the bumbled escape

I was in a meadow. There were flowers all around and lots of colors and the sun was shining and there were pine trees and mountains in the background. It was beautiful and I was so happy.

“Wake up, wake up! Soesin, wake up!” I opened my eyes and woke up to a nightmare.

“Leave me alone and let me go back to sleep!” I mumbled. I hurt pretty much everywhere and was sure I was going to throw up.

“Soesin, wake up and listen to me,” said the insistent voice. “We have to get out of here as soon as you can walk. They bombed the camp about 10 minutes ago, so they’ll be here any second.”

“I can’t. I hurt. Go away.” It would have been better to go back to the meadow, but I didn’t think I was going to be allowed to do that.

“Here. Drink this if you can,” a male voice said gently to me. “We’ve got to get her out of here before they close the tunnel,” he said to someone else.

“We may have to carry her,” said Insistent Voice. “She’s awful close to dying.”

“Yeees...Dying is gooood...Let me lay here...and diiiiee,” I moaned. “Go away...and I can go baaack...to the meadoooow.”

“What in heaven’s name is she saying,” said Male Voice. “Tie-goot...go hay...ba...med-ho. Christ! Now she’s delirious! We’re out of time. I’ll take her and unless you can get my gear, all the pass-codes and food locations will be left behind.” He picked me up but the pain made me pass out.

When I came to, I was sure that Insistent Voice and Male Voice were playing volleyball with my body as they hurriedly cut through the debris, across a couple of trees, and around a mound of bodies. But I contributed to the Cause by keeping my moans low -- I don’t think it helped much though since we stopped eventually and Male Voice said, “Shit! Look at that! The bombs destroyed the tunnel and I heard them landing a few blocks back. We’re on our own.”

“My meadow,” I groaned. “Put me in my meadow.”

“Right! That’s it,” said Male Voice. “We’ll put her on the sleep pad and we’ll float down the river. They’ll never see us in this weather, and if we can get out before we hit the rapids, we’ll be close to another tunnel and we can get out that way.”

“Another tunnel?” said Insistent Voice sounding like Scaredy Cat. “I’ve never heard of another tunnel. What tunnel? Why do you think there’s another tunnel down there?”

“Well, whether a tunnel’s there or not, we don’t have any choice,” said Male Voice as he inflated the sleep pad. “Besides, my granny told me about that tunnel and she said no one else knew about it.”

“Your granny?!” said Suddenly Incredulous Voice. “Your granny’s nuts! Everybody knows your granny’s nuts! Oh god, this isn’t going to work. I knew this wasn’t going to work.”