More Than Imagined

Chapter 4

One time, when Rhoawyn was only six years old, her father brought home an unusually fat sack of rations after a long day of work. She bounded over to him, ignoring his arms outstretched for a hug, and shuffled through the contents of the bag, eager to eat something other than slightly stale bread and hash for a change. Somewhere near the bottom, she found a pack of unfamiliar meat sliced in long rows of pink and white flesh.

"What's this, daddy?" She asked, wiping the slimy juice that had seeped from the plastic onto the rough of her skirt.

Her father scooped her up and carried her into their kitchen. "It's a meat that comes from pigs."

"But we don't have pigs anymore."

"That's right, we don't have many animals anymore. So The Apex creates this type of meat in a lab. They call it bacon and only Fives and up get to eat it. A friend of mine from work taught me how to make it."

He placed the rations bag onto the only empty counter, setting Rhoawyn down next to it.

"We can eat it now that you're a Six?" Rhoawyn had already wrestled two of the slabs out of the wrapping and into her tiny hands, preparing to eat them raw.

"That's right."

Her father placed an iron caste-skillet over the blue heat of the stovetop, gently taking the pieces of bacon from Rhoawyn's hungry clutches. "But we have to put them to a little heat first."

He flattened the meat side by side, and atop the searing flames, it roared to life in a symphony of sizzle and savor new to both their senses.

The novelty excited Rhoawyn, and she danced the heels of her feet against the cabinets-flaring her nostrils against the succulent scent that wafted throughout the room.

"Now watch carefully, so you'll know how to make bacon for yourself, and maybe for mommy and me someday," her father directed as he picked out a fork from the drawer to his left. Rhoawyn's eyes sprang to attention and as she focused her gaze on the fork in her father's hand, nodding a quick okay.

She watched the fork dig beneath the bottom of the piece closest to her, noting how limply it dangled in the air as her father flipped it to the other side. Rhoawyn watched in awe at of the now-browned bottom of the bacon, and the ease with which her father flipped the next piece over. Determined, she reached for the fork in her father's grasp.

"Can I try?"

"Sure thing," he agreed, picking her up from her spot on the counter and lifting her just enough to see above the skillet. "Now just push the fork underneath the piece you want to pick up and flip your wrist to turn it over."

Rhoawyn followed his instructions as closely as she could, carefully gliding the fork beneath the meat and letting it hang lightly for a moment before attempting to turn it to the other side. She'd turned her wrist too slowly the first time, and the bacon didn't flip like she'd wanted it to.

Determined to get it right, she flicked her wrist a second time, but the force of the flip landed the strip right on the bare of her forearm. The grease burned her exposed flesh beneath its lingering heat.

Rhoawyn thought if she could compare the blistering pain of the blaze now biting at her ankle to anything, it would be to that lone piece of bacon. But this was at least ten times worse. She tugged her ankle from beneath the burning fabric of her bedsheet as the scent of smoke filled the air, heat clinging to her clammy skin.

Flames gnawed their way up the walls and through the roof as she grabbed the half-sipped cup of water from her bedside table, dousing the front of her shirt and holding the drenched cloth to her face to filter the fumes entering her lungs. The zipper on the back stung her skin as she waded her way through the blackened fog, navigating the house by memory.

She stumbled into the small hallway that connected every room and followed a path mostly clear of smoke and debris toward the front door.

As she carefully maneuvered her way through, a long support beam collapsed-sending molten splinters flying in each direction. Two caught into the flesh of her thigh and neck, branding her with their searing heat. Shooting pain rocketed through the nerves where the splinters protruded from her skin, causing her to lose her grip on the shirt.

Rhoawyn toppled over, heaving like a fish out of water against the smoke consuming every molecule of oxygen.

I can make it if I just... She tried to haul her injured body over to the front door that was just out of her reach.

As she struggled, the doorknob swiveled. The door flew open with too much force, causing the already unstable framework of the house to spill flaming cinders on Rhoawyn's exposed legs and back. She lied on the floor, writhing in pain, trying to smother the flesh-eating flames into the floor. The scent of her own charred skin caused her to gag. Everything was too hot, too painful. She couldn't breathe.

She clasped her neck, trying to hold on to the slightest bit of oxygen she had left, and looked up through her swollen eyelids to find a man standing in her doorway, as tall as the frame itself. He had a towering figure, and as her vision wobbled in-and-out of focus Rhoawyn noticed his hair, the color of coal, sticking to his face. The length of it hid everything but his left eye.

Rhoawyn screamed in wet-eyed agony as the glowing embers still crushing her ate through the top layers of her skin. Her mind raced with thoughts of why this was happening. Why it was so drawn out and painful. They designed Departure to be an instant exit, hadn't they?

She reached out to the man in the doorway, an instinctual pleading for him to save her from this hell. Whether that meant pulling her free or putting her out of her misery didn't matter.

But the smoke and injury were getting the best of her, and her vision tilted into blurred vertigo-her consciousness tipping from its axis with each step the stranger took. Her world fell black beneath the growing piles of ash in her lungs, body sagging with the weight of mortality.

The stranger pulled her from the wreckage and tossed her slacken body over his shoulder.

When he exited the collapsing building, cargo in tow, he saw Flinch already perched in the passenger's seat of the van-fidgeting with the cuffs of his coat.

Eli opened the backdoor, tossing Rhoawyn on the seat carelessly. He climbed into the driver's seat and took off into the dead of night, ignoring Flinch's complaints about being more of a gentleman as the place Rhoawyn once called home crumbled into dust.