Chapter Four - One of the Many Nameless Events in My Life

[Language Warning] Chapter four of my book "One Way Out." You do not have my permission to use my work, so please do not use it. Thank you.

Chapter Four

One of the Many Nameless Events in My Life

The wind howled ferociously, frightening the bus and making it rattle even more. I stood up, leaning the back of my legs onto the seat for balance. I reached my arms to the top of the window and pulled it down.

Sam glanced at me, “What are you rollin’ that window down for? Can’t you see that storm outside?”

“Maybe there is a giant cloud of darkness hovering above us all, but are you going to let your fears pry you away from your desires? Don’t you want to feel the raindrops on your skin?”

Sam pursed his lips together, and then slowed the bus down. He opened his window and sighed, “Oh, how I missed the ocean.”

He wasn’t wrong. Each and every drop had a different shade of the sea, and it smelled like salt. A drop of the ocean would fall quickly from the sky, waiting until it was drowned in the Earth’s soil, only to be taken up by the sky’s hands again another day.

Some people, I realized, live just like the rain. They make it to the top, and suddenly, they let go. In the very end, they’re going through a cycle of celebration and devastation. They make their lives dull and repetitive.

Then there were some people who lived like the ocean. They were always moving, but at the same time, they were staying where you last saw them. Storms levitated over them like men who acted like gods, looking down on them with pity or pride.

The ocean didn’t stop, though. It kept rolling, on and on, making each wave and shade different from the last.

And all of it belonged to a girl whom I never met.

“TB.”

I glanced over at Sam, who was driving again. He wasn’t kidding about wanting to get me to Texas quickly.

“Yeah?”

“I met Lydia on the golden shores of a lonely sky. An ocean that we could actually touch.”

“You met her on the coast?”

“Mhm. She looked like a woman lost at sea. Her hair was wet, tangled, and beautifully tinted with solitude. When the sun shined down on her perfectly tanned skin, her eyes gleamed with the colors of the ocean.”

I got a better picture of her in my head. “Like a mermaid?” It was a childish question, yes, but the description was exemplary for mythical creature.

“Better. She was like a siren - a gorgeous sailor with a dazzling voice… and she trapped me with her love.”

“Her voice intrigued you?”

“I fell down to my knees and bowed to her beauty in the matter of seconds. It took me a while to find her voice, but it was yet another flawless feature about her.”

“What did you see in her, then?”

Sam grinned. “I saw everything.”

I grinned back. Every person has a different definition for every word, but in my eyes, everyone has a similar definition of love.

Outside the bus, thunder rolled across the floating seas.

Sam glanced up at the mirror. “Knowing you, I can see that it’s hard to trust people with your story.”

I blinked. I never knew that I was that easy to read.

“But,” Sam continued, “I believe in something called a trade. I told you my story, and I told you about me. I deserve something in return, don’t I?”

I gulped. Great. He tricked me. That was a move I would normally take, and by getting too comfortable, I let my own technique get to me.

“You’re wanting to hear about my past?”

“Maybe.”

Sighing, I lifted both of my arms and placed them behind my head to cushion it. Bones were much more comfortable than the seat that I had been sitting on.

“What do you want to know, then?”

“Anything, but to be a little more specific… tell me about your dream.”

“My dream?”

He nodded.

“Well…” It took me a while to find the words. This had to be perfect. Silence fell upon the bus, despite the storm that was raging outside. Sam didn’t speak, though. He was waiting.

“To tell you about my dream, I will need to tell you about my story. The real one.”

Sam nodded. His eyes were on the road, but I could tell that his complete focus was on me. I liked it when people actually took the time to listen.

“I have a memory. A memory that I refuse to forget. I know I shouldn’t remember this, but I do. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Silence. I found another set of words, and I continued.

“Sixteen years ago, on a slow, winter day, it started to snow. The snow fell from the skies like dying stars, and really… it didn’t look like snow. It looked like the ashes of a battlefield. The results of a war that had been lost.

