Where We Go | Book Three

4. Simplicity and Complexity

The water swirled and beckoned, tempting me with every brush of its surface against my skin. Small goosebumps raised against my arms, and I looked up. The night was eternally vast and stars glittered like they had appeared just for me. Each one of them was bright and clear, commanding the space around them. They were everything. Fascinatingly familiar but, at the same time, like I'd never seen them before. They were endless in their beauty, in their simplicity and complexity.

If I stepped further into the beckoning pool, that sparkling night would be lost.

I would be lost.

My toes danced at the edge, but I didn't dare look down at the water. Though, it was cool against my skin and soothed the heat that raged within. Still, I didn't look at that deep expanse.

Like the stars, I wished to be endless.

I reached a finger out, stretching towards the night. My skin touched the sky and there was satin at my fingertip. Like fabric shifting, the stars began to rain down like crystals, shattering at my feet. Bright light erupted around me and I covered my face, squeezing my eyes closed.

"Em?" that soft voice said again. The sound was around me now, intertwined with the light and too clear to be distant. I wanted it to speak again, wanted to be able to follow it back to where it came from.

"Please," he spoke.

I latched onto the voice with everything I had left. Following it away from the water and that beautiful falling sky.

The world returned to me. Like lifting my head from underwater, I could finally breathe. Air flushed my lungs and I inhaled deeper, wanting more, needing more. My lids opened and several faces stared back at me, each bearing the same frightened expression.

"Em?" Ben said, the familiar voice I'd heard. The voice that had pulled me back.

My voice was barely a whisper, "Hey."

I was sitting on the road, my back against the passenger side of the truck. Chris exhaled a sigh of relief and raised his hands to his head, turning towards the forest. The trees were only a short distance away, and after spending days and nights wandering amongst them, I could truly see them now. All their hidden details and their silent beauty; the small cracks in the bark where insects would crawl and forage, the tiny bite marks in the leaves from creatures you never saw, and the tiny streams at the base of roots that would never be given a second look.

"Em, you need to stop almost dying..." Chris looked at me, his face still pale. "You're going to give me a heart attack."

I barely shrugged. "Sorry."

"You worry too much," Pilot said, wrapping an arm around Chris' shoulder. "Em always pulls through."

A grip on my hand tightened, Ben's. His eyes were wide, his expression cautious. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

I knew he didn't believe me when I said, "I'm okay... I think."

I turned my head and Julia caught my eye from the backseat. Before, I remembered she had looked tired, weakening by the minute as her body failed. Now, her eyes narrowed, her brows furrowing as she tried to read my face.

"What?" I said quietly.

She pursed her lips before she spoke. "We only ever saw that kind of response from you once before," she said.

"When?"

"When your dosage was too high..." She looked around to the others who were now avoiding her darkened stare. "So, is anyone going to tell me what happened?"

I turned to Ben who was looking down at the road. "We gave Em another dose," he said, barely lifting his head. His dark hair hung, covering his face and he didn't bother to brush it from his eyes.

"Why?"

"Why?" he scowled, meeting her stare. "Because that smoke nearly killed her, and you were dying too... It was all we had."

Julia looked at me, her eyes moving over my face like she was reading invisible words on my skin.

"I feel fine," I said. It wasn't a lie, for the most part. Besides the exhaustion, I wasn't sure if I felt anything at all. 

"Did I do the wrong thing?" Ben asked quietly.

Julia shook her head. "The effects of the dose should ease... Just be careful for the next 24 hours, Em, or God knows what we'll have to deal with."

Ben took my weight as he helped me into the backseat of the truck. Pilot had swapped places and drove with Ben in the passenger seat beside him.

After an hour of fighting sleep, worrying that if I did, I might not wake up, Ben spoke. "Are you not tired?" he asked Pilot. He was the only one who had seemed to have remained alert after everything, his stare unshifting from the road.

"Never have been able to fall asleep on the road," he answered. "The drive keeps me focused."

The others slept. They had shifted themselves and moved positions as the journey got bumpier but to me, the winding trees were somewhat comforting. Julia's head rested on Chris' shoulder. Her chest rose and fell slowly and gentle snores escaped her parted lips. Chris on the other hand, didn't look half as peaceful. His body was half twisted, his neck craned at an awkward angle as Sophia still slumped in his lap, lying across the both of us.

"What about you?" Pilot asked. "Shouldn't you be trying to sleep?"

Ben scoffed. "If my brain would stop for a second, maybe I would... Doesn't seem like that's going to happen anytime soon."

I pretended to be asleep as Pilot's neck turned. My head rested against the window where the rhythmic vibrations shook my brain. "She's alive," he said quietly. "She's ok."

"But for how long?" he whispered. "A day? A week? A month? How long do we have?"

"How about you stop worrying about what might happen and start being grateful for what you have now?"

There was a pause where only the rumbling engine filled the silence. When Ben finally spoke, his voice trembled. "I'm scared that if I do, that feeling won't last long."

Pilot released a breath. "Chris was right about you."

"About what?"

The fabric of the chair shuffled as he moved, adjusting himself. "You really think you have to save everybody."

I didn't need my eyes to be open to know the look on Ben's face, the pained expression that must've held his features.

A shaky breath escaped his lips before his words. "Because this is still all my fault... And I can't fix it."

Their voices seemed to fade as the exhaustion began to take over, my body finally giving in. I couldn't even try and force myself to stay awake anymore, I was numb to it all. The darkness crowded my lids like a heavy blanket resting against my eyes and I began to slip, letting myself fall, once again, into the void.