Chapter 14 - Brent
She was gone.
I didn't want to believe what I saw, but in my heart, I knew it was true.
She was gone. She had left the rock shelter.
I don't know why, and I was trying not to let my mind race at the terrible possibilities of what had happened.
I had just stepped outside to get a better idea of our surroundings. It was going to be important to be able to survive out here in case our rescue was delayed again. They said they were coming in the morning but with a storm like this, you could never know. It came out of nowhere today, it could happen again tomorrow. I scoped out other possible areas we could stay in case our current shelter got flooded or if somehow the wind would cause the rocks to dangerously shift.
So when I returned to our shelter, I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that the makeshift bed was empty, and Michelle was nowhere to be seen. The fire shot dancing light on the rock but there was no shadow cast, none but my own. Where were you, Michelle, I wondered.
I noticed that my journal was out of the bag and on the ground. The elastic holder was scooped off - it must have been opened. I picked it up and it bent open to an entry I had made earlier this month - is this what she had been reading?
"Michelle!" I turned back around and called out. "Where are you?"
But there was no response from her. None at least that I could hear. I feared that she had taken a brief walk around and then fell over something sticking out from the ground. There was no way she was used to walking around in this type of untamed environment.
"Michelle!" I called out again.
Now I began to fear worse things. No one else was here. I was sure of it. No one else was here but us.
No one got to her. It was impossible.
Getting into this cycle of worry wasn't going to help anything. I had to take action.
I took out my flashlight and the first aid kit from the bag and ventured out into the darkness.
***
"Michelle, where are you?" I called, sweeping from left to right and back again with the flashlight, hoping for anything. What I would have given to just hear her voice. It would have rang through the silence like a bell. I would have been revived by her gentle tones telling me she was safe.
Instead I just had to continue searching relentlessly. I didn't care about the rain slapping against my face. It didn't matter. The wind that would howl and the trees that bent like twigs - none of that mattered until she was safe with me.
I realized I was reliving the past. I remembered chasing after Michelle in the woods after my graduation, and here I was again, finding the woman who gave my life meaning. Just the thought of her in this darkness was the flame that kept me going and kept the suffocating night away.
Finally I reached a clearing and swept the flashlight around, hoping to spot something. I heard a twig snap and I instantly turned to focus the light on it. Inside the halo of the light was a small foot - Michelle's. She was crouching down, leaning against a tree.
"Michelle," I said, crouching beside her, "are you OK?"
"Go away," she said, her head buried in her knees. "Go away as you always do."
"Michelle, are you hurt?"
"Go away, I said!"
"I'm not going anywhere," I said. "I'm not going anywhere without you."
"Nice lies," she said, her head still buried away from me. "I've heard them before from you."
"I'm not lying. I won't take one step away from here without you, damn the rescue."
"You can go," she said. "You always go."
"I'm not."
"You can make it easy on yourself and go."
"I told you," I said, grabbing her hand firmly, "I'm not going anywhere without you!"
She at last tilted her head up and looked at me. Even in the dark her face radiated a beauty that I could never forget. A bucket of rain slid off the leaves above us as another gust of wind blew through, and I could see that she was shivering.
"Michelle, I have to get you back to the shelter," I said.
"No," she said, turning her head again.
"If I don't, you'll get hypothermia."
"Good," she said. "I don't care. It'll make it easy for you."
I had to get moving with her. Who knows how the storm would worsen. There was no way she - or I - survive being exposed out here.
I wrapped one arm around her knee and the other around her back, and lifted her up.
"Put me down!" she said.
"No!" I commanded. "We're going back to the shelter. We're going to get you warm and dry again."
"I don't care!" she said, loud above the growing storm.
I looked down at her and saw her hair and clothes completely soaked. All I knew in this moment was that I had to protect her, no matter the cost, no matter what.
I took off in a quick pace through the forest as fast as I could without risking tripping with her in my arms. I didn't even feel her weight. I just knew I had her right now and I had to get her back. There was no other option.
Lightning flashed down only yards away from us and the thunder was deafening, but my arms, as if natively understanding my mission, held tightly to Michelle and never wavered.
We neared the rock shelter and the fire stuck out like a star in the night sky - a beacon I longed to see. I marched back up to it, Michelle still kicking in my arms, and finally set her down back onto the makeshift bed.