Two #2
I move through eroded hallways, crouch under fallen pillars, and scale protruding boulders, but all the bones look the same. All the rotting corpses resemble each other. I’ll never find him. For all I know, I’ve passed his limbs one hundred times over and never noticed—
I yelp as the ground gives way, and I collapse to my knees with a painful crack of bones, both mine and the dead’s.
My leg falls through an opening, but my foot thankfully lands in a patch of sunlight.
One inch to the left, though. One centimeter to the right, and it would have touched the shadows filling this new hole.
I slap a hand over my lips and sit frozen in fear as an unseen thread pulls at my chest. My heart sinks like a battered ship in a storm. I know where he is.
I carefully withdraw my foot and peer through the opening.
I hadn’t noticed at first, but the collapse here is worse than in the rest of the temple.
The vines that braid through the ruins are absent, as if this section hasn’t stood exposed to the elements for long.
My heart sinks further. This is where they laid him to rest. They placed him in the lowest part of the ruins and then toppled the stones above him.
The only way I’ll retrieve what they hid is if I descend into the shadows.
I shiver and check the sun’s position. I won’t be trapped until it sets, but The Stranger instructed me to avoid even the smallest shadow. I don’t know what will happen if the lurking evil tastes my flesh, and I curse myself for not asking him to explain his warning.
Swinging to my knees, I peer into the shadows, and from what I can see, the cracked opening descends into a cavernous void.
My guess is this was originally a cellar, and I pull my head back and scan my surrounding.
With how fast the day is dying, I don’t have time to clear the rubble to gain more sunlight.
The fallen slabs of stone are too heavy for me to shift, anyway.
I only have two options: admit defeat or brave the evil.
I picture his face and know. He would never admit defeat. He never did. Neither shall I.
“I’m sorry,” I say as I glance at where I left the Stranger in the jungle. “If I don’t make it out, thank you.” And then I drop into the blackness.
Chaos erupts around me in the form of a vicious wind.
It batters my body and steals my breath, and I cough as my feet slip, the air’s force too strong.
The darkness is hazy, and I can barely see my own hands as they crawl over the floor.
I think I’m screaming, but the violence silences any cries I make.
It strips me of my voice, my hope, my courage.
It replaces my every emotion with fear, and I want to lie down and die.
One, two, three times . I say his name even though I can’t hear the words. Ten times, eleven, twelve . I crawl blindly forward. Twenty times. I do not stop. I never stop.
The thread in my chest tugs harder. Our vows, our promise, our love.
It cannot be silenced. We’re bound even in death, and that’s why I still sense him.
I move despite the pain. Despite the evil salivating to claim me.
I’ve granted this entity more than a taste.
I’ve given it my entire being, and it is ravenous.
Its hunger pulses against my skin, through my bones, and into my soul.
Its desire is impatient, raging that it must wait until nightfall to devour me whole, but damn the gods, it will wait. It cannot have me yet.
I lose track of how long I crawl as the wind whips and tugs at me, but suddenly my heart stutters.
It misses a beat. And then a second and a third, and my fingers shoot out before me, searching the stone for what I seek.
Minutes fly by, and my fingertips encounter nothing but dust. Despair rattles my chest. I need to find him. We’re running out of time.
“Gods,” I yelp as my knuckles brush against coarse fabric. I seize it and peel away the burlap until I feel flesh. Cool flesh, and I don’t need to see to know these hands. How many times did they wrap around my fingers, stroke my hair, caress my face? I would recognize them anywhere. I found him.
Folding his hands inside the fabric, I fling myself back toward the hole of light.
It’s dimmer now, and panic tightens my chest. The sun is too low; the daylight disappearing too fast. I scramble to my feet as the wind fights to drag me down, to keep me in its eternal embrace, but I refuse to surrender.
This hateful world ripped him from me once before. Not again. Never again.
I push faster, tossing his hands up to the main level before climbing out to join him. Absent the wind, the silence is almost deafening, and my eyes scan the horizon. The sun is dangerously close to setting. I have minutes. Maybe less.
I launch into a run, barreling through the ruins as I disturb centuries of sedentary bones.
I don’t care to avoid the shadows, but each time my limbs pass through them, the evil pulls at my soul.
Its rage bleeds into my veins. This entity refuses to relinquish me, and as if willed by its greed, the sun descends faster, forcing me to flee through more and more shadows.
This time, when I scream, I hear my terrified voice.
And then I see the exit. Clutching his hands tighter to my breast, I push my aching legs to maintain the brutal pace. My lungs burn with exertion. My brow spills sweat. The wind howls through the darkening hallways as the sun burns her last rays. I’m so close, but I won’t make it.
“Run!”
My gaze snaps to the temple’s entrance. The Stranger hovers on the opposite side of the threshold, safe from the evil’s grasp.
“Damn it, child, run!” His hands extend to me, his fingertips hovering just shy of the line.
I can barely breathe as I race for his open arms. I concentrate on his white eyes, and even though they’re solid, pupilless orbs, I recognize the panic in them.
It spurs me on, but then the sun sets. The light flashes one last time, and I’m too late.
Through the haze of desperation, I stare in disbelief at The Stranger as he does the unthinkable.
The dying sunlight still touches the threshold.
One more second and it’ll be gone, but he shoves his hand over the line.
His fingers push as far as the light allows, and I dive.
I throw myself at him, one arm clutching the bundle at my breast, the other outstretched.
My fingers clasp his, and he yanks me hard just as the world goes dark.
I slam with a harsh thud against his chest, and we topple to the jungle floor. I can’t stop the sobs that wrack my body, but to my surprise, The Stranger wraps his muscular arms around me. He says nothing as I convulse. He merely lays there and lets me cry as I catch my breath.
“You aren’t allowed to help me,” I whisper into his chest, my fingers clutching his cloak to assure myself that I’m safe, that I’m in his embrace and not bound to the shadows.
“I didn’t.” His ribs rattle my cheeks. “I simply held your hand.”
“Thank you.” Relief floods my words.
“We should go.” He abruptly stands without ceremony, hoisting me to my feet as if I weigh nothing. “The evil has tasted you. We need to put as much distance as possible between us and it.”
“It’s all right,” I say, clinging to the Stranger’s cloak with one fist and hugging his severed hands with my other. “I don’t think it liked what it tasted.”