Wars with no moral limitations. Floods that erase whole states. Bombs seen from hundreds of miles away. Vicious earthquakes that kill with no mercy. Battlefields stretched and stretched and stretched until they cover every neighborhood, every city, every state, every nation, every continent.
Death doesn’t discriminate.
It’s our turn.
I’m running, running, running, but every step I put between me and an oncoming terror only brings me closer to another. I dig my fingers into Peter’s hand, tightening my death grip. I’m terrified I’ll lose him in the crowd of people that are rushing around me in every direction, bumping into me and turning me around, making it impossible to run in a straight line. To add to my difficulties, the ground is shaking with malice, either from earthquakes or bombs or some horrifying combination of the two.
The noise is deafening and I know it will never leave my head - sirens wailing, bombs, gunshots, buildings crashing to the ground. But worst of all is the crying children, the shrieking women, the hollers of pain. Right this minute I’m being scared; their sounds are scaring me and being branded onto my brain. It will all be over soon I think because sooner, rather than later, I’ll be dead.
No, no, no, I’ve got to at least try.
I tug Peter’s hand so that he turns around and looks my way. Suddenly, his eyes widen, staring behind me. Before I can even turn around to look, Peter yells,
“Maya – run!”
He yanks my arm forward, snaking us through the crowd. I twist my neck around to see what I’m running from.
It’s a fire. This isn’t your everyday girl scouts’ campfire. I doubt it was even naturally occurring. No, this fire was so massive, so impending, so quickly moving, it had to be man-mad, engineered to destroy.
It’s still far off in the distance, so maybe, just maybe, we could still make it, but not at this pace. The others around us are beginning to see the ire, which brings on another wave of screaming. Although its helping that we’re all running in the same direction-away from the fire-now, we’re still not going fast enough. It simply isn’t possible for this volume of people to move down this narrow a road at more than a slow jog.
“Peter!” I shout, pulling him back.
“No, don’t stop, we have to keep moving, come on!” he yells back to me, gesturing away from the fire with his head.
“We won’t make it, we’re going too slow. Let’s try and go a different way, away from all these people.”
He considers this for a moment and then nods. I point to the side of the street where there’s an alleyway between two buildings. We make our way across the street, constantly whipped and shoved. We get to the alleyway to find that it’s empty, free of other people. There’s a gate at the end, but we scale it quickly. On the other side of the gat there’s a labyrinth of alleyways and paths. My heart drops because now that the fire’s blocked from our view by buildings, I don’t have a clue about which way to go. I start off in a direction somewhat similar to the way we were going before, but peter stops me.
Maya, the rats,” he says, pointing at the rodents scampering across the ground. Right, animal instincts. They know better where to go then we do. We follow them, running full speed.
I can’t see the fire, but I sure can smell its smoky fumes now. I inhale a big lungful of it which send me into a coughing fit. I’m running hunched over, not paying attention to where I’m stepping and all of the sudden, the tip of my sneaker catches on a pothole, tripping me so I fall to the ground. The pain is stunning. It feels as if God stepped on my ankle and its all I can do not to cry.
Peter stops and looks back at me. Taking in my pained expression, he asks, “Can you walk?” I know I can’t. Even sitting up will be agonizing. I shake my head in response.
“Go,” I say, motioning with my arms for him to run.
For a split second, he looked conflicted, glancing from me to the retreating rats.
“No,” he said, walking back to me, “I’ll stay with you.” I furrowed my eyebrows, looking at his eyes which stared right back into mine.
“You’ll die,” I stated.
“I know.”
Peter helped me into a sitting position and we leaned against the wall of a building.
“I’m going to die soon anyway. You’re my best friend. If I’m the kind of guy who would leave his best friend alone to die, I don’t know who I am,” he says.
I nod because I understand. We’re going to die no matter what, so we’d rather die as people we can be proud of.
The smoke is terribly painful to inhale now. I’m gagging and coughing like mad. Peter squeezes my shoulder although he, himself is coughing up a storm. I’m feeling light-headed. I can’t help but throw up everything I’ve eating in the past few days, which wasn’t a lot to begin with. This is it now. I think. I’m drifting out of consciousness so that I barely register it when I feel something cold and hard close around me like a giant metal hand.
The giant hand is pulling me up, lifting me into the air. I think I’m screaming. I think the fire’s much too close. I think I can hear Peter yelling my name. But I don’t know. I don’t know anything but the pain and that I’m going to die soon. And then I lose consciousness and I know nothing.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It’s bright when I open my eyes. I’m lying on the ground surrounded by what I might describe as grass. It stands up straight like grass, but it feels like satin. Looking up at the sky, I see something fly by overhead that looks somewhat like a butterfly. But its wings…God they’re mesmerizing. They’re a color I’ve never seen before that I wouldn’t know how to describe. The designs on them actually move, like waves on a beach. It starts to sing, sing just like a human. I don’t know what its saying but that doesn’t matter because I can tell it’s a happy, peaceful song.
I realize that my chest no longer aches, in fact I feel fine. I take in a deep breath; the air smells like lavender and tastes like honey. I stand up and the satin-grass reaches up to my stomach. I see Peter sitting up across the meadow and I go to him. He stands up when he sees me and smiles.
“Are we in Heaven?” he asks.
“No, if we were in Heaven, you wouldn’t smell this bad,” I tease, wriggling my nose.
Peter laughs for what seems like the first time in I don’t know how long. All of the sudden, the sky gets brighter. We both look up. The sun looks like its growing. It gets bigger and bigger until finally it looks like its exploding. But I don’t worry. There’s something about this place that’s calming. When the sun explodes, enough of it stays in the sky so that it stays light out, but the rest comes down to us in golden, transparent raindrops.
One hits the tip of my nose. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It makes a chill run down my spine but it also warms my whole body.
“Welcome!” a voice squeals.
“Welcome! I hear again, this time from Peter’s direction. I look over to see him staring at a drop of sun on his hand. Another drop plops onto my face.
“Welcome to the new world!” the sun drop trills. Peter and I exchange glances. He heard it too. And somehow, we just know it’s true.
“Welcome to the new world,” I say, grinning. Peter beams. We stand and let the sun drops pelt us, cleaning the dirt from our faces, washing away the memories.
