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- 09/17/2017
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
Rivers of the Dead - 11. 1-11 - From Night to Day
"Are you all right?"
The words felt distant in Liz's ears as she slowly came back to consciousness. The voice didn't seem familiar at all, but neither did her body anymore. She was disconnected, disoriented, trying to make sense of where she was.
"Caleb?" She heard herself ask. This, too, felt distant.
"Ma'am, are you all right?" The voice asked again. She felt someone roughly shaking her shoulders. "Young woman, talk to me!"
"Caleb?" She asked again, and then managed to open her eyes at last, staring up into the face of a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard. She was lying in the mouth of the cave, she was sure of that, but nothing else seemed familiar, and certainly not the man standing above her. "Who are you?"
"Thank God you're okay . . ." The man replied. "what did you take?"
"What?" Liz asked, struggling to get up, but she wasn't able to make it past her elbows before her headache overwhelmed her and she fell back to the ground. She groaned in pain and closed her eyes, trying to shut out what little light was there. Light. Why was there light?
She opened her eyes again and rolled her head to the side. From the level of light outside, she assumed it was midday. Had she really been unconscious for that long.
"Your friend won't wake up," The man said. "What is he on? The paramedics will want to know. Or search and rescue, I guess."
"My friend?" Liz asked, and the memory of Caleb putting the knife to his chest came flooding back to her. She shot upward, forgetting about her head. The man stepped around to help her up, but was blocking her view of where she assumed Caleb would be. She could just see a bit of his blue jeans through the man's legs. "Oh god, Caleb!"
"What are you on?" The man asked again. "There's a syringe in the fire. Don't tell me he's not on anything."
"He's not. I was," Liz said, struggling to her feet. She kept speaking as she staggered away from the man to check on Caleb. "I didn't think . . ." Her words failed her as the blood drained from her face. She stood over the body of her friend, his expression peaceful. His golden hair matted to his sweaty forehead. His clothing was disheveled, but then again, he'd almost always looked that way. She knelt next to him, smoothing his hair back from his face. ". . . Ethan?" she asked, not sure she believed what she was seeing.
"Ethan?" the man asked. "Weren't you just shouting about—"
"Ethan! Oh my god, Ethan!" Liz shouted as reality took hold. He was here, he was real, and he was alive. But he was also unconscious, and Liz had no answers. "Why won't you wake up?"
"Ma'am, are you okay?" The man asked.
Liz didn't hear him. There wasn't any time to listen to a man who had no answers, especially when one friend was still missing. "Caleb!" She shouted. "Caleb, where are you!?"
He's gone. A life for a life.
The voice in her head did not sound familiar, yet she also somehow knew it. It felt like death itself, like the sinking reality that all things end, that she herself would one day cease to be. It had a melodic quality, like a symphony playing in a minor key. She feared it, yet longed to hear it again. It had answers.
Who are you? She thought back at the voice.
But there was no response, and she was certain now that the owner of the voice had moved on. There would be no more death here, not now, but neither would there be more life. Death had spoken, and Caleb was gone.
"Shit, Caleb . . ." Liz said, tears streaming down her face as reality sunk in a little deeper. "What were we thinking?" She stroked Ethan's cheek again, and he let out a soft moan but otherwise did not react. "Ethan, wake up. Come on, wake up!" She collapsed over his chest, her body heaving with sobs as she cried, "I need you, Ethan. Please . . . Caleb's gone. I need you . . ."
END OF PART 1
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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