“The flakes fluttered around in the breeze until they hit the ground, surrendering. But this world has no mercy. The flakes melted when they reached the warm safety of the earth, and the ashes, one by one, continued to drop dead.

“A little girl had been brought into the world that morning. She breathed her first breath of the dying air, she tasted the emptiness of the world, and she felt the happiness that jumped around her like speeding atoms. She was so overwhelmed by the wonders of this place that she didn’t realize the panic everyone had written on their expressions. The girl was dying.

“Her heart would always be incomplete, but on that morning, the whole wide world saw it. Her heart wasn’t… right. The mother offered the little girl a tiny, pink teddy bear, and said, ‘If you survive, you can have this.’ The woman and her spouse were taken away from their dying child, and the girl was brought into a room for surgery.

“When she noticed what was happening, the girl stood completely still. She knew she was destined to die. She was ready to give up, and so, she waited patiently until it was her time to let go.

“But she made it. She made it through the surgery, and she was brought home on Valentines day. She got the teddy bear, she was healthy... and everyone around her thought that they was her hero. An artificial valve did not save her, however, and neither did the stuffed animal bribe.

“A handsome stranger saved this girl. Before Death kissed her, the girl saw a man, and she felt at home. She thought to herself, ‘I have a place in this wretched world. There’s someone out there who loves me, and I have to find them.’

“She fought through, and she never gave up again. She knew that she had to find this stranger and love him correctly.”

“What’s this stranger’s name?”

I smiled when his enchanting, unblemished title escaped from my lips. “Ryan.”

Sam nodded, grinning slightly. “He sounds like a fantastic guy.”

“He really is.”

“So that’s why he’s considered your dream? The memory was unrealistic to you?”

“In a way, yes. I saw him in a memory that I lived like a dream.”

“You gave up everything to go and find him…”

“Yeah. Though, I didn’t have much to lose in the first place.”

“You have something now, though, don’t you?”

“A friend, a ride, and the road ahead of me, which is leading to my true home. Yes, I have a lot to be proud of now. Thanks again, Sam.”

He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“What’s the one thing that keeps you fighting?”

“Ryan.”

“And what is he?”

“He’s everything. To me, anyway.”

“No, no. What are you chasing?”

“A dream.”

“And dreams are…?”

“They simply do not exist without the human mind.”

Sam beamed.

“What?”

“Without your amazing mind, you wouldn’t have a dream like that.”

“Are you still trying to prove to me that I’m brilliant?”

“Obviously. I mean, look at you. Ryan wouldn’t have any effect on you whatsoever if you never remembered that memory. You couldn’t compare him to anything.”

“Even without that memory, I would have loved him.” I was getting a little angry at Sam for doubting my love for Ryan, and I wasn’t appreciating how calm he was on that matter.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Look at it this way. My life consisted of people continuously getting close to me, only to break my heart into smaller shards. I didn’t want anyone else to hurt me, so I shut myself away, and never let anyone read my story. When I met Ryan, all of my fears meant nothing. He didn’t have to read my story, because he knew who I was. He figured me out before he could even glance at the first page. I let him come close - I let him read my story from its original copy - because I love him.”

Sam was quiet for a while. Sometimes, he reminded me of one of my middle school friends.

Finally, he asked, “Did he show you a land made of wonders?”

“No. We created a land of wonders, and we rule it together.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yeah. Well… not for long.”

Sam slammed on the brakes, which made the bus lurch forward. My stomach followed the action.

“You’re pregnant?” His voice was filled with terror.

“What? No… we were just thinking about having children one day…”

Sam sighed and placed his hand on his heart. “Oh… geez, woman, you had me scared. I didn’t think someone as young as you would try to have kids during such a catastrophe.”

“I know a girl who had twins when she was eight years old.”

“Ouch…”

“Yeah, really.”

“No, I don’t mean ouch. I mean… good gosh, wh-... how did an eight year old bear all of that?”

“Sometimes a girl can get pregnant during her first period. If you can bleed, you can breed.”

