39. Somewhere Close To Heaven

39. Somewhere Close To Heaven

Ruth

My eyes peel open tosee a yellow stream of chunky liquid. The lumps and fluid spew across the cold floor in front of me. There’s a hand on the back of my head, tilting me to the side. Another hand stroking my arm. A voice murmuring in my ear.

I catch the putrid scent of sour bile and food coming back up.

The sound of vomit splashing across the stone floor.

I groan in the base of my throat as the last bit bubbles up my throat, burning across my tongue and down my chin. Someone wipes my neck and mouth with soft material.

Everything is a blurry, black pit with figures shifting around me. They’re all so close yet so far away in the dizzy haze of my sight.

Signals of pain blast from my brain like a storm of radiation. I suck in a harsh breath, hissing through my teeth and throwing my head back in misery. A mix of fire and ice wrap around my legs, shooting acid up my hips and into my stomach. I must have the flu or strep throat. Maybe I was thrown off a cliff, breaking half the bones in my body.

I yelp before turning to vomit again. My hair is pulled from my face. A hand grips mine to keep me steady. To keep me grounded.

I’m shaking all over. Muscles vibrating like I’m sitting on an engine. Where does the pain begin and end? Why am I trapped in this dark hole of hellfire and pain?

It hurts so bad. I can’t take it! Someone, help me!

I feel the echo of a cry leave my lips. A man’s voice crackles against my cheek. A forehead is pressed to my temple.

I’m dying. I need help!

The pain becomes all-encompassing, roping around my shins and kneecaps like barbed wire soaked in kerosene.

“—hurts!” A word screeches out of my mouth with stinging anguish.

“Do we have anything stronger than that honey?!” a gravelly voice barks out.

“We need Dessin! Where did they go?”

A blubbering cry slips from my hold, slurring uncontrollably from my hammering chest. I cough gooey phlegm from my lungs, hacking until the muscles in my stomach cramp up, then cry harder.

I want to ask the figures around me why it hurts so bad. What’s wrong with me? Who can stop this unimaginable anguish? I want to beg someone for help. Maybe even to kill me now. End this suffering.

But the only word I can say is “Why?”

“I’ll get help, Ruthie!” Niles. I pick his voice out of the eternal stinging.

“I’m so sorry, little rebel. I’m going to find more medicine to make you feel better. We didn’t expect the last dose to wear off this fast.”

I blink through the glaze of tears pooling over my eyes.

“Warrose?” I hiccup.

I hear and feel him exhale against the side of my face. He’s so close, his facial hair tickles my cheekbone. “Yes. I’m here.”

“Why…” I mean to ask again, but the word is trapped in an air bubble sitting in my throat. I see the flash of a thick, sharp piece of metal. I see an audience jumping up and down, hollering, and beating their hands together.

Warrose stiffens without so much of a breath to leave his nostrils. Why isn’t he saying anything? Why won’t they tell me why I’m hurting?

But ignorance is only a temporary gift.

I see my legs detached from my body.

On the ground.

A pool of my own blood.

“My legs!” I gasp, eyes shooting wide open. “WHERE ARE MY LEGS?”

Out of the corner of my eyes, Niles covers his mouth and closes his eyes.

Answer me. Why isn’t he reassuring me? Panic shreds my insides.

I try to wiggle my toes, roll my ankle, flex my calf. Nothing. I try harder. Clench my foot. Bend my knee. There’s pain radiating up my shins. That means I was wrong, doesn’t it? My legs are still here! How else would I feel pain down there?

I try to sit up anyway, try to see my bare feet. Straining my neck and using my arms to push myself an inch upward despite the sickening ache in my bones, I stare down at…

At nothing.

No toes.

No ankles.

No bottom halves of my legs.

“No…” I utter.

“Ruth…”

“Where are m-my l-l-legs?” I ask in a quiet, trembling voice. “Did they—”

I look into Warrose’s swollen eyes. He’s weeping. Sad, thin tears trickle over his long, black lashes. His lips part, but nothing comes out. No words at all.

“Did they take my legs?”

The question sits in the stale air alone, heavy and sucking all the life and hope from this cage. I silently beg for the answer that will relax the muscles in my back. But I keep seeing that axe. That man swinging his arms back. The blood streaming from the open wounds under my kneecaps.

“Yes,” Warrose whispers with a grunt to clear his throat. “They’ve taken your legs.”

I’m unable to blink as I stare at him through thickening tears. I wait for him to take it back, wait for him to give me a sliver of good news. But his expression is as bleak and hopeless as I feel.

I think back to why this all happened, remembering pushing past the soldiers to volunteer to accept Dessin’s punishment. To save Warrose’s life.

Of course.

I deserved this.

I betrayed my friends.

But my thoughts have been scattered. Warped. Clouded over with memories I can’t attach to. All I feel is the love for my family and the confusion of why I betrayed them so heartlessly. I made one last silent request for Skylenna to sneak into the void and fact check my duplicity. Maybe it was baseless hope that I’m not the villain I believe myself to be. Maybe I was praying for a lifeline.

I just can’t wrap my head around how I’ve been able to lie, cheat, manipulate the people I love most in this world. I’d never hurt DaiSzek. I’d never lie to Skylenna.

But it’s true, isn’t it?

“I deserve this,” I whimper. The world grows cold and hateful. Black vines of bitter death snake around my vision. My pain levels skyrocket above anything manageable. This is what I deserve. “I betrayed my family! I deserve this!” I cry out with a burning throat.

“No,” Warrose attempts to say, but my cries drown everything else out.

