My head buzzes as I breathe to raise dust from the ground below me. It makes me cough. I hold my chest, then my head. My entire body aches, yet my eyes flutter to look past the blurry vision, and my mind tries to find a sense and recall.
Avoiding the craters on the ground, I crawl and soon walk. Buzz after buzz of explosions. I walk… I was too late. So I jog. I'm not sure for how long. My legs ache, they feel broken. The sun shines down, brightly… and I feel drawn towards the route… I gasp and run at once, as I see… the bus having fallen down.
No. No. No. Please. I beg you. No. This can't… I… I can't take it, if it is so. Please.
"Hello? Is anyone in there?" I ask, putting my hand on the structure of the bus, while peeking down into the dusted and broken window gap.
"On this side!" I hear a voice answer.
I drag my feet to jog around the bus and look at people sitting there. Probably everyone from the bus… everyone but her.
"I'm sorry, what… happened?" I ask.
"What else? Those red sparks… threw the bus off. Many fell down, including the driver and that girl."
"What girl?" I ask in a beat, not being able to see her anywhere.
"She wanted to get off the bus. She was at the front with the driver and… she got thrown out and fell."
"No."
I move to the edge, and some people come and grab me. "Are you crazy?" they pull me.
"He is probably why she wanted to get down," somebody else says.
"There she is!" I say, pointing down to a distance. At one of the extensions at the side of the hill, enough to be holding her.
They all look, but they don't seem to speak a thing or try to discuss on how to help her. It was… a whole… it was towards a bottomless pit. But I couldn't at least see blood… it was down there… but it… it feels like a padded fall. She had known enough falls.
"We don't have that kind of equipment," somebody finally speaks, making me kneel to the ground.
<~
For you, I could die a million deaths
For you, I don't wanna bring wreaths
For you, yet I'd make them by hand
But as you, I'd rather be buried in the same sand
When you are hurt I cannot just hear the news and stand
I'll come loose off the clew – for I'd be only a broken strand Complete only with you
~>
"Wait!" I hear, but no hands tug at me. The breeze was cold, just as today morning. And I was approaching towards her, racing, just like in the morning. To merely get to her side. A goodbye wasn't said… and shouldn't be. So I jump towards her. If you love something… you need to take that leap, not let go.
"Ah…" I say, hanging at the piece of rock where she had fallen. "Get up. Please."
The bar was my most favorite than the slides. I could hang here… but what if this piece of rock can't bear both our weights? My body starts shaking, nothing I wasn't quite used to, but as I try to pull myself up – my legs only act as a ton of weight, trying to lower me down.
I look below me, to find someone waving – I hear a faint 'hey' of an echo. There was water, right below, some small stream between these hills. And the guy seems to have fallen into it, and gotten to the land besides it.
"I'll come back for you," I tell her unconscious self.
I let go, as I see there was a path to where she was. I just had to take that, lifting myself up was just… something I hadn't done until now. I was too used to loving the slides. I couldn't tire myself out more.
"Grab my hand," he says, and pulls me to the land. We bend to the floor and gasp.
"Nasty fall that one."
"Yeah," I say, looking towards him. "You're bleeding."
He looks to his arms, and frowns while looking forward. "It hurts. Sure was a nasty fall.
But I'm good now. The bleeding is minimal. Don't worry."
He doesn't ask me a thing, but understands that I want to get to the rock I was hanging from. He also seems to want to get to the top and escape this place… I don't even see any pits, come to think of it.
"She isn't dead?" he asks me, breaking the silence.
"I hope not."
"Hmm, what relation?"
As I part my lips, I hear lightning: I jerk back while trying to cover my ears and close my eyes. As I faintly open them, a piece of rock falls right from ahead of me – and to the water. I gasp and look up… it was…
<~
At the world's end I just want to find you
You are the world send, my boon, so every hurdle I'd push through
I'll bleed, I'll break, I'll run into your embrace
Because you aren't one but are the amalgamation of all my sunrays
Days, weeks, months, years, an eternity I need to spend Even if all it takes for me to get to you – is a world bend
Just… stay until I reach you. Please. I beg you. Will you?
~>
"Heh," a scoff brings me to look towards the guy. "That is too bad. I asked too soon."
I just stare at him, without understanding what had just happened. And why…
"I told her to not go out there. It was dangerous. And now… look what happened."
"I… don't understand."
He inhales deeply to exhale loudly from his mouth. "You her brother or lover or something? Nasty leap. How about I push you to another so you get there?"
As his leg kicks towards me, I put my elbow to only almost break it and get pushed away. I press down my floating leg to the ground and lift the other up to aim at his crotch – but he simply pushes it down with his palm.
"If I still had my gun, I'd have put one bullet in different parts of your body."