Sam’s nose ruffled up like sheets that needed ironing. “Man, that would be quite an experience.”

“Agreed… and it really sucks when the children literally don’t have a father. They couldn’t even be called mistakes.”

“What would you call them?”

“Angels.”

“Why’s that?”

“They came out of nowhere. They don’t have a true father, and to be honest, they don’t really have much of a mother, either… they were brought to life with a fault that we don’t look deeply into.”

“Tell me something, TB. Do you have an exclamation for the hidden wonders of our world?”

“I guess you could call it that. I believe that everything that we need to know is hidden in the simple things. We’re trying to find a way to explore space - we believe that there’s something out there that can tell us everything we need to know about the creation of our dimension. Me? I think we’re looking in the worst places. We’re thinking too hard about it. Would the Creator really be that easy on us? Would They just let us believe that Their secrets are hidden in the most complex things? No, I think not. I think that They are hiding Their secrets in the places where we will never look.”

“Do you believe these Angels have a part in this?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I do believe things that most people do not, but that does not make them correct. Remember what I told you yesterday? I don’t use facts in my theories - I use my thoughts, for they are more true to me than any fact will ever be.”

“You managed to persuade me that your theory is right, and you didn’t use a single fact?”

“I only used the facts of my mind.”

“Seriously, you don’t think you’re brilliant?”

“I don’t believe it, no. That is my personal opinion. I’d make a theory about it, but I have no intelligent way of exclaiming why I am so ignorant.”

Sam snorted. “Wow.”

A roll of thunder barked at us, tapping its bony fingers on the disconcerting windows. We stopped talking and listened to the songs of the vexed seas.

I placed my head against the glass, and for once, it didn’t hurt. It felt like a pillow. Slowly, my eyes surrendered, and I drifted off into a familiar dream.

*     *     *

It all happened too quickly, and at first, I thought I was still asleep. There was an ear-piercing crunch, a blunder, and a sudden mechanical sigh. I opened my eyes and rubbed them.

Everything was a blur for a while. My mind couldn’t keep up with what was going on, but it was right there in front of me, clear as day. Finally, I could see clearly.

Multiple windows were broken, and all of my luggage had slipped to the right and trapped me behind my seat. My leg was caught underneath the one in front of me, which had one of its iron legs broken. It was extremely painful… the pressure on my foot was just straight-out irritating.

For a moment, I just kind of sat there, wondering how the heck I got caught up in a situation like this. I leaned my back onto the edge of the seat behind me, but I flinched as soon as I did so.

Cursing underneath my breath, I turned my head to see what had caused that sudden prick of pain. The window beside me was cracked, and some of the shards that happened to find their way out of the sill had merged themselves into the back of my right arm.

I reached back and grabbed a shard by the edge. I hated pulling things out of my skin, but if I let it stay in there, it could cause a whole lot more harm. Clenching my teeth, I pulled the piece of glass out of my arm, which left a pretty nasty cut behind to dye my skin an aggravated red.

I searched around for some other shards, but I eventually gave up and lifted the back of my shirt up to see if I could spot any red patches. I was covered up with my own luggage, so even if Sam came by, he wouldn’t see me.

It took me about fifteen minutes to gather enough courage to pull six fragments of glass out of my arm and two slivers out of my back. I’m a strange person, so I ended up holding down on my cuts until I stopped bleeding. After I managed to clot the wounds, I remembered that something made me wake up from my sleep, and I glanced back up at the window beside me.

My mind clicked when I saw what was left of the fractured chunks of glass clinging to the window sill, and immediately, I called, “Sam?”

I didn’t hear a response. Slightly panicked, I placed my hands against the seat in front of me and pushed. Once my leg was free from the grasp of the old-blue-man-chin, I pushed my luggage aside and glanced up the isle.

Shattered pieces of glass laid lifeless on the metal floor. They looked so peaceful there… I actually wanted to join them in their stillness, because what I saw next was absolutely terrifying.

A tree reached into the front of the bus, puncturing through not only the glass, but through Sam. By instinct, I lifted my hand and cupped it around my mouth, utterly in shock. “No.”

