by E. L. Giles
“It’s getting out of control!” I yell between sobs.
Josh gets on his feet, looks me over, and places himself at my right, shielding me from anything that comes from the stage or the square. I hear the rustling of feathers and feel the tickling on my skin as Josh stretches a wing that covers me from the small of my back down to my feet.
“Hold on,” he says, “Dolores will check over it later.”
“Dolores will check over it later.” The thought that there’s any possibility to see Dolores, that Josh believes in it, fills me with a new energy. This energy drowns out the pain, drowns out the stress and the anguish, the terror and the apprehension.
The body of the lead guard is there, his pistol a few inches from Josh’s hands now. He stretches out an arm, his fingers brushing the edge of its barrel. Heavy footsteps hurry toward us. I turn my head and with horror find a unificator rushing at us, gun aimed at Josh. For some reason, he stops short, halfway through a step, face contorted in a weird pout while staring into space. An instant later, he slumps onto the deck, blood spreading around his stomach.
I crane my head over Josh and look everywhere around the stage and the crowd. No shooters can be seen. He’s either out of sight or already dead. Across the many detonations occurring all at once from pistols, rifles, and bombs, finding the source of the murderous bullet that took down the soldier remains impossible.
“I got it!” exclaims Josh, turning his head toward me as I slip back to my position.
He rolls onto his back and then into a sitting position. The breeze brushes through his tousled hair, pulling the strands away from his face, except for a few that stick to his bloodied and sweaty face.
“Calm down, Josh,” I soothe him.
Josh pauses a second, clenches his teeth, and stares at the chain and the braided cable that locks us together. Josh spreads his legs until the chain is bent, then leans over his knees, reaches the barrel of the pistol to the chain, and pulls the trigger. The detonation is deafening as it breaks the chain with a spark, and for a moment, while Josh slips the chain off his ankles, I hear nothing but the ringing in my ears.
“Your turn,” he says to me, his voice resonating weirdly across the noise in my ears. I guess he’s as muted as I am and doesn’t hear himself as he speaks now, because we barely stand six inches apart from each other.
Josh leans over my legs, bends the chain away from me, and turns his head toward me, waiting for me to give him the go-ahead. I clap my hands over my ears and nod. The muffled detonation sounds, the chain breaks with a spark, and Josh carefully slips the chain from my ankles, taking great care around the swollen one. It’s the first time since we’ve been on the stage that I even think of it.
“We’ll take them off later,” Josh says, still yelling as he weaves the chain around his wrists.
Josh helps me to my feet, and we run half-crouched toward the wall that borders this side of the stage.
“What’s the shortest way to get out of here?” Josh asks as I rub my throbbing ankle.
I notice how fast his breath is coming, like mine is now, galloping in my chest; out of control. Slowly, the realization that we are free from our restraints makes its way to my brain, and I process what Josh said a moment before. It’s time to fly away. But…
“I—I don’t know,” I say.
It’s all rushing too fast in my head. I’m having a hard time focusing. My thoughts are on the city map, but I don’t seem to see it clearly. The districts, the streets, the river; it’s all fogged up. I can’t seem to think of anything else than my ride out of the city, down to the Retirement Center, and the river we followed then. The river…it is the shortest path to get to the fence.
“West. We must head west and cross the river from District 2,” I say, pointing a finger more or less in the direction we should head.
“How far?”
“Uh…thirty, maybe thirty-five miles at most.”
“That’s one hell of a journey,” he says darkly.
Bullets continue to fly all around and fill my ears with the distinct sound they produce when hitting something. The stage is covered with broken cement and shattered glass, bodies of guards and blood and shells. As soon as guards come out of the door through which President Nightingale has escaped, they are instantly taken down under the gunfire of unknown origin. I crane my head over the monitor that blocks my sight from the square. The vision I get is dreary.
Explosive devices are being thrown in every direction, even toward the walls of the building at the edge of the square. As they explode, they spread liquid fire, setting everything around them ablaze—cement, wood, metal, human. Everything. Guards continue to arrive at the edge of the square, both from the east and the west. All armed with automatic rifles that take down dozens of people in one single burst of gunfire. Everything is pure chaos. I see dozens of people trying to shove their way to safety, clapping their hands over their heads.
Through the smoke and the cries, there are nearly a hundred black flags that rise over the gathering, and still, more continue to appear. I notice a group of about ten men in dark clothes, carrying wounded and bloodied people and everyone who tried to escape to safety up through an opening in the building at the far side of the square.
“It’s war,” I manage to say as I turn around and sit back beside Josh.
Dread makes breathing a challenge, my lungs crushed under my constricted chest and air cannot enter them anymore. Panic is festering my senses. I’m trapped in place, without being able to move anymore. How many dead will be mourned after this? How many wounded will not be treated soon enough? How many of them will bleed out? Too many, I fear. Should we stay and help them?
“Lisa, it’s not our war,” Josh says as a bullet hits the wall over our heads, spreading dust and rubble over us. “Lisa, we must go. NOW!”
He wraps an arm around my back and gets up, lifting me off the ground with disconcerting ease. How much longer will I still be shocked and amazed by his strength? I wrap my arms around his neck as he stretches his wings out, flapping them slowly at first. I rest my head in the gap between his shoulder and his neck. I’m in my favorite spot now, and I feel complete again.
The flapping intensifies, and my feet don’t touch the concrete anymore. Bursts of air blow into my ears and my eyes. For a moment, I hear nothing more than Josh breathing, the whipping sound of his wings. Everything else—the bombing, the gunfire, the cries—it all disappears, and closing my eyes, I forget they exist. The muscles of his chest are already tight with his efforts, bending and stretching with every movement. And then a cry, surrounding everything, travels through my ears and echoes painfully down into the pit of my stomach.
