by T. Rudacille
***
The Bachums' devotion to a higher power had certainly paid off for them. They moved north quickly with nothing but their luggage and whatever supplies they could carry. I cannot imagine how they survived the biting cold unless a miracle had been bestowed upon them by God or the Gods. After a day of walking, our heightened immune systems were crashing, leaving us open to frostbite and unknown Pangaean diseases. I could not help but worry for our lives.
“We have to stop!” Elijah shouted to Don as the wind and snow cast an almighty shield between us and the Bachums. “We have to camp for the night, Don!”
Don turned around to observe the “soldiers” in whom he had such pride. Several were stumbling along, shivering so violently they appeared to be seizing. Ones who could not walk were being carried; James and I were pulling Wes between us. No matter how aggravating the boy’s repulsively foul sense of humor was, we could not leave him behind to die in the snow.
“No!” Don called back to us, “They could pass by here! They'll kill us all!”
“We don't have a choice!” Christina, another woman who had joined our cause, shouted furiously, “We need to wait until this storm passes!”
“We need to keep going!” Don yelled insistently, “Come on! We can make it!”
“You're wrong!” Christina's son, Derek, bellowed in a rage that matched his mother's. In fact, they were even standing in identical poses of anger.
“Just start pitching the tents!” I called over the howling wind, “He'll stop!”
I was surprised that everyone obeyed my command immediately. Of course, my order was the more popular of the two. Of course they would follow it. I caught Don's scowl. Instead of shrinking back as I am sure most would have after seeing the overly emotional performance he churned out the night before, I stared back, my eyes blazing with a fire that far surpassed his.
Don and I were no longer seeing eye to eye. Gone were the moments of levity between us. He was well aware now that I was becoming the more popular leader between the two of us. I understood what people wanted, needed, feared, and loved far more than he was capable of knowing. I could not help but smile to myself. Immediately, I erased the smirk from my face out of fear that it would freeze there. I reached up to feel my nose and gasped in pain at my own touch.
“Please don't hit me with that.” I managed to gasp out to James as he got ready to hammer the stake for the tent into the ground.
“No. You haven't made me that mad yet. You try to steal the blankets tonight like you always do, though…”
Even in the worst circumstantial binds, he managed to make jokes. I laughed and held onto the stake even more tightly. I only flinched the first time. After that, I knew that his hands were steady despite the cold, and he would not hurt me.
We crawled into the tent finally, watching as the canvas over our heads shook violently in the wind. My clothes were soaked through from the constant assault of snow and ice. I turned around to see him already peeling out of his equally saturated garments. I began to do the same.
“James!” I exclaimed in horror as I tried to unzip my light sweatshirt only to find that my fingers were no longer functional. He whipped around, his eyes wide in momentary terror. Upon finding me perfectly well except for the partial paralysis, he moved over to me.
“They're just cold, baby.”
The cold had weakened us both so terribly. Even whispering was painful. Every word jerked out of us as our bodies contorted in violent shivers. His blue-tinted lips worked into a frown of concentration as his fingers maneuvered around the zipper of my sweatshirt. He pulled it down slowly and then pushed the jacket off when the zipper finally broke apart. He pulled my shirt over my head with great effort, but the real challenge was getting my jeans off.
“How do you like these tight jeans now?” I gasped out, prompting him to laugh weakly.
“We really didn't think this through at all, did we? Going north... gets colder, right? Simplest concept... Baby, you're the genius... I blame you...”
“Shut up... James...” The laugh that escaped me almost brought me to my knees. I had never been so cold. I had not thought it possible for the body to withstand such extreme freezing. I did not understand how it was possible to survive such an assault on the sense of touch. My skin burned even as it froze, the perfect paradox...
“Come on.” He urged me softly. I stepped out of my jeans, holding onto his firm shoulders to keep from falling over. “That's it. Whoa, whoa!” My legs gave out beneath me, and my arms flew around his neck; I held on to avoid hitting the hard, frozen ground. He was on his knees, holding me around the middle.
“Easy, baby. Let's go.” He turned me sideways and let me collapse into his arms. Being so near death was provoking emotions in me. Luckily, my tear ducts seemed to have frozen shut, forever locking my rare tears inside. My frozen tears stuck in place forever were a permanent, tangible reminder of something I had always known: I could not cry. How ironic...
