Neva feels as though her body is burning from the inside out, her pillows and sheets drenched in sweat as her breaths come in shallow, uneven rasps.
She is dimly aware of the acrid rawness in her throat, but her body refuses to move,
and even brushing away the strands of hair clinging to her damp neck promises to be a laborious strain.
But the thirst cannot compare to the caving hollowness spreading within her,
followed by a crushing ache smothering her,
as though a dark wind stretches her from the inside out until she comes shattering apart.
If Rhett were here, he would wrap his arms around her,
and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against her would chase away all the painful, sleepless nights.
He would press his lips to her forehead before placing a cold, soothing cloth against her skin,
just as he had when she endured that terrible night of fever and vomiting while carrying their son.
Even a mild cold would leave him worried sick over her, and he would never never...
never leave her side, both in sickness and in health.
When is he coming to take her away?
When...
Father... when?
She doesn't know why this longing feels almost like dying when she has only seen him a few hours ago, kissing him goodbye with their son in her arms at the doorway and handing him his lunch bag before he left for the workshop,
just a few miles away in the town of Idaville.
Now she stands at that same doorway, waiting for his return, pressing many, many irresistible kisses against her baby's soft,
chubby cheeks as his giggles bubble up around her.
A soft laugh escapes her as she kisses her baby's tiny hand,
her heart swelling with love and contentment for her angel-faced baby, her most precious child.
And just as a thought flickers through her mind that the world could not possibly be more
wonderful than this, the April wind carries with it the familiar sound of a car approaching.
Her heart quickens with anticipation as the maroon-cherry-painted Skoda emerges through the fissures of leaves and twigs before turning down their street.
"Dada's finally home, Rhean," she coos, pressing a kiss to her son's forehead just as her husband steps out of the car, the door closing behind him.
Truly, the warmth in her husband's smile as he approaches them metamorphoses her blooming garden into a breathing, thriving Eden beneath God's eternal light, one that shall never yield to darkness.
Their son beams at the sight of his father as he waves at them, and she's surprised by how much she wants to erase the few steps stretching across the yard between them,
just so he could reach them and kiss her sooner.
A mild frustration stirs within her when he takes what feels like a lifetime to reach them,
the few feet between them seeming to stretch into miles and miles of ocean and earth.
Having had enough of time and space dividing them, she takes it upon herself to walk towards him.
It truly seems to take him forever to walk past the bright red camellias blooming by the gate,
nestled among the bushes and shrubs that gird the garden like a living fence.
Then the realisation comes with a chill crawling down her spine as he lingers by the camellia, the same one he has already walked past again and again.
A frown pulls at his brow. "Angel."
Out of nowhere, a strong wind sweeps through the yard, setting the skirt of her dress fluttering and tearing away petals and colour from her garden.
The world takes on a morose, bluish-grey hue, and all warmth bleaches from her as she finds the weight of their baby in her arms gone... and the
presence of her husband by the camellias... gone.
Frozen water replaces her legs as she finds herself stranded in a
war-ravaged terrain, littered with rotting corpses and shredded remains scattered all around her.
Her breaths grow shallow as she stares at Noah, limp beside his father, his bluish-pale complexion grimy with dried blood and dirt, maggots crawling from his nose, and ears, and mouth,
gradually eating away at his flesh and bone.
She wants to look away, but she can't, fixated on the shredded guts spilling from his stomach, where maggots trickle
inside and out in an uneven, ravenous flow, gorging themselves amid the apocalypse of his body.
"Neva!"
The familiar, distant voice calls out to her before a sharp crack of gunfire shatters the eerie silence.
"Angel!" he calls out again, his voice growing nearer.
Then, through the foggy haze and mounds of ruins, she catches sight of a familiar silhouette.
"Rhett..." she whispers, starting towards him,
her bare feet pressing into dirt and blood as she keeps her gaze fixed on his hazy silhouette through the grey smog, terrified he'll disappear again.
"Angel!" His voice echoes through the field, strained with desperation.
She is unaware of how she is moving at all,
unable to feel her legs as her heart plummets when another gunshot cracks through the air.
A thunderous blast follows, sending dirt flying through flames and smoke, the earth
shuddering beneath her as she trips over a corpse and crashes onto her stomach with a painful thud.
Her gaze falls on those wide, lifeless ones, the scarlet-stained face wrenching at a knot in the chains of memories, the memory of watching the VIP through the camera in the safe room as he crumples to the ground, a bullet hole blooming in his forehead.
"Angel!" Her husband runs towards her, nearer now.
Her vision blur until she can make out only his murky features, tense with worry.
Beloved. A whisper, soothing as a calm river, drifts through her mind. Do not be afraid.
Something sharp glides across her palm, and without even seeing it, she knows it's a long, blood-smeared nail resting against her dirt-smeared palm.
"Hang on, Angel," Rhett says, his silhouette emerging more clearly through the smog.
Her chest tightens as hope collides with anxiety in a pull of anticipation to feel the firm reality of him against her,
cocooned in his warmth, his comforting heartbeat beneath her cheek lulling this moment away.
Here... Almost here.
He's almost here.
"I'll be there—" A gunshot shatters his words.
Everything slows down, the loud thump, thump, thump of her heart amid the deafening silence weaving through her as she watches his eyes dim.
Blood dribbles from the wound blooming in his forehead before he crumples to the ground.
For a long, winding moment, she remains still, unable to make
sense of the image of his eyes recurring in her mind, the light within them pulled taut between hope, love, and fear before suddenly flickering out.
Then the realisation begins with a numbing burden of hollowness rippling through her arteries.
Before, with a violent jinx, the crushing agony slams into her in waves of flooding lava.
Until she is reduced to a trembling, crying, shrieking wreck, crawling through dirt and blood.
A distant voice calls her name, slipping in and out of her senses as she drags her
battered body towards him, towards where he lies amidst a mountain of soldiers' corpses.
"Neva, wake up," the voice says. "Wake up."
A gentle pat against her cheek pulls her back to the sharp, rasping sobs tearing from her as the ivory light from the bedside
lamp frames the blurry shapes and shadows of the master bedroom in shades of deep blue and white.
"Did you have a nightmare?" Ishmael presses the back of his hand against her neck. "You're burning."
A white flash of lightning flickers through the room, the piercing rumble of thunder and the blaring patter of the downpour sinking her deeper into the abyss.
Right at this moment, sickened by his touch and devoured by the storm raging outside,
Neva wishes for nothing more
than his rough hands to close around her neck and finish what he had failed to do that April day.
Then she can be with Rhett again.
But it is only a dream.
He is searching for her, she knows it. And she knows how close he is.
She can feel it. He told her to hang on.
He said he would be here for her soon.
Soon. Soon... is his unfinished word.
She knows it because he is her husband, one flesh and one spirit with her.
So she will hold on within this hollow shell, where pain and fear and madness echo in silent screams, even as days blur into months, and months into years.
Because as long as she lives, as long as she breathes, she will say his name, and he will follow the sound of her voice, guided to her by her Father.