The bus groaned. The cold walls were scattered with slits, and a branch poked through each one. One, two, three, four… four branches. One of them - the biggest one - had gotten ahold of Sam, and it forced its way through his stomach.

Crimson tears poured out of his chest like a slow, endless river. Frightened, I got up from my seat and stumbled up the pathway. The scene seemed to be even less believable as I edged closer.

Blue lips. Pinkish-pale cheeks. Limp body. I swallowed, my head pounding and my heart wheezing. “Wake up,” I cried quietly.

Nothing. Sam’s head was pressed up against his neck, as if he wanted to see through the ceiling and peer up at the ocean. He didn’t move. “Wake up. Please, Sam. You have to see the sunlight with me. We’re almost there, I promise!”

I kept talking to him until my whisper turned into a shout, and soon I didn’t even know what I was saying. Sadness turned into anger, anger turned into insanity, and insanity turned back into depression. I didn’t know how to feel.

My hands found their way to my head, and I gave myself a squeeze. This can’t be happening. He’s not gone - he can’t be! What caused all of this? Suddenly, a thought passed my mind.

“Well… I want to get you to Texas as soon as possible. I’ll stop the bus when I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.”

That’s it. He must’ve been speeding, and he got too tired. He fell asleep behind the wheel. The vehicle lost control, spun off of the road, and ran into the tree. Because of his ambition, Sam laid there in his seat, lifeless.

I fell backwards, the edge of a seat catching me before I hit the metal floor. People told me that when you’re scared, you’ll scream and run away. That isn’t true, though.

When you’re truly scared, you can’t control yourself. You can’t blink. You feel like there’s a large pit of quicksand stuck in your throat, and the more you try to scream, the more you drown in your own grainy fear.

I tried my best to stay still, but my body was so shocked and unprepared for such an event that I couldn’t stop shaking. The air grew hot - so hot that I was unable to breathe it.

My fingers clenched into fists, my eyes closed shut, and every single part of me trembled with a mixture of fear, indignation, anxiety, disbelief, and uncontrollable depression.

With one final gasp for thin air, I decided to let myself go. The tears poured out like rain, and they didn’t stop until I couldn’t cry anymore. Even then, I threw my fists at the floor, banging against them as loudly as possible, trying to stop myself from looking back at Sam.

Twice, I’ve encountered the face of death. I cried a little the first time, and the second time, I just stared. This was different. I knew what it was like to lose someone close to you. He wasn’t a stranger and he wasn’t a friend… he was like a part of a real family to me.

Picking myself up, I placed my tear-soaked hands on top of the wood in front of Sam. I had to get him out of there.

Leaving him behind to rot in his old bus was something I could never let myself do. While the flames roared from my grey eyes, I grasped onto the wood and pulled it back, using all of my might.

Every time I took a break to catch my breath, the branch sunk back into its place in Sam’s stomach. I pierced my nails through the first layer of bark, clenching my teeth and pulling again. Blood continued to drip from both my hands and the corpse beside me.

After several minutes and countless splinters, I managed to rip the branch away from Sam. His head fell forward in what seemed like slow motion. Winching, I placed my now-red hands on his shoulders to keep him from falling over.

I stood there for a while, heaving. Pulling a large branch out of a man’s chest was harder than it looked. After I caught my breath, I placed him gently on the floor of the bus. I had to run to the back and grab a towel so he wouldn’t bleed everywhere.

After I wrapped his wounds up with a few towels, I tried to pick him up. This task was also harder than it looked - the middle-aged man was at least one hundred and fifty pounds. Grunting, I managed to get him out of the vehicle and onto the grass beside the road.

Outside, the air felt warm and still. It was the familiar vibe that we all got when the sun was going down. How long did he plan on driving? I wondered, glancing down at Sam’s face.

I wasn’t too far from Texas, but I had to push that thought aside for now. This was a time for mourning… I had to pay my respects to Sam.