James made sure that I was deep inside the sleeping bag before he crawled in beside me. I cuddled up against his chest and locked my trembling arms around him. His were around me, too, holding me snugly.
“Remember when I commented on your chivalry?” I whispered to him.
“Yeah.”
“You just proved it again.”
Another laugh. A kiss on my forehead.
“I try to make up for all the times when I'm a dog, remember? It’s just…” He shuddered for a minute, “…good karma.”
“Good to know.” I whispered, “James…” My voice rose suddenly as fear began to fill my chest with a cold almost as deadly as the stinging air outside of our tent. I would be nothing but a solid block of ice soon; I had always been so cold internally, ever since I was young and made the decision not to feel. Now I would be frozen externally as well. How ironic…
“Shh…” James whispered, “We’re alright, baby. Everything is going to be okay.”
I shook my head, cringing when my muscles, also frozen, were forced to jerk back to life with the movement.
“This is it. We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
He kissed my forehead and held me to him even more tightly.
“You’re asking me? You’re the one who knows everything.”
“I don’t see anything right now. That can’t be a comforting sign, can it?”
“We’re immortal. Can we die?”
“I feel like I’m dying. So yes, I suppose we can.”
“Just keep talking. Just stay awake.” He urged me, “We’re going to get through…”
His silence alarmed me. I sat up, turning our bodies so he was lying beneath me. I grasped his face in my numb, almost unmovable hands.
“James?” I shook him only slightly. My strength was failing. I could summon not even a quarter of the power I was able to wield normally. I wanted to lay my head on his chest, close my eyes, and let destiny have its way with us both. I did not want to fight anymore, in any sense. I did not want to awaken the following morning to continue our trek to the Bachum camp. I did not want to fight this war Adam had started. I understood that exterminating the other side was our only chance of living an immortal life on Pangaea. If we wanted peace, we had to earn it. Though surely, there had to be another way. There had to be a way for us to exist harmoniously. But then, was there really? The Bachums and their mindless followers hated us for what we were. We resented their hate. While we lived by Don’s lack of rules, they lived under too many rules to count. We were too different to coexist.
Hadn’t that always been the way, even on Earth?
“James, wake up!” My voice broke in the effort it took to speak passionately. I was begging him now, the fear in my heart so strong, I believed it would kill me long before the cold could. I could not lose him now. I could not bear to be without him. I loved him. I needed him. As I tried to wake him, I realized that I no longer felt any shame in how desperately I needed him or how deeply I loved him.
&nbs
p; How many more were clutching their loved ones in the tents that surrounded us, watching as they breathed their last breaths? How many would we have lost by the following morning? Don’s fight would have to be postponed if our number was eradicated by the frigid conditions. But I did not care about Don’s war. I only cared about James, Elijah, and the people who had become my friends. We had family back at the house that had become our home. Violet, Penny… What would happen to them?
An exhausting surge of warmth erupted between James and me, manifesting where our bodies were touching. I closed my eyes and laid my head against his chest. I grasped his firm shoulders, pleading with the God I did not believe in to spare us. I had never thought about dying before. I realized that the thought provoked the same childish terror in me that was felt by all living creatures as they faced the end. We are bred with the will to survive at all costs. Death is the endgame we all seek to avoid, even if the effort to live will be what kills us in the end. It is universal. It is a malignant truth.
I was hallucinating, surely. The warmth between us was simply a physical manifestation of the love I had in my heart for him. It was the tangible intangibility of the feeling that filled me up when he kissed me, held me, or even said my name. God or Gods, I loved that man, foolishly and recklessly, but brilliantly as well…
“I have to tell you something.” His voice whispered in my ear. I opened my eyes to find that we were lying side by side in the sleeping bag once again. His brown eyes were shaded by his drooping eyelids; he was struggling for consciousness, trying so desperately to watch over me with a vigilance that had long been weakened by unimaginable exhaustion.
I shushed him now, begging him with the sound to stay quiet when only before I had been begging him to speak. I had not the strength that was needed to talk anymore. The warmth between us was a blanket so snug and soothing that I could not resist the temptation of sleep. Whatever was left of my strength was used to turn my head up so I could kiss his cracked, freezing lips.
“I have to tell you. I should have told you…”
“You love me. That’s all I need…”
I fell away into that seductive sleep.
