Chapter 10 Jericho
JERICHO
The dust kicks up, leaving a trail of red smoke behind me. The sun is high in the sky, beating against the ground and soaking up all of the non-existent moisture from its depths.
Gravel crunches under the tires as I make my way across the same terrain Connor and I took yesterday, except today I’m noticeably alone.
The silence in the cab would make lesser men lose their minds, nothing to entertain them except the occasional rattle and nothing to keep them company except their own thoughts.
I personally prefer it, being by myself and away from all the hustle and bustle that comes from other people.
I’m surrounded by them twenty four seven, with no sense of privacy.
Today is a special occasion, because while they’re all too busy tending to the wounds they sustained from rough housing into the late hours of the morning, I went to bed at a decent time. And when Connor begged off, I took enough pity on him to grant it.
We’re supposed to be getting mail today, and I’m looking forward to it even if I don’t always receive something, I told my parents I didn’t need much out here.
It's nice seeing my team get things. Connor gets a card from home with his whole family’s signature on it.
Hollis gets postcards from his brother’s travels.
And Ace’s family always sends the best snacks, and too many times we’ve sat around the small fire and ate junk food until it’s made us sick. No regrets, though.
We couldn’t have shit in bootcamp, so now it’s nice to be able to be spoiled and not have to worry about our Drill Sergeants yelling and berating us.
I circle, parking the van at the highest vantage point. Pulling out my binoculars, I do a thorough sweep of the area. Taking in every ridge and divot in the land and committing it to memory. I don’t see anything out of the norm.
Tucking away the binoculars, I tilt my head back against the uncomfortable headrest and close my eyes. Inhaling deeply, I take in the musky scent of sweat and dirt embedded into the hard metal surrounding me.
In my daydream, I’m 8,000 miles away. Sitting in the warm sun, soaking up the last rays of the day before the moon steals the attention away from the sun.
My dad is manning the grill, the smoke carrying a sweet charred scent over to me in my chair beside Raiden.
His sunglasses cover his eyes, the jewels reflecting light and casting a rainbow across his naked chest in an array of colors.
The sky darkens, an ominous sight against the blue sky. Wrath falls out of the clouds in pellets, bleeding down across the backyard and drenching everything in its downpour.
An angry God.
Raiden quickly sits up, yanking his sunglasses off and staring at me with dark, brown doe eyes. His mouth opens, his lips forming words but never speaking them. They dissolve away with the wind faster than I can breathe.
The rain doesn’t stop, and it doesn’t drain. It begins filling in the space between the fence posts. Cold water is up to my shoulders, and I’m frantic as I look around to help.
My mom and dad have disappeared. I’m left all alone with Raiden and I watch as his head sinks under the water. I try to trudge through the onslaught, but my legs won’t move. They’re not listening to my brain's command to move.
His head bobs up quickly, mouthing help, before it disappears just as fast. My heart is beating out of my chest, the organ working overtime. I inhale just before the water covers my head.
I open my eyes under the water, and all I see is black. I can’t see Raiden.
I swing my arms, trying to cut through the water and find him with any of my other senses. It doesn’t work. I’m paralyzed, caught in this state between reality and dream land.
“Jer,” a voice whispers. I whirl my head around, trying to find the siren’s song in the mess in front of me.
“Jer,” a repeated single syllable. Not enough for me to trace.
“Jer.” It’s all around me now, echoing off every ridge in my brain until I feel like I’m going crazy. And maybe I am.
A flash of lightning cracks outside the front windshield and I’m jolted from my daydream. I rub my eyes and scan the terrain, not seeing anything out of the ordinary.
It’s a cloudless day. The only color against the blue sky is the bright white of the sun hanging over the edge of the earth.
The ground shakes underneath me, and I brace against the door of the van, holding myself steady against the vicious onslaught. Another loud crack. A boom. My ears ring against the violent noise, my head rattles and an ache starts to form at the base from the jarring.
A crackle comes from the speakers of the radio, a frantic voice. “Coco, are you there? Can you hear me?” Connor, I would recognize his voice anywhere. I reach for the com and grasp it tightly in my palm, the plastic creaking.
“Yeah, I’m here.” I say, panting against the pain.
“Get back to base, now. NOW!” He screams the last word and a shiver goes down my spine at the genuine terror I hear in his voice.
“Connor-”
“NOW JERICHO!” This time it’s the commanding officer, his voice tight with tension.
I obey, putting the comm back in its rightful spot and changing the gear to drive. I put my foot on the pedal and ease it into drive. The sun is shining down mockingly, deceptively tricking me into the idea that everything is fine. If it would have been any other day, I might have believed it.
A sense of foreboding floods my body, my adrenaline picks up and my arms break out in goosebumps. The calm before the storm. As I approach camp, I exhale shakily, seeing my destination so close I could reach out through the front windshield and touch it.
Black smoke covers my windshield, blocking out my vision.
I slam on the brakes, feeling the force of the brakes working overtime to slow me down.
The world around me shrinks down to a pinprick of light barely visible out of my passenger side window before the loud crack hits me.
