Project ELE
Page 28
CHAPTER 1 (THE FIRST DAY OUTSIDE)
"MOM!" No, this can't be happening! My mom is not bleeding out on this mountainside. Not when I just found her again!
I sit up and examine the damage. Like ink on paper, the crimson red stain slowly grows larger and larger in diameter. I do my best to ignore the chaos of the war that is happening all around me. My mom's breaths become ragged as she gasps greedily for air.
"No Mom, you need to hang on," I whisper. Tears blur my vision as I push her shirt away from the wound on the lower left side of her abdomen. Blood is pouring out of a small hole no larger than a dime.
A gunshot rings out just inches away from my ear. For a second I think I was the intended target but then a new body falls down next to my mom. It lies there, splayed at an unnatural angle. I sit paralyzed for a moment looking into the lifeless red eyes of a woman my mother's age.
The cold metal of a gun barrel presses up against my temple. "Move away from her." A man commands in a gruff voice.
I look up to see a young man, not much older than me, kneeling down next to my mom. His coppery red hair is drenched in sweat and he's covered in the rusty dirt that coats the mountainside. His eyes are the same nuclear yellow hue as my moms were. This thought wakes me up from my stupor. No, not were! Are! She will survive; she has to!
The man kneels down next to my mom to check her pulse with one hand while his other hand keeps the gun trained on my head. His eyes flash with a heavy sadness.
I brush the gun away from my head as if it were a fly and lean back over my mother.
"I said move away from her!" He orders me.
I look up at him with the most lethal stare I can muster and his mouth drops open. "What the...? Your eyes!" He stutters.
The last time I saw my reflection, my eyes had a multitude of colors swirling throughout them like a marble. They look otherworldly. I don't have time to assure him of my good intentions. My mom is dying as we speak!
"Do you mind?" I push his gun out of my face once again. "I can help her but I can't do it when you are pointing that thing at me!" Not waiting for his response, I look back down at my mom. She's stopped breathing. I place both of my hands over the wound in her side, praying it’s not too late. I close my eyes to concentrate and feel the silent tears slip past my lashes. I take several deep breaths to force my heart to return to a steady rhythm. I eventually find the ability to tune everything out and that's when I feel the power go out of me.
At first it feels like a slight tingle that moves through my body and out of my fingertips. Then it gradually increases, feeling almost like an electrical current flowing from me and into my mother. I take several deep breaths and focus all of my energy on healing her.
I've done this before, when my boyfriend was shot in the shoulder. It didn't feel like this though. I healed him with very little effort. Then again he had his own healing abilities. He also wasn't standing on death’s doorstep like my mother is.
My mom gasps a deep breath of air. It's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I open my eyes to find her staring at me with eyes the same intense yellow as the man with the gun. Her skin is still a sickly white so I push myself to the limits trying to exert all of my healing powers on her. I watch as life slowly filters more and more into her eyes and her cheeks glow pink with warmth.
"Willow." She says in a dry throaty whisper.
The man next to me is too enthralled to do anything more than watch in utter disbelief. For the last five minutes he was witness to the transformation of my mother coming back to life. She makes a small noise and it’s enough for him to be brought back to the present. He reaches into a pack on his side, pulls out a canteen and puts it up to my mother's mouth.
As if someone took the television off mute, the world around me erupts with the overpowering clamor of war. My head begins to spin as a splintering headache overtakes all of my senses. White stars dance in front of my eyes as my mother sits up looking at me with concern.
"We have to go. Now!" An urgent, all too familiar voice calls out behind me. I look back cringing as every inch of movement causes a new piercing pain to echo through my skull.
"Mr. Leroy?" I barely finish saying his name before a powerful pain blinds me. I feel myself crashing to the ground and then my world goes black.