One of us Survives

He recalls it now with such an inapprehensible feeling of searing pain in his chest.. He puts his fist in is other hand and twists with a means to hurt. The crack is unquestionably audible, and the pain is there, but it's just not enough to overcome the gallery of blood-sheathed knives that now play through his mind's eye.

It was on the way home from the movies. It was a Regal Cinema. We had just see Pirates of the Caribbean; she had begged me to take her, and I remember teasing her and saying not unless she bought the popcorn. I bought it anyway. I remember precisely what she was wearing. It was a white tank top, and she was wearing this paper-thin white jacket. She wore jeans, like she always did, but these were the ones with holes in them, just above the knee. I always used to put my hand in the holes and grab her leg.. she hated that.

Anyway..it was on the walk home, and not much was said, save for my occasional teasing her. We were both tired; the movie was a lot longer than we had thought. We took the short cut down the small street, right behind the school. It wasn't a main road, so there was no real need for street lights, and needless to say it was darker than the main way. But I was close enough to see her.

The ear-splitting crackle and thunderous sound of gunfire rang out without warning, and I could see the muzzle flash and the silhouettes behind the lights at the end of the street, about 30 yards away. I heard a scream, but I was stunned for a second. Not startled, just stunned; I couldn't conceive everything. It didn't last very long, but it was long enough.

Still paralyzed, I was shot, and I had lost my balance and slammed to the ground. The bullet had penetrated through the oblivious state, and the senses roared back in. I let forth a howl of pain, and as I looked up, I saw blood on the ground, and slightly further up in the view, she was huddled, hands on her ears, trembling. I screamed in pain as I yanked her up, and bulled her over the nearest fence.

They had a motion-sensitive light. My heart was still racing, and I had felt safer for the moment. The gun thunder no longer bothered me, and everything seemed almost dishearteningly lucid. I leaned my head back and let out a laugh. I was absolutely rhapsodic that we had survived.

Her legs put horizontally across mine, her body in my right arm, with my left in that hole in her jeans, just above her knee. An out-of-place sensation...my leg felt as though it were wet. Had I just pissed myself? Naturally, I look down, and my jeans hadn't just darkened like they would if I had pissed myself. They had turned to the color of terra cotta. It was not my blood.

I dared, despite the shadow of death looming upon us, to console her. It was such a deviant moment. She didn't need consolation, she was already at peace. The only one in denial was myself. The noise in the background had dissipated, and the only sound was my dulcet weeping. I could hear her last words, and the echo now in my head, fading, and then recurring louder than the last, unendingly.

The last comfort I had was the warmth of her fragile body. I recall, even before those last words, the look in her eyes. Peaceful. She closed them, and said that she would be fine. It was reassuring beyond the most lengthy tendrils of the imagination.

The warmth, remorselessly, faded away all too quickly. Termination had left me too weak to cry out, the tears stopped, my body was too weak to bother creating fluid to waste on tears. I went limp, lifeless even, and slowly slid over on my side, the body of my now lifeless love still in my arm..

I can hardly remember the next day, but for some reason, last night, I remembered the night of her violently short passing. Vividly. Painfully. And sometimes I want to release my life, and take my place inside the fire, but she would never have supported that..