Sink to your knees, panting; sweat pooling under you.
Then to the tile, arms wrapped around your chest, hands on your knees, hands on the tile, forehead on the tile, side on the tile, curled up.
Laughter still, then
*pop*
hanging
above the pool
hanging
then
plummet.
and just before you hit water,
Dirt.
ground into your cheek.
People are laughing somewhere nearby.
Raindrops splatter against concrete, against leaves.
You realize where you are, how you got there, what's going on.
You realize you really are soaked- your shirt and pants, all the way through.
There are tears on your face.
It smells like piss, and you can't place whether it's you or not.
Right on the heels of relief comes a crash.
You ball back up and close your eyes hard.
Another siren swells, doesn't get quieter. You can see the pulsating lights through your eyelids. Another siren pulls up, then another. You strain to see what's going on, but you can't make anything out through the brush.
You tug your phone out of your pocket and curl around it. You scroll and scroll through the contact list. Old names transferred over from old phones, but none make sense; Too ancient or too embarrassing. You pause at Sarah, hover for a long time over Soot, but your finger lands on TZ before any more feelings swell on the matter. You draft a
text.
You press send and watch to be sure it delivers.
You stare at your screen for a long time, re-reading what you just sent.
The sirens are still
crashing, but they've started to fade into ambient tones and rhythms.
You're getting really
cold.