“They’ve taken my legs! I’ll never run again!” I lie back down in a sobbing, hiccuping heap.

Niles and Warrose crowd me, holding my hands, trying to speak past my hysterics. But there’s nothing they can say to bring me back now. I’m spiraling down, down, down. I’m sinking into the abyss of my agony and depression. I should be dead. I should be buried under this prison.

“I’ll never—see the sun again!” I can’t breathe. The cry has manifested into something crazed and delirious. “I’ll never—walk again!”

Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.

I deserve this.

Betrayed them.

Can’t breathe.

Warrose and Niles’s faces shift out of my sight, making way for a beautiful face surrounded by long honey-blonde hair. She looks down at me with wise, shining eyes. A gentle hand caresses my cheek, and she gazes into me as if she’s unburying the secrets of my soul.

“Ruth.” Skylenna’s voice resonates through my entire being like a cosmic blast. Like the voice of God. She squeezes Dessin’s hand as he looks down at me from behind her.

“I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most,” she says with both calm and serious lines hardening her expression. “Let me be here now. Let me bring you peace.”

I swallow then blink. And the floor melts from under me. I slip backward, freefalling through the air, never looking away from Skylenna’s soothing gaze. Her hair flies around her in wild, golden waves.

“Don’t be afraid,” she says with a voice that resembles all things holy and powerful. “You won’t feel any pain where we’re going.”

I’m not afraid. The wind of the fall feels like dry water. Like tearing through layers of another world. It’s guiding us to a place that robs me of all anguish. And all I can do is exhale.

Behind Skylenna’s head, the darkness blots away. Pinholes of cerulean blue and fluffy clouds chase away the eternal black. And suddenly, my head is surrounded by tall blades of grass and the most incredible scent of lavender.

Skylenna brushes my hair away from my face. “Do you see that?”

I squint, my eyes involuntarily watering at the blasting rays of sunlight.

“You’re seeing the sun again,” she says with a smile.

I don’t know how she’s done it. But my entire spirit is levitating with the gentle allure of happiness. The kind that warms your cheeks and sends euphoric shivers down your spine. I take a deep breath, absorbing the floral aroma, the fresh air, the sunlight.

“Where are we?” I ask.

Her face lights up like a blooming wildflower. “The Ambrose Oasis.”

She helps me sit up so I can take in the heavenly view. The purple wisteria dancing in the breeze. The vast meadow with oversized sunflowers, violet candytufts, and huge evergreen trees forming a protective perimeter around us. It’s the meadow where we finally reunited with Dessin and Skylenna again. A little sanctuary for a small amount of time.

“It feels like heaven,” I say quietly to myself. “Have I died?”

“No, you’re alive. But I think God gave me a small piece of heaven, and this is it. To use for moments like this.”

I look down to see my toes clenching around flower petals. My legs basking in the warm sun. With confusion wrinkling my brow, I slide my gaze to Skylenna.

“No matter what happens to us in life, I can always bring us here. Heaven is where you can see your loved ones again. And although Ambrose Oasis isn’t quite that… at least you can run again, Ruth. Let me give you that much.”

My hands press over my mouth to suppress a happy cry, although a moment flashes through me. The moment they found me kissing Kaspias. The moment I cut ties with my soul sister forever.

“I don’t deserve this,” I mutter from behind my fingers. “I broke our family.”

“No, you didn’t, Ruth.” Skylenna pulls my hands away from my mouth so she can hold them. “You were manipulated with a stronger form of Mind Phantoms. The memories you have of betraying us aren’t real. Kaspias deceived us all. But I should have known. I should have believed in your pure heart.”

I study our entwined hands, trying to understand how this could have happened.

“I’m so sorry, Ruth. I let you down. It’s my fault this happened to you.”

“I didn’t…betray you?” The memories feel real, yet I can’t connect with them at all.

“Never,” she replies sadly. “But deep down, you must have known something was off. You’re the one that got me to look into the void for the truth.”

I nod. “Everything aside from my love for my family felt detached. I remember being a spy or a traitor, but have no feelings connected to those images. Only to the ones of loving you all. I guess I was hoping you would discover I wasn’t the villain.”

“Not a villain.” Skylenna’s eyes fill with tears. “A hero. You’re a fucking hero, Ruth.”

“And…still your soul sister?” I ask.

She laughs wetly with tears forming rivers down her cheeks. “You’ll always be my soul sister. And although I can’t change what happened, I think I can help your mind suppress the false memories. May I?”

I invite Skylenna into my heart, my mind, my memories. It takes several moments of feeling her swim through each moment I’ve been given to feel ashamed over. The traitorous past of my fake relationship with Kaspias. The times I never actually shared any special information with him about my friends. It was all a lie. She detangles the thick web of fabricated moments, stores them somewhere deep in the back of my head. A place I won’t find easily.

After it’s all done, a great shadow shifts in front of us. DaiSzek steps around Skylenna to nuzzle his nose against my legs.

“Is he real?”

Skylenna grins. “I always thought he was a figment of my imagination. Now I know he’s been real this entire time. A RottWeilen alpha shares an impenetrable bond with his pack. He’s been saving me from trauma this entire time.”

I rub my hands through his fur, feeling happier than I have in a long time.

“So, what do you say, Ruth? Want to run with us?”

I jump to my feet with a squeal, lurching forward and laughing as DaiSzek slows his pace to run with us through the tall grass.

I realize the depression, the pain, the hopelessness might swallow me whole when we return. But at least I have this.

To run one last time.