Hopes of Paris

Chapter XI: Hell

Everything was black. The sound of someone hyperventilating echoed. Out of a sudden, the sounds of passing cars emerge and Jacquie is seen bent down, hands on her knees and breathing heavily. She got tired of running down the road as she followed Sall with the others. They noticed she had lagged behind, so they stopped and turned back to look at her. Evanka walked back towards her and put her hand on her back, checking up on her. Jacquie quickly took her bag off to bring out Hopes of Paris, and started furiously flipping through the pages back to where she left off the last time. It seemed like Jacquie was having an intense panic attack.

"Jacquie, are you okay? You're barely breathing." Asked Evanka, worriedly gazing at the female.

"He reached the house safely... The book says so," Jacquie struggled to get these words out of her mouth. "Sall is gonna be okay. Right, Eva? Right?"

"Jacquie..." Evanka worried even more for her. "Yes, of course he is."

"Tell them to follow Sall and Sam faster anyway, and you stay with me." Jacquie spoke to Evanka anxiously.

Evanka looked back towards the others and nodded to them while Jacquie sat on a staircase to some building to rest. The others understood that as a sign for them to take off, while Evanka remained with Jacquie in case she needed anything. Jacquie was sweating more than usual and her legs were awfully shaky. Evanka started suspecting low blood pressure so she excused Jacquie to go buy some salt to elevate her blood pressure. Jacquie quickly grabbed Evanka by the arm and shook her head, signifying that there's no need and that she's going to be okay.

Darkness enveloped once more. This time, unexplainable sounds of some child started fading into Sam's ears. The child was making random noises, accompanied with her cries, out of her mouth. Slowly, Sam's squinted eyes started making sense of the scene ahead of him. His blurry vision saw someone laying down on the floor infront of him, motionless, and being shook around by a little child. His head was bleeding from the side just a little bit and one of his cheeks got scratched and injured because of the impact. He started randomly tapping the floor ahead of him, looking for his glasses, and his grab finally fell on them. His phone had fell near him from his pocket, and it was ringing to the tune of SH's Not Tomorrow.

When Sam put the glasses on, the vision ahead of him cleared up. The bike girl was shaking the numb, unconscious Sall that laid on the floor. The noises she made out of her mouth were incomprehensible. It sounded like she didn't know how to speak properly. Sall was bleeding from the forehead slightly and moved like a corpse in response to the bike girl's shakes. Sam's eyes widened in terror. The first thought that crossed his head was that Sall lost his life. In denial, he crawled on his hands and feet, wincing with every step forward because his hands were injured too. When he made it by Sall's side, the bike girl stepped away and stood up, placing her small, tiny hands against her mouth while her tears fell silently.

"No, no no no," Sam clenched to his hair then put his hands on Sall's cheeks, slapping them gently. "Sall? Sall?!"

The black eyed male moved not in response.

"Oh God," Sam put his hands together over Sall's chest and started pushing on it to bring the pulse back to Sall's heart. "Come on...!"

As a few people gathered around the scene and started calling an ambulance, the bike girl watched in silence and tears as Sall failed to even move.

"Sall, don't you dare give up on me!" Sam started giving oral ventilation to him, and blocked Sall's nose with his index and thumb.

Sall's eyes were peacefully closed and as he rested on the ground motionlessly, he reminisced the fifth of June in the year two thousand and twenty. Sall and Carmen were in Sall's apartment, each one sitting on the opposite side of Sall's bed. Their backs faced each other. Sall's face was held back towards the kitchen, while Carmen's eyes looked up to the sky through the balcony window. Both of them had expressions of sorrow on their faces, yet somewhat hidden with a smile. Carmen fiddled with the sheets quietly as she listened to Sall.