Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
For a long time we just stand that way, tethered to each other, until the sound of something moving behind us makes Ace shift. I turn, and Kellen is standing on the path, arms folded, face drawn and grim.
“You need to come back to camp,” he says, and there is an emptiness in his voice that is final. “I think it’s time.”
The way he says it, I know.
I just know.
Everything is about to change.
9
I ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT it would be like to see someone die.
Haven’t we all?
Would they just close their eyes, like in the movies, and look like they’re sleeping?
Would their eyes stay open, and unblinking?
Would there be any sound?
Turns out, it’s everything you ever imagined, and more.
It’s terrifying and helpless, a moment in time you can’t stop, even though everything inside you is begging for the pause button.
Iris doesn’t even open her eyes, not once. She lays there, a gurgling sound in her chest I will never forget. Her breathing is shallow, so shallow there are times my eyes fixate on her chest, fearful that it was the last. But she keeps on breathing, for a little while at least.
We say our goodbyes, praying deep into our souls that she can hear us. I wonder, are goodbyes for the person leaving, or for the people staying behind? It feels more for us, a selfish need to right our wrongs, to say our sorries, to express everything we couldn’t before.
Adrian is singing some melancholy song into the fire and is actually twirling in circles. He said something about her sending her soul to heaven. Nobody bothers to argue with him. Even when he lights up a palm frond and spins again, waving it around, sending little embers through the night, as he screeches some chant that makes no sense.
Seriously.
After that, all we can do is wait, and watch.
It doesn’t take long. She makes a croaking sound, a soft gasp, and her body jerks once. Her fingers curl, spasm, uncurl. Then that’s it. Not even a goodbye-breath, just the silence that follows, so loud and sharp the world rings with it. Her body is so light, barely there at all, like she’s already put half of herself into the place she’s going and we’re the ones still clinging to what’s left.
Rachel snaps first. She folds, sobbing so hard her ribs must hurt, must crack, because the sound that comes out of her is guttural, from deep inside, ripped from her very soul. Tatiana sobs too, but quieter, a pair of fists pressing into her eye sockets so she doesn’t see what’s right in front of her. Aggie leans down, touches Iris’s hair, tucks the limp strands behind her ear. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, so faint I don’t even know if the dead can hear it.
I feel as though I can’t move.
Like my legs have forgotten how to work.
We just stand there, listening to the broken sounds of the people who loved her, and who came to love her.
After a while, Aggie turns to me, her voice raw and rattling. “What do we do now?”
I glance at Ace, who is standing dead still, eyes not leaving her body. His jaw clenches, then unclenches. It’s like he has forgotten how to move, too.
“I...Ace?” I croak.
His eyes dart up. “We find a place, just for her, and we lay her to rest.”
We have to bury her.
No one disagrees. We all know there is no choice.
Fighting does nothing, look at where we are.
It starts to rain.
Of course there would be no mercy from the universe.
It rains hard, fast, soaking the earth, us, the shreds of blanket we wrapped around Iris.
We carry her into the jungle, finding a space by the water, where we will lay her to rest. The guys use the paddles from the lifeboat, sticks, rocks, and anything else they can find to dig a hole. We pitch in, helping, while Rachel sits beside Iris’s body, her hand on her head, as if she will just spring back to life.
It hurts. Every time I shove the stick into the dirt, it is a stark reminder of the path we are on.
Eventually, we have a hole big enough for Iris. My chest twists in a way that is a mix of agony and trauma. Ace and Zeke step forward, while Kellen pulls Rachel carefully away from Iris’s body as she whimpers no, over and over again. I don’t think I’ll ever unhear her cries of pain.
Zeke doesn’t look at her body as he lifts it. Carefully, they place her in the hole. Then, they begin to cover her up. We just stand in the downpour, mud, salt, and rain streaking our clothes and bodies, and we watch as she disappears. Inch by agonising inch, her body becomes one with the earth. Tatiana sings. Her voice is thin, but it cuts through the rain.