The Way Back Home

Chapter Five: No Time To Die

CHAPTER SONG: "No Time to Die" by Billie Eilish 

"Emmy!" A male voice called her name, beckoning her to open her eyes and to breathe. From what she could hear, the voice wasn't that of her gallant lance corporal William Schofield...

The fog clouding her mind continued to smother her as she struggled to take control of her consciousness. She felt as though she were floating, her skin frigid with shivers from the soaking water.

"Emmy!" The male voice called for her again, desperate to gain her attention.

Recognition collided with her awakening memory as she regained the knowledge of the man whom the voice belonged to...

"Tom!" She yelled out, but no sound emerged from her throat. Water trickled from her mouth as her lungs ached.

"Emmy, you need to wake up!" His face appeared to her, his once shining eyes dimmed with uncharacteristic weariness. "Scho needs you. You won't make it back home if you don't wake up."

Even though he was significantly shorter than Schofield, Blake was still able to somewhat tower over her slight frame, even if he was just an apparition in her unconscious dream state.

She opened her mouth to respond, but only silence resulted. Her chest began convulsing, a pressure pushing upon her chest. Water exploded from her mouth as Blake disappeared, his eyes closing.

"Go back to Scho. You'll find where you belong with him." Thomas Blake's voice began fading as the fog around Emmanuelle vanished and she was being pulled away into the depths of this mental purgatory. "I'll be watching over the both of you. You're the prettiest girl Joe will have seen since the war started."

She wanted to laugh at his joke, but was unable to as her convulsing and coughing combined and she fell downwards into blackness.

.

.

She was choking on the water, turning her head to the side to retch it all out. Her breathing began to even out with each instance of purging all that revolting liquid from her system.

A pair of large hands tenderly held back her hair as another coughing spasm racked through her recovering body. Her arms held her up she vomited out the last of the water, gasping to relax her breathing and calm down from the harrowing experience of drowning.

"Emmy." Schofield's voice graced her ears, the vocal personification of relief and concern. "Thank God!" His hands released her shoulders as she turned her head toward the worried soldier. "I thought you were lost to me."

"Will." She whispered his name, causing Schofield to sigh as if literal weight was pulled from his shoulders. She continued to surprise him with her strength...

He took her face in between his hands, studying to see if her condition was worse or better. Her eyes were slightly glazed over as she caught the last of her breaths. Her fair complexion barely began to regain color from the grey pallor of being near death when he laid her down on the pavement. The captain's coat no longer clothed her, only the tattered remains of her blue dress.

He himself was soaking wet from falling into the water, his helmet still attached to his head while hers was lost in the shallow depths of that damned swamp of a canal.

Her forehead pressed to his as they both took this moment to be relieved that they were both still alive.

Then, it all came flooding back to her.