Pretty Follies

Complete darkness.

No light.

It’s the scariest fucking thing ever. You can’t see your hand two inches in front of your face. No matter how many times you blink and try to get your eyes to adjust. There is no left and right, up or down. Everything is black. It’s so black you don’t even know what black is anymore, it’s just empty.

I could have been in box and I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference from where I was now.

In fact, I didn’t know where I was. Not only in the forest, but I didn’t know where Lorraine was.

A lot of times we bickered relentlessly, but when we weren’t fighting, it was silence. I don’t think we were actually capable of carrying a normal conversation, so it was normal for us to not say anything without panicking about the other’s presence. It was just assumed we stuck together and didn’t stray; I had seen enough movies to know that never worked.

But when I turned around to say the callous joke I had been thinking about for a good ten minutes, Lorraine wasn’t there.

“Shit,” I mumbled. I looked around, but it wasn’t like I could see anything. I also couldn’t backtrack because I didn’t know where I came from. How long had I been walking since I lost Lorraine?

I had to admit, I was worried. I was confident Lorraine hadn’t gotten herself into trouble, but I had to wonder if she was alright. She could hold her own, but it was only a matter of time before a bad event would grace us. Being split up was a good opportunity for this to happen. That’s always how it always happens, right?

“Lorraine?”

My voice sounded a little shaky as it bounced off the trees back at me. Just like I had been doing before, I stepped carefully with each step I took, but in the opposite direction. Each foot was planted on the ground delicately, just in case I was to run into anything. It was like climbing up a staircase in the dark, feeling around idiotically with your foot to make sure there was actually a stair and not air, before actually setting it down.

I called her name again, pausing afterwards to hopefully hear a response. Nothing. I kept walking, being quiet to possibly hear Lorraine’s dainty movements in the distance.

Time was a concept lost, but finally after what seemed like me circling around in the dark, I heard Lorraine’s faraway voice.

“Alex!” I tried to turn my body in the direction of the sound, but not really sure which way was which. After plunging to the forest ground a couple of times and running, face first, into a tree trunk, I felt myself getting a little closer to where the sound of her voice was coming from, which grew in a combination of scare and annoyance each time she called for me.

Seeing a change in lighting in the distance, I moved to where faint moonlight was seeping through the thick ceiling leaves. “Lorraine!”

“Alex?”

I could tell I was close to her now and I turned 360 degrees to find her. With eyes squinted, I could see her moving smoothly through the trees. “Lorraine,” I called as I started to move to her, “over here.”

I saw her look around, trying to make out my figure in the dark. When I approached her, I saw the side of her walking forward, going to pass me. And I don’t know why I did it, maybe because I missed pulling pranks on her, but I jumped out in front of her.

A surprisingly scare noise burst out from my throat as I stood on front of her, hands raised like bear claws and crouched into an attacking pose. It didn’t only make her scream at the top of her lungs, but she jumped in shock, causing her to fall from disorientation and go tumbling backwards. It wouldn’t have been that bad, if it hadn’t been for the huge drop off hidden in the dark a couple feet behind us.

I really didn’t have a good reason for messing around with Lorraine. I had upset her plenty of times today with my sense of humor. It was a bad call in judgment. Stupid idea. Risky and dangerous.

Once second Lorraine was before me and the next, her body had disappeared, dropping down over the steep overhang and then rolling down the hill.

I stood there, shocked. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know what to do. That wasn’t supposed to happen. I heard another scream and I immediately unfroze myself and scrambled towards where I saw her disappear.

A little more moonlight was showing through the trees, allowing me to see a mini cliff, and below, the land was at a slant. At the bottom of all that, I saw a dark figure struggling. Quickly I jumped down the drop off, feeling the pain in my heels from the height of the jump, and ran down the hill.

“Holy shit, are you okay?!” Lorraine had just gotten herself to sit up and when I reached her, I was welcomed with a very unwelcoming face.

“You moron! What the hell were you doing?! Do you think this is funny?! Do you think any of this is fucking funny?! You’re such a phlegmatic boob!”

“No, I didn’t mean to make you fall, Laney.” I crouched down next to her and she immediately shoved me over with a glare on her face. “I didn’t know you would fall! I was just having a little fun.”

“This isn’t the time for fun, Alex.” She started to inspect her arms and legs for scratches, wiping the blood that was dripping from her new cuts.

“It’s never time for fun with you.”

“I know how to have fun!” she screamed, moving her joints to ease the pain from the fall.

“Yeah….whatever.”

“I do. I have fun. You’re just never there to see it.”

“I said, whatever. Now get up and let’s keep going.” Lorraine gave up the argument as quickly as me and tried to stand up, having a hard time. Once she was up, she tried to step, trying to not put weight on her ankle and when she did, she stumbled forward.

“Whoa, careful,” I said, running to her.

“Goddamn,” she mumbled, brushing the dirty hair out of her face. It had leaves and twigs in it from walking through bushes and rolling down the hill. When I caught a glimpse of her face in the moonlight, I saw little scratches and dried blood spot on her forehead. I was sure I looked the same. I couldn’t see my own skin, but I could sure feel the dirt and cuts on it.

Lorraine stumbled around a little more, wincing more every time she did and finally sitting herself down. “I think I broke my ankle.”

I looked down at her with wide eyes. “Can’t you fix it?!”

“Yeah, let me just get my toolbox out!” she yelled, glaring at me and my stupidity.

“What I meant was you’re a nurse! Don’t you know what to do? Isn’t that what you’re blowing 35,000 dollars a year on?!”

“I just finished my first year of college! It was just my generals and a couple beginner classes! I’m not a certified surgeon!” She grumbled through clenched teeth, trying to bare the pain, “Goddamn.”

“Damn it,” I mumbled, bending down next to her. “Okay, okay,” I talked to myself. Lorraine lay back on her back, annoyed and hopeless. I rubbed my temples, trying to calm myself and think of ideas. “We can’t make a brace for it…it’s not your leg. Is it?” She shook her head, trying to hold back and cover up the tears that were pricking her eyes. “Don’t know how to make an ankle brace…”

I pulled out my phone, to check if I got any signal yet. It was habit. It was dead. “Fuck this!” I threw the phone on the ground. I was starting to panic. To worry. I didn’t know what to do. Lorraine bugged the hell out of me. So fucking much, yet, I couldn’t let her sit here. We couldn’t sit here. How long would we be here? What if Lorraine hurt more than just her ankle?

Lorraine sat up gently and I looked in her eyes. She looked like she was depending on me. She was hopeless and broken looking. She looked exhausted and dirty. I didn’t know what to do. My brain was completely empty and I couldn’t get anything to come to mind. I needed to help Lorraine. She looked like she was in pain. We both needed to get home. Sleep in a bed. None of use really knew anything about nature. If only I had paid more attention.

I stared back at her, eyebrows crunched together with worry but trying to seem put together for her. “Alright…Um…” I looked around for an idea. I didn’t know what else to do but keep going. “Come on,” I said, bending down and hooking her arm around my shoulder to help her stand up. She winced a couple times, groaning when she put pressure on her hurt foot.

I looped my arm around her waist, bringing her closer to me so she could put more of her weight on me, instead of her healthy leg. In return she wrapped both hand around my stomach to hold herself up. And again, we hobbled along, not knowing where we were going or even what direction we should have been headed in