We slowly fall, twirling over ourselves, the flapping of his wings slowing and slowing again until the ground meets us with a blow that takes my breath away. I open my eyes. For a moment, it’s all black. I see nothing. And then a halo of light spreads through my tunnel vision. There are dozens of halos of light now, like thistles flying over me. The waring noise makes its way back into my buzzing ears.
“Josh!” I cry, rolling over toward him.
Josh lies on his back, coughing, his wings spread at weird angles. A thin stream of blood flows out of his opened mouth. I hurry over to him, my knees slipping in a growing pool of blood that comes from his side.
“Josh, look at me,” I say. “Look at me.”
He raises his eyes to mine and says, “Lisa…you must go…save yourself.”
“No. I won’t leave you here. We belong together, have you forgotten?” I say through the growing sobs. “I must find help.”
Josh reaches for my hand as I get up. “I refuse…to let...you die too,” he says again, his voice feeble.
“No, you will not die. I will find help. I refuse to let you die.”
I stand there, looking in every direction. There must be a way out. There must be help for us somewhere. Maybe the group of rebels that led the wounded outside the square. They might help us.
>
I look over the crowd in the square, in search for them. My gaze falls on even more bombings, more fires, more gunfire, more blood, and unstoppable chaos. And through the black smoke that rises from the edge of the square, I stop on the red spot of a rifle’s laser waving around me.
I jerk, seeing a flash out of the corner of my eye, and then I feel nothing. My right cheek, my temple, my nose, and my brow all go numb. But why is my sight narrowed? I reach a hand up and brush it against my skin—my bloodied and rumpled skin. I feel nothing more than viscous lumps of flesh on the tips of my fingers, but my face feels nothing.
A sudden wave of pain emanates from my chest the second I hear another bang piercing through the deafening madness. My breath is instantly taken away from me, black spots spreading before my only eye. The moment after, I’m lying on the concrete flooring of the stage, gasping for air.
I feel weak, so weak as the world around me disappears slowly. With what remains of my vanishing strength, I twist my head until Josh appears in my blurry vision. I stretch a trembling arm, grip the dirt and the rubble, and crawl up to him. Every effort is twice as difficult as it should be. Every breath brings me closer to death and pulls me away from him, away from my Josh. I must hold on. It’s like when I tried to grab the knife in the kitchen, back when I awoke from my escape.
I crawl, I squirm, and I manage my way, teeth gritted, despite the growing pain. A shiver trembles through his hand as he stretches it toward me. I stretch out mine. We lace our fingers together, and he pulls me to him with what must be the only strength left in his body.
We lie on our sides facing each other, less than an inch apart. Josh reaches his hand to my hair and pulls a strand over the right side of my face. I force the growing blackness of my sight to withdraw for a short moment. The last time I see Josh, his face is no longer contorted, and his eyes are set on mine. He smiles, showing a row of perfect, straight teeth, though they are tainted with red.
“Till death do us part, you said,” he murmurs, barely above a sigh. “All we have to do is close our eyes and let it all go together.”
I squeeze his fingers into mine. “I love you, Josh,” I say.
“I love you, Lisa,” he answers, and I feel him place one last kiss on my lips. “And…sleep well.”
My handsome boy closes his eyes. I shut mine, and before locking my lips to his, I say “Goodnight.”
I am Juliet, he is Romeo, and we are dying. I don’t know if our death will ever bring peace. I won’t be there to see it.
Our time has come. And I let go of myself.
The End
Thank you so much for reading my debut novel, The Birdman Project. I hope you enjoyed it and will leave a review. I greatly appreciate every single one of them! Also, please feel free to email me with any questions, comments or ideas that you would like to see our beloved characters run into next. You can reach me at [email protected]
Book two, Martyrs is available on Amazon now and book three is expected in 2020! Please check out my page at ForeverMorrisPublishing.com for information on my upcoming books and events or find me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/elgilesauthor
Eric, born in Quebec, Canada, began writing music and lyrics at the young age of 15. Seventeen years later, he started writing short stories, from which his debut novel, The Birdman Project, was born. The Birdman Project is the first installment in a series of three books. Forever Morris Publishing, LLC published The Birdman Project in 2018, which will be followed shortly by the second and third installments in the series.
For as long as he can remember, Eric has been inspired to tell stories. When he writes music, for example, it's always in the form of a conceptual album. Otherwise, it's difficult for him to connect with the music, making it feel as if he only has a collection of random notes and deconstructed lyrics. He needs the bigger picture; he needs something to make his audience become lost in another world. Eric wants his music to be a whole new experience for anyone listening. The same way, he strives to make his writing envelope readers into the story, making them part of the characters’ journey.
Eric is also passionate about cinema. While watching movies or shows, stories and various scenarios build in his mind causing an unquenchable desire to express what he feels about the outlines his brain compiles. Writing became that outlet.
Eric is also tempestuous when it comes to history, and how humankind evolved, or didn't, depending on how you look at it. He has always been inspired by strong, negative emotions such as death, sickness, and tragedy which Eric considers to be the strongest ones anyone can feel. He tries to tap into those feelings when he is creating his stories and building his characters. He wants the readers to feel the pain and loss the characters feel as if it were their own.
Finally, Eric is the father of two boys, and a husband although he is not married. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering technology and currently works in the Water Treatment field. His favorite hobbies are to find new projects, which drives his girlfriend crazy. He is always up for something new whether it is building his own recording studio, renovating their home, or writing novels. The list seems to be endless, and Eric's greatest fear is not having enough time to do the interminable tasks he is continuously dreaming up.