As he grabs me by my shoulder, I clench my fist and push it up his chest – to his chin. He backs away. Then I press my shoe to his forward bending face – but as I do, he grabs it and swings me towards the rocky wall.
"You kids."
I push my body forward, but a piece of rock hits my head – making me fall backwards again. I and even the guy look behind him… she stands at the opposite side of the red hill. "She sure has bad aim," he says and looks back at me. "I will send her to you, don't worry."
I look at him and then at my palm – bringing it to my head I sizzle in pain while rubbing my head. He seems to find it weird that I'm as loud as a frying pan, but before he realizes; I close my ears and my eyes. When I open them, I don't find him there anymore, just dust.
<~
Million lives would be but a small dream
Your eyes let me live there at our beautiful seam
Poems, all my words, only ache about your beauty
Of nothing else would I ever care to make my duty
Every cell and inch of me hopes to meet your all
My heart will stay from you a beat away, waiting for your call
~>
*
I take a sigh of relief as I see him find me here, on the other side. He understood. He always did.
"Is there a way… around?" we both ask, with the same beat and timing.
As we just stare at each other while trying to scout our sides with our eyes, a rumbling sound echoes while making dust fall down the mountain wall.
"There is an exit on this side!" I scream. "But we need to go higher."
As I question him with my eyes, he just nods. "Alright then, let's start going up. I'll see you there." He points up at a kind of… broken bridge, well rock extensions which were close but… not really. But it really was the best bet.
Pits of dark red start forming as we start to move, both on his side and mine. And when I look down, even the water shoots up. What in the world was that? There was no time to figure.
I crawl on my fours, rushing up the tiny angled and rocky route. My eyes still only look towards him, and his only at me. He was faster, which makes me proud. But I worry and scream at him to watch his step.
As I finally stand, panting, looking at the other side – he jumps towards me. With nothing else on his mind, no doubt, nowhere else to go. Black and red lightning shooting above his head, a hair's breath behind him. Just… wanting to get here.
I rush forward and hold his figure, it wasn't even slipping. But I hold him. I had to have done it this morning.
<~
Million dreams you brought into my life
Your presence sates them, and pushes me through my strife
People fade and all I see is you in my arms
Over the hill, and every other place I echo of you: my yearns
Every part of me wants to be entangled with you to make you mine
This moment, I just see… you ARE mine
~>
We race, hand in hand, to the opening I had seen. Past more roads, we make it through with zero difficulty, with no pain… perhaps it didn't matter when my hand was in his. This moment wouldn't be any different if it were in any other genre. As long as he was with me, and me with him. There was no rest, no pain. Just us.
But… how long could we run? How long could we hold back from crumbling?
"No," he exhales as rumbling in a distance stops. He makes sure I didn't move any forward. "What in the world…"
There was no cliché deadend… but… the amount of pits ahead of us was… and earlier the pit had disappeared after the black and red lightning released – turning that guy to dust. But the pit that had shot out the lightning earlier… it didn't disappear.
"They aren't even… bursting," I say. Because, they really don't… they just stay still. But a random pit bursts out lightning.
"They are all too close to each other. Usually they are way apart. And… appear and disappear."
They had told us to stay away from the hills. We both realise it, and just look at each other – while tightly holding each other's hand.
"I shouldn't have left," I say.
"No, I shouldn't have let you go," he says, shaking his head while his hand trembles in my grasp. "Not without giving you a hug."
His held hand pulls me closer, as the other moves above my shoulder – prompting me to do the same. But neither of us try to let go of each other's hand.
"It's unfair that I can't look at your face while I hug you tight, as if it meant the world… I still want to look at you. But all I have done when we were distanced, is look at your face and recognise each curve, each mole and freckle on it. So how could I forget? It's okay for me to just hold you now and be here… 'till death do us part."
"Death… wouldn't be sorrowful," I say. "This will be a pretty way to die. It isn't death… this… is our eternity. Right here. And I'm down to live it with you. Us. Here. Is all I need for it to end. Nothing else."
The ground grumbles and we both look to find that we are standing upon a pit, with the sizzling sound taking over. I feel sparks that burn my bare skin on my shin.
"Will you marry me?" he asks.
"Took you long," I say, as my tears stain his shirt – I too feel his tears fall on my shoulder. "I… am glad I ever met you. For maybe even if I didn't, this day would've come. But now… I can die knowing that I had you. I had you in your words and your actions. I'm not sure how you could write me so beautifully."
"I wrote you as you."
"So did I… I love you."
"I love you so much more."
Our hug only grows tighter. I hold him as tight as possible, without caring if it is too much. And he does the same. I only feel the print of his arms around me… and not of the lightning piercing my skin like needle and thread.
I hear his breath and mine make tunes with the sizzling sound. Until it is our scream. But I only say his name… and he mine.