Page 24 of The Quiet
The ROSE was trying to pull another comrade from the wreckage of a burning building, their fingers clasped. The building collapsed, dropping like a guillotine over the back of the trapped comrade.
The ROSE stumbled back from the burning wreckage, noticing her as he awoke from the mire of the memory again. He lunged forward and pushed her inside the nearest shelter. Ella scrambled back in the small space as he climbed in with her, both of them crammed close with his legs on either side of her.
He began removing his fireworkers, the heavy, thick boots with strappings tied up over his thighs. Somehow, she knew what they were called, absorbing pieces of knowledge from the world as if she too lived it. He removed the first boot and threw it to her with such force that she caught it against her chest with a gasp.
“Put them on,” he said, barely audible through the mask, and when she hesitated, he grabbed her bare leg next to him, and slid the boot on. She resisted the urge to cringe against the heat and wetness of the boot, bracing her hands against the back of the crate as the speed of the motion startled her.
He removed his second boot, Ella snatching it before he had a chance to put it on. She wrestled it onto her leg, the ROSE watching patiently on either side of her as he leaned forward and slid off his helmet.
Before Ella could look up and see his face, she felt the helmet slip over her head and jerked back, knocking it against the wall behind her. She clutched it in her hands.
“What about you?” Ella asked.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, poking his head out from under the cover of the crate and ducking back when a beam crashed into cinder nearby.
She could hardly see through the grates in the helmet, the mask settling loosely and blocking her sight. The ROSE grabbed the straps to the fireworker flaps, and pulled them up. They were taller on her, capable of stretching to wrap her hips as opposed to the upper thigh.
She took the straps before he could offer them. “I’ll do it,” she said, pulling them over her legs and up around her waist. He grabbed the other ones, lifting them up around her other side. She tried to cinch the straps around her waist, feeling him hover over her opposite shoulder as she looked down to pull the strap through the buckle and fasten it.
She tried to focus on the task of mastering her trembling, sweaty fingers as she felt him tighten the other strap around her waist, his breath and sweat hot on her neck as he leaned over her to fasten it. Next, he wrestled a jacket over her, synching it around the waist.
As soon as she released the fasted belt from her fingers, he was moving again, pulling her so hard out of the shelter that she stumbled in the heaviness of his boots. They ran, Ella following blindly as he dragged her forward. Every small patch of skin exposed to the fire burned, Ella feeling an intense searing heaton the backs of her thighs, and even her fingers free from his sleeves.
She fought to see through the jostling helmet, her eyes locking onto burning buildings and houses. Each open door roared with flames, until they passed a burning house whose door remained closed.
Ella’s eyes caught the flames ahead of them, and in the great wall of fire she saw something surfacing as if from the previous memory, following them out of the mire.
That sense of urgency spoke up again, Ella knowing what she had to do. She looped her arm with the ROSE, and leapt through the burning door, the ROSE protesting, but it was too late. They barrelled through the door and into the flames.
They both fell forward into a field of flowers, the ROSE wrapping around her until they came to a stop. Ella gasped for fresh air, her lungs aching as she crawled away from him. She yanked off the helmet, slipping out of the fireworkers next until she was laid flat in the cool grass, her dress almost translucent with sweat, her hair drenched.
The sky was blue. The world was silent. The door they’d just come through was gone. They were safe.
Ella rolled onto her back, the ROSE stayed on his hands and knees, panting. He looked around in awe and seemed to hold his breath.
Ella recognized the clearing of wildflowers from her childhood, just after she’d been adopted. It was early spring, the sky a rich, clear blue. The wind moved just enough to rustle the trees, butbeyond that there were no sounds at all. Samual’s cabin was just beyond the woods. This was one of her memories.
As a girl, she’d come out and listen to the trees, lay out in the flowers with the bugs and crickets and just stare up at the sky. She’d had the urge to take them somewhere safe and peaceful, but was surprised that this was where they had landed. She hadn’t thought about this place in a long time.
Her eyes flickered back to the ROSE as he hoisted himself up and she caught the first real glimpses of him, black hair matted to his temples with sweat. As he scanned the field, she saw a face that otherwise might seem incapable of the softness of awe.
He had a dark complexion of earth and ash, much like the scene they’d just escaped from. The tone of his skin was hardly lighter than the dirt that painted it, hair and eyes only an extension of the coal that scored his clothes.
He wasn’t much older than her, despite Ella knowing he must have lived much longer.
He took several steps through the flowers as he picked up his helmet and held it under his arm. He removed a glove and with that same hand she’d seen sharing so much death, he reached for a tall bundle of wild daisies.
He’d just risked his life to save her and yet she couldn’t help but feel that he was by all means a completely different and altogether more threatening element than her. She half expected the flowers to wilt in the heat of his eyes as he watched them, but instead they gently arched and fluttered at his caress. His hands were still stained in sweat and blood, and yet life received them anyway.
The picture was, without explanation, both disturbing and familiar. Ella’s fingers coiled around the sullied fabric at her thighs as the sensation snatched her out of the comfort of her thoughts. The ROSE’s presence here was imposing in its symbolism.
For a moment she saw graves in the flowers, each colorful bunch like a soul lost in the carnage of the memories they’d just escaped from. Ella wondered if he treated the flowers with so much tenderness because he saw graves in them too.
The shared memories connected them somehow. Without explanation, she found herself stifling a powerful wave of disgust. For the briefest moment, without knowing why, she hated that she’d brought him here.
“It’s mine,” she said, laying a protective claim to the memory they now existed in.
The ROSE looked over his shoulder as if seeing her for the first time. The subtlest hint of surprise softened the strong planes of his face.
