Deliver Me
Chapter 1: The Girl and the Drunk
No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone. -
Martha Beck
Kel's head felt close to splitting, "Uh, what happened last night?" she groaned and tried to get her bearings in a dark room. The floor was rough, made of packed dirt and stones that scratched her hands.
She felt something wet splashing on her neck, and reached up to brush it off. But as she touched it, Kel realized it was too thick to be water. When she brought a finger up to her nose she smelt the metallic odor that could only be blood. She gasped and tried to locate the source of the blood and found that the right side of her head was covered in blood. There were some clumps of clotted blood in her matted hair and she could feel that it was still flowing from the source near the top of her head. She gritted her teeth as she started to become more aware of the pain on the side of her head.
She moved her hand around in an attempt to find something to use for leverage to stand. Her hand fell on a ruff wooden bench above her. Kel attempted to hoist herself up, but couldn't. She didn't understand why she had no control over her lower body. She kept pushing on the bench with all her strength, and she barely moved an inch.
'Why isn't this working?' Kel was so disorientated. There was no light, she was possible bleeding to death, and she was alone.
'Why won't my legs move?' she thought in confusion. Her shifting motions had caused her to feel an odd prickling sensation in her legs. She groped the ground around her to try and feel out the problem. Her hand landed on something warm. The thing that her hand had landed on had hair, 'a cat?', but it was by far too heavy for a cat. The thing grunted in protest at being prodded by Kel, and then in her exploration of the thing, she felt fingers. It was a person that was lying across her lower body.
She felt for his hair again and then cuffed the man roughly across his head.
"Oh, get off!"She ordered. Her command however fell on deaf ears. Clearly he was too drunk to hear her, still in an alcohol induced stupor. Eventually, Kel gave up on speech and attempted to roll the body off of her, but to no avail. He did not wake up. He was like a boulder and she was too weak from blood lose to do much. She had no idea how long she had been bleeding for.
"Well this is wonderful", the damn man was just so huge. She couldn't lift him. She was not in the mood for this. She still couldn't help but wonder where she was or how she had even gotten to be there.
In fact, when she really tried to think about it, she couldn't remember much at all. 'Does anyone know I'm here?', she tried to think of who might be able to help her, but then panic set in as she realized that she couldn't think of anyone. A pair of green eyes came to mind, a smile, but nothing else. And then, a by far worse realization hit her. She didn't even know her own name.
Kel remembered nothing.