Do What It Takes to Survive

A huge crashing sound woke me up from my slumber. I blinked. I lifted my head from Gerard’s chest to look around. The sky was still dark, but there was plenty of light. It was coming from the burning house.

I gazed at the burning house for a long time. It was strangely entrancing, and the fire was darkly beautiful. I guessed the smashing sound had come from the house. It was really up in flames now, and I imagined it was falling apart.

Only a few short hours ago, we had been in that house. What was it like to burn to death? I had been very close to finding out. So had Gerard. Speaking of him… I looked down. I was not at all surprised that I was on top of him. I was, however, surprised that he was awake, and he hadn’t said a word.

He seemed to be mystified by the powerful fire too. I had to wave my hand in front of his face to get his attention. When he finally looked at me, he smirked. “Did you sleep well?”

“Ha, ha,” I replied sarcastically. “It’s not my fault I passed out. I made it down without killing myself, at least.”

“I’ll give you that,” he allowed.

I sat up, examined my ankle, and grimaced. “Yep, definitely broken. How’s your arm?”

“Same.” It was then that I noticed he only had one arm wrapped around me. His other arm lay motionless on the forest floor.

My stomach growled. “Man. I don’t think we’ve eaten in twenty four hours!” I exclaimed.

“I know.”

We were both quiet for a long time. I broke the silence by asking, “Well, what do we do now?”

“The way I see it, we have two options,” he answered. “One: We walk down that really long-looking driveway. Two: We wait here until the fire department shows up. It should only take a couple hours of daylight for someone to see the smoke and call them, and it’s almost dawn.”

I looked at the sky. He was right; it was starting to get lighter. I looked at my ankle doubtfully. “I think waiting might be easier then trying to walk. This house is like on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. I can’t imagine how long the driveway is.”

“Waiting it is, then,” Gerard concluded.

I nodded before setting my head back on his chest. He ran his fingers through my tangled hair absentmindedly, gradually making it smoother. After many long minutes, he whispered, “Thanks.”

It caught me off guard, so it took a few seconds for me to formulate an answer. “For what?”

“For getting me to snap out of it. I was all ready to die, but you were determined to get out of there. If it wasn’t for you – oh, and your handy skill with knots – we’d still be in there. And I, for one, am glad that we aren’t,” he said. As he spoke, he stopped stroking my head. This had to be one of the longest speeches he had ever made.

I stared at the ground dumbly for a while before replying, “You’re welcome, I guess.”

After a few more seconds of silence, he returned to running his hand through my hair. I sighed in content. It felt good and made me feel relaxed.

I had my eyes closed, but I opened them when I heard sirens in the distance. I was surprised at how light it was. I saw half of the sun peeking over the horizon, and the sky was turning from grey to blue. We must’ve been lying there for hours, and his hand still caressed my head.

“Do you hear them?” I inquired quietly, a little disappointed that I had to break the silence. It had been comfortable and peaceful.

“Yes. We should probably get out of the woods now. The Boss isn’t coming back.” Gerard sounded reluctant, like he didn’t want to get up any more than I did.

And I definitely did not what to get up. “I guess you’re right,” I sighed.

Gerard carefully pulled me off him with his good arm, being careful not to bump my broken bone, and then got up. After that came the hard part: getting me up. He pulled me from a sitting position to a standing position with his arm under mine. Then he acted as my crutch again, and we slowly hobbled closer to the house.

It was much too late to save the poor house. It was mostly a pile of smoking ashes and embers. I thanked the Lord we weren’t among them. We very well could’ve been.

We sat against a tree in the open yard to await the firemen. I heard the sirens steadily increase in volume. When the trucks finally approached, I wanted to jump for joy.

We were going home. We were going to see our families and friends again. We were going to live, sing, dance, cry, laugh, love… All of those things were much more welcome than the death I had expected only hours before.

When the fire trucks pulled to the end of the driveway, one group of firemen immediately started putting out what was left of the fire. Another group of three came to us.

One man asked for an ambulance through his radio at once. A woman said to us, “Where did you come from? This house was supposed to be vacant.”

“Oh, it was,” Gerard replied loudly. After that he went into a fit of coughing. I realized my lungs hurt too. It must have been from the smoke.

Another man was squinting at us with a puzzled look, as if he was trying to remember something.

“We were, uh, put here. People were trying to kill us,” I explained through a scratchy voice. It hurt to talk so loud.

When I spoke, the squinting man’s eyes widened. “It can’t be!” he exclaimed. Then he turned to the other man and woman. “This is Lana Mercado and Gerard Way! They were kidnapped a few weeks ago!” Turning to us, he asked, “Am I right?”

I nodded mutely.

When the ambulance came, the paramedics reviewed our injuries and loaded us into the vehicle. I think that’s when the exhaustion of it all hit me and I fell asleep. Again.