflow of gloom and doom rattled around inside my head, a chain reaction of physical problems emerged − the unhappy thoughts spilled over into other brain regions causing me to blink my eyes and grimace like a little kid who had missed his own birthday party. I could not swallow so I began to drool. My intestines tightened into a knot. I wet my already sopping underpants.

Sharis started to moan and groan. Her spooky emanations frightened me and shook me out of my frozen state. I needed to release my feelings so I walked and walked. As my mental clarity returned, I decided to tell my friends that I had left Sharis by the Sea of Salinity. If I hurried, then perhaps I could catch them before they left to find their own private make-out spots.

Then I spotted them walking towards me, epitomizing the hobbledehoy mannerisms of teenagers. They giggled, smiled, were relaxed and ready to tackle the future that they had in front of them. On the other hand, I felt like my future offered a box full of trash and self-torture.