The blow physically hits the van, and it starts to tip.
The passenger wheels coming off the ground while the drivers side stay firmly planted on the ground.
I grit my teeth, preparing for impact but nothing could have truly prepared me for the force.
My shoulder collides with the door as the van rights itself. I exhale a deep breath and rush to open my door to get out.
The hot, dusty air coats my lungs and every breath is akin to a thousand needles punching themselves into the organ. My feet meet the dirt and I collapse to the ground as a wave of nausea bubbles in my stomach.
“COCO!” The ground upends under my feet and my body levitates for a minute. A flash of hot pain bursts through my lower body and into my chest and head before my body meets the ground again.
Darkness swims in my vision and all I can feel is pain.
My mind is sluggish as the reality sets in. But it’s too late to fight against the unconsciousness as I slip away.
Two months later
“How does that feel?” The doctor asks me, adjusting the slip on my leg and adjusting the hard plastic at the bottom.
“Fine.” I respond instinctively. It doesn’t actually matter how I feel, it only matters what they want to hear. If I voiced the maniacal ramblings in my head they would have me moved from this room and into a psych unit as soon as humanly possible.
“You can’t answer fine every time I ask you how the prosthetic feels.
This is just a temporary one until all of the swelling goes down, but we still want to make sure it fits comfortably and doesn’t irritate your leg any farther.
” I glance down at the leg in question, if you could even call it that at this point.
The bottom is still red and swollen, and the scars from my stitches will probably never go away.
I don’t say anything, staring at the painting above his left shoulder. The swirls of dark gray and black feel very fitting with the black thoughts currently swimming through my mind.
I wish I wouldn’t have survived. I wish it wasn’t me in the van. I wish. I wish. I wish.
Those thoughts are selfish though, and I’m not typically a selfish person. At least, not usually. This is an exception. I think I’m granted an exception.
“Have you talked to Dr. Mobbs? She mentioned stopping in to see you.” He remarks offhandedly and I tense at the question. Because he and I both know I have not talked to her. And I will not.
“I don’t need someone to try and look in my head and figure out what’s wrong with me.
” I’ve already lost a lot, I want to scream at him.
Why can’t I mourn the loss of a limb in peace without one of the doctor’s thinking I’m going to off myself at the first chance?
Why does every action I do and every thought in my brain need to be analyzed down to a molecular level to see what’s wrong with my psyche?
“That’s not what she’s here for. She just wants to help.”
“And I don’t need it,” I say bitterly.
“I don’t think you do. But you might want the extra help to integrate you back into civilian life when you leave this hospital.
You’re going to your parent’s house, right?
” I nod, and he continues prodding at the end of my leg and fiddling with the plastic until he smiles to himself and pushes himself up into a standing position.
“Well, this leg will be the first stepping stone into improvement. I’ve sent your file over to Dr. Case and she’ll take over everything else whenever you’re home.
In about six months, there will be a conference call and I’ll see you then to discuss more permanent options for a prosthetic.
If you have any problems, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
” He steps back, giving me the space to stand on my own from the examination table.
I twist my body on the table and hang my legs over the edge.
There’s a shoot of pain in my left leg, the missing one, and I flinch.
Dr. Wright smiles sadly at me, but doesn’t make a move to help me.
I appreciate it, because if he offered to help me off this table, the little bit of pride I have left would be out the window.
I stabilize my good foot on the ground, making sure my shoe is situated before I shift my left hip and maneuver my leg until the shoe around the plastic foot hits the ground. It’s clumsy and not fluid, not like how walking should be. It feels unnatural.
The sock covering the bottom shifts, bunching up slightly and a sharper bite of pain nearly crumples me.
“Wait,” Dr. Wright says. Stepping close to me and guiding me to sit on the edge of the table again.
He tugs the top material of the prosthetic back, and then detaches it, and works on righting the sock covering my limb.
“I’ll get you a smaller size on order, and that’ll help make sure it doesn’t bunch up at the site. ”
“Thanks,” I say through gritted teeth.
I try to stand again, and this time I make it fully up straight with my weight evenly distributed to both feet.
I wobble as I take my first step, but gain more confidence as I carve a path into the linoleum floors of the hospital.
Dr. Wright has taken a seat across the room from me, silently watching me get used to the unnatural addition to my body.
“How does it feel now?” He stands from his chair at the same time I plop down into the brown, leather one in the corner. Sweat beads my temple and I can feel a few droplets skating down my back.
The smile on my face is the first true one I’ve felt in months.
“Great.”
He escorts me back to my hospital room, the room that has felt more like a jail cell since I was shipped here straight from camp.
Now, as the sun peeks through the blinds, showing off the mid-morning sun, a sense of gratitude washes over me.
The feeling of helplessness that I’ve suffered through is depleting with every unsteady step I take towards starting over.
I’m left alone as he leaves me to go tend to his other patients.
I open the window fully, letting the sun beam through.
I turn on the tv and organize my room, sorting through the clothes I’ve been brought and the snacks that have been left until the room no longer resembles an empty nest, but instead the resting place of someone destined for greater things.