The problem was that I had no way of burying him. Unless he was crazy enough to carry a shovel on the bus, I didn’t have a clue on how to make the funeral.

It was strange, really… I knew for a fact that Sam was dead, but I couldn’t realize what that meant. In my brain, I knew that he was gone, but in my heart? That was a completely different story.

I was about to ask him why I felt that way, but I remembered that he wouldn’t have any useful responses. Still, I didn’t feel a tug on my heart. I just felt dumb.

A breeze whipped by, biting at the tips of my fingers with its freezing fangs. Shivering, I hugged myself and looked down the road we came from. The grey sky was being replaced with a color that was darker than black, meaning that night was going to fall soon.

I remembered the night before. Around this time, Sam would be out and about, searching for sticks and twigs for the fire pit. I didn’t want to leave him just laying there, but what else could I do?

I stood up from the ground and dusted the debris from my knees. Believe it or not, but even after two and a half years of building, there was more dirt in this world than man-made establishments. I sighed, stepping into a small forest of oak and pine trees.

It wasn’t much of a forest, but it couldn’t be called an open space, either - trees scattered the hill like dots on a dalmatian puppy. I spent a few minutes picking the twigs from the branches and the ground.

I took five trips to the trees before deciding I had enough fuel. When I came back to Sam, the skies were already dead. Clouds roamed helplessly on them like lost souls.

It reminded me of something I learned back in grade school. We were studying Greek Mythology, and the subject for the day was Hades. We were told that he rode on a boat that went across a river, which was entirely made out of death. Souls tried to climb onto the boat at times, and whenever they weren’t grasping for freedom, they were laying inside themselves, just waiting for their eternal sleep to begin.

I glanced down at Sam with a slight frown. I wonder if he’s lost, too. If I look up into the sky, can I see him? Can I see his cloud?

I gave up on that idea soon enough, though. If I didn’t build this fire pit, I might freeze to death. I placed a few stones around in a circle so I could remember where the actual pit was going to be. Afterwards, I placed a few twigs in the circle, took a lighter from Sam’s pocket - I knew he was a smoker - and lit a ragged piece of paper before tossing it into the mess.

I cupped my hands around my mouth and blew on the embers, and soon enough, the tiny sparks turned into aggressive flames. How I longed to taste the gross combination of bonfire smoke and cake icing again.

The cakes would never taste the same, though. There wasn’t a point in eating them without Sam. I glanced at him every now and then, waiting for him to wake up and puke in the bushes like he did earlier that morning.

I was waiting for nothing, though. How long would it take for me to realize that? I was alone now. No more roasted cakes. No more songs. No more stories. The world was pitch black, and I felt like I was in Charlotte again… I was completely by myself.

Amber lights flashed across Sam’s paling face, creating a new generation of fireworks in his dead eyes. I reached over to close them, but something made me pause. I never really looked at his eyes, but now that I can see them up close, I realize how sad they look.

Blueish-green eyes, scruffy blonde hair, a polite face… I stopped, my hand lurching backwards. He looked awfully familiar.

After looking at him closely for a few more minutes, I realized that no, this wasn’t my old friend from middle school. Number one, it wouldn’t make sense age-wise, and number two, Sam has a rougher look to him than my old friend did.

Besides, I’m pretty sure he got a better job than a bus driver. He’s probably running up against the broken society and trying to fix our own faults. Seems like something he would do.

I sighed and closed Sam’s eyes. Seriously, I needed to find a way to bury him. Glancing around, the only thing I spotted was the darkness. “Please don’t judge me for this. I have no other choice.”

With a frustrated mumble, I covered up Sam’s body with his towels and nudged him next to the bus. It creeped me out, but for tonight, I had to sleep outside near a corpse of a loved one. After scooting away as far as I could but still staying near the warmth of the fire, I curled up in a pathetic ball and closed my eyes.

I could almost hear Sam say,

“Good night, thief.”

Author's Note

If you see any grammar or spelling mistakes, please tell me. Also, if you liked this piece, I'd love to see what you think about it. Thanks! c: