East 5

East 5

The future approached me in the form of screaming headlights. At first I paid it no mind, just as everyone does with doom, but when the fire swerved from its path on the road and rumbled straight at me and Can, I froze in its vision. We hadn't even reached the bridge, so to our immediate left was the beginning of the canal's downward slope with no fence blocking it yet. Before I could react myself, some other hand pushed me hard in that direction. I was tumbling down the concrete coated walls and into the filthy water before I understood anything that was happening.
The contents of the canal were cold with shock, but the ingredient that stung most in my memory was that smell-the unwashed scent of sinful people layered under algae and automotive waste. I recognized it from earlier that day, but now that it was in my clothes, my hair, my shoes, my ears, my mouth, I truly grasped the odor. The water repulsed me as if it were my own wrongdoing. I scrambled in it to find the slope that I had been blindly pushed down. My hands burned from the rough texture, but I managed to haul my upper body out of the bottom and onto a panting incline. Wretched with watery defilement, I clawed and pulled and tugged and screamed my way up the slope until I was on the grass once more; however, this time I was immediately bathed in light. I held up a soaked wool sleeve to save my eyes some pain, but I knew that wouldn't work when I could finally see.
I heard the voice before anything else. The shy, faraway panic of a frantic lonesomeness behind two overbearing and growling eyes made of fire. Twisted metal decorated the front of the monster's face. It's rider stepped forward into the visible cone of dust created by that burning glare. I couldn't see them, only the collapsing outline of their legs. They mumbled something, I heard nothing distinct. My eyes hurt, my palms throbbed with heat, I was so disoriented I couldn't even hold myself up on my forearms. Where was Can? I needed Can, he'd know what to do.
"Can!" I jolted when I yelled. No answer besides the mumbling and grumbling coming from the metal beast before me. "Can! Where ya'at?! CAN!" My heart beat faster than the manic rate it was at before. I dug my fingers in to the ground, pulling against a dread so strong I was wet with it. Everywhere I squirmed was just more dirt and grass until finally I caught something in my hand. My vision was still dotted with those dancing neon spots, but I knew Can's face immediately when I touched his worn-out leather skin.
"Can..." I blinked, squinted, shook him by the collar, but he wasn't moving. Shaking myself up onto my forearms once more, I stared with only whiteness into his open and screaming and dead eyes.
I can't remember if I screamed, and even if I had, it would've been silenced by the sound of four tires and a coward screeching down the brown/black road. Eventually the night swallowed everything except my howling corpse next to Can's.