Push

365 Days of Creativity

day seventy two

Push

The red clay was dry beneath my feet. A hot dust which stole any moisture my skin held, leaving the heels cracked and crumbling like the cliff we stood near. Blistering winds raced in waves, tangling my hair and burning my cheeks. The sun beat down like a spiked club on my bare arms and legs. I clutched my shaking limbs around my naked body, hiding what little I could of the tender skin never usually bared to the elements. small pebbles and stones were gather by the fists of the wind and hurled at frightening speeds. The rocks tore at my pale flesh, puncturing and ripping so I was decorated with sticky stripes of crimson ribbons.

There was a girl in front of me. Her ruby hair was clogged with dust so it matched the dry colour of the dirt smeared on her calves. Her torso was slim and barren, like canvas stretched over iron bars. She looked right, and I saw her cheek was spotted with both freckles and blood. Her nostrils flared wildly, but her jaw was set firm in a vice of defiance. She didn't turn to look at me, and I was thankful our eyes never met.

Men; tall, broad, with eyes colder than frozen steel, even in the heat. They towered beside our line of nine, exuding authority and satisfaction. One barbarian with a burnt forest of hair used the barrel of his pump-action corpse strewer to shove the boy behind me. He whimpered and shuffled closer. I could feel his fear pressing on me like a brand to my back.

A piercing scream, a warbling cry of a soul being ripped from existence. It echoed across the area, bouncing and multiplying off quarry walls until twenty different women were calling to the heavens.

The line shuffled forward, and a sob muffled behind a raw-palmed hand escaped the foremost of the line. That was the last sound to be uttered from the child up front.

I was two away now. My knees shook, and my teeth gnawed at the meat of my bottom lip. I could taste blood and dust and the unbearable flavour of death. He was here, the devastating figure wearing a cloak made of darkness itself. I could feel him gliding close, his eyes the definition of nothingness, his mouth a hungry maw of ink that lead straight to the belly. His presence cut into my heart like the blade of his scythe itself was dug through the sinew in my chest.

The reaper had distracted from the removal of the foremost member of the line, and I received a blow from the shotgun to catalyst my movement forward. The hit was accompanied by a sharp crack, and the air escaped from my lungs. I ignored the broken rib and shuffled forward, a shattered toenail caught the side of a stone, the edge of which dug into the raw flesh of the nail bed.

I was close to her now, but not as close as she was to the edge. Her brick coloured hair buffeted into my face, and I smelled the faintest hint of wild strawberries. The tiniest sliver of evidence of a life which once contained freedom.

I swallowed quickly, trying to breathe deeply, but it was as though death was a vacuum which stole only the oxygen I needed. There was another jab to my ribs, and I felt the bone bend inward even more.

I brought my trembling hands away from my body, and rested them on her sharp shoulders. The edge of the cliff loomed before her, and she faced straight ahead, her eyes to the sky. I tensed up, preparing. Quickly, so it lasted only a second, she brought her hands up to mine, and I felt her fingers squeeze slightly, with the only strength she had left. It was a fleeting contact, a stolen goodbye, a secret thank you.

And then I pushed her.