Hello Sunshine

is it
is it following

can't tell
keep going
keep going?

the Sun is merciless and the air is baking

the Sun is a monster like the other monster

can't keep walking but
can't let them have me

there is a rock, large and solid, and there is a little pool of darkness
to hide from both the monsters
and sleep
just. sleep.

 

The world is black and endless.

Then there is light, bright and warm, the crackle of a fire.

A small, blackened set of phalanges, connected to metatarsals, and so on, settle in front of her, and a hand gently reaches out to nudge her shoulder. The fire burns hot, but it doesn't hurt. Not anymore.

"...are you gone?"

 

Is she gone?

The pain is gone. The thirst is gone. The nausea, the cramps, the fog in her mind are all gone.

Even the fear is gone.

But Corrie is not any of those things. Corrie is still here.

"No," she says, firmly. "I'm not."

 

"It's okay if you want to give up. Lots of people do." Burning fingers tug at her hair, playing with it curiously. "Are you scared of dying?"

The creature crouches lower, staring at her with glowing embers in blackened sockets. "I was. It hurt a lot. I was all alone."

 

Dying?

In a detached kind of way, Corrie processes that there's no reason she shouldn't still be parched and vague and terrified and struggling with the urge to retch. Unless her body doesn't have a whole lot to do with things right now.

(It also explains why her hair isn't scorching and crisping under the thing's fingerbones. And it makes it easier, somehow, to accept that what's in front of her is not only real but as natural as the vulture- in that great undiscovered country, who's to say?)

"I don't want to give up. Or die, or any of it." (Does she have a choice, though?) "It's sad what happened to you, but I can't stay with you. I have to go home."

 

The little skeleton tilts his head, one way, then the other. "But you're dead. There's nowhere else for you to go. I mean..."

He twitches, bones shuddering and giving a full-body rattle over the crackling of the flames. "I didn't want to go, either. So I stayed."

She can tell he's grinning. Even though his skeletal face can do nothing but smile, there's a weird difference to the charred countenance. "And just look at me now. I lost my life. I lost my name. But I get to watch people, now. Get to see them burn up in the sun, just like me. The cave doesn't help. It just dragged it out, meant no one could find me when the search party passed and I was too tired to scream anymore."

He looks thoughtful.

"...but I want to live, again, too. I want to leave the desert."

He leans in, face pressed to the ground, staring into Corrie's eyes. "...I can help you. I can help, but you have to let me come, too. Then neither of us will be alone."

 

Corrie stares back into the flames, transfixed. She thinks she has an idea of what he's saying, but her admittedly limited knowledge of ghosts- because that's what he has to be, isn't it?- doesn't suggest that they're known for their miraculous life-restoring abilities. It does include hideous stories of possession. If there's anything worse than dying here, it would be imprisonment in her own body while something went back and burned and-

-fear isn't quite the same without adrenaline or a racing heart, but she's starting to recognize its presence again. "Just let you in, is that it?" she asks, with a nervous chuckle-sob. The hope that he's offering something she can accept is piercing, painful. "To do what?"

 

"I want to live." His breath crackles, hot on her face. "We'll be... partners? Friends? I don't know if that's the right word anymore. I... i want everything I never got to see. To live and hurt and be happy-"

 

With the clarity of death, what's actually happening here finally comes into focus. "You can... make us both alive." And Corrie laughs again, this time not so much nervous as wild, intensely amused. Suddenly, Mom and Dad might even be right about there being some kind of Providence in the world because everything's come around again, so complete and so absurdly satisfying. Rescuing burning children. That's the rule. Signs and goddamn portents.

"Well. You might be getting plenty of chance to hurt here, sunshine. We're going to live."

 

"I think so."

He stretches out one charred, ruined hand, holding his fingers near hers. "You promise?"

 

A scent washes over Corrie, half the stink of charred meat and half the pleasant aroma of wood smoke. The flames lick at her fingers and they are not consumed. Don't even hurt. Maybe vultures and bones are a sign of hope today.

"Promise to live? As long as I can," she says, with increasing resolution.

 

He carefully settles his hand over hers. "With me? I get to live, through you?"

The world seems a bit brighter.

 

Corrie turns her hand palm-up and grasps the bony hand firmly. It feels as much like charcoal as it does like bone. "Yes. We," she repeats, very firmly, "are going to live. You, me, and any boxes of kittens you might have on hand." (...actually, she doesn't think she wants to see any of these hypothetical burning kittens. The boy, when his flesh was still on, was bad enough for today, thank you.)

"Take me back. Or come with me. However this goes."

 

He grins, hugely, and for a brief second he's whole, healthy, a pink-cheeked boy in a scouts uniform... then the burning skeleton falls forwards, tumbling into her, and she feels something settle comfortably around her soul.

Her eyes snap open to a chilly night, and beautiful stars that cover the horizon.

She feels whole, strong, and her arm is unbroken.

She also hears the young boy giggling in the back of her head.

 

Corrie rolls onto her back to stare at the stars for a moment. The thought that all that was a fever-dream no longer occurs to her: she can feel the difference, like a phantom limb if it were an entire second self. The arm... that's a pretty heavy hint, too.

Actually, despite the layer of gauze between it and the skin, the wire splint is scratchy. She didn't notice it much before, what with the horrible pain and everything, but now? "Okay. Gonna get this thing off, first of all," she mutters aloud. She's not sure, yet, if the boy can just hear her think, so for now she'll just keep him apprised. He did kind of save her life just now; he probably deserves at least that much. Then she sits up, takes and unfolds the little survival knife, and starts cutting away the tape it's secured with.

She continues to talk as she works. "My friend's probably got people looking for me by now, so don't, I don't know, scare them or anything. Actually- what kinds of things can you do when you're... well, like this?"

 

Oh. it's okay. You're the first person who saw me before they died. Sunshine comments pleasantly in the back of her mind. Oh. Oh. I'd forgotten what itching felt like. I don't know if I like it. I think I like it a little. Maybe... oh! oh! Can you make a sandcastle? Can I make a sandcastle... I... I don't have hands. Can I use yours?

 

"Dust doesn't make very good castles," Corrie points out. The last of the tape is cut and, oh, that's so much better already. She peels the splint off and... you're supposed to be able to clean and re-roll and reuse these things, right? On the other hand, Corrie's not sure she ever wants to see that thing again.

...she also prefers not to litter in national parks, though, so back into the kit it goes anyway. She climbs to her feet. "Next time I wind up on a beach, though, we'll do that. Or, y'know, there's a lot of snow near where I live, even this time of year."

Wow. She did not get very far from the cave, did she?

 

Snow? He sounds absolutely awestruck. Real snow? We can play in the snow? oh! Oh, please, yes!!!

 

It's so weird, meeting someone when their eyes are melting out of their sockets and then hearing them squee adorably about the snow. Hard to put those impressions in the same mental box.

"Sure thing, just gotta- nnnh-" Corrie stretches her arms overhead, relishing the completely pain-free experience. Even the slight footsoreness that no boots can a hundred percent prevent is gone. She's not even tired. "-gotta get out of here first. Stay in the open, I guess, where they'll see me..."

Out of vague curiosity, she goes to take a look at the spot where the cloth had been-and-not-been.

 

It's been so long since I was anywhere cold! He confesses excitedly. Oh. Oh. Noooo. No, we're going back?

There's a scrap of cloth, after all, wedged into the crack, bleached by age and badly deteriorated.... and, further down...

Oh.