IRC-Galleria

She opened her eyes – the task had taken hours to perform. Her eyelids felt heavy, partially because of the swelling but also for all the sleeping. It had become a default state for her, being asleep.
But the difficulty of waking up was nothing compared to the difficulties she'd had trying to fall asleep. It had taken days to get rid of all the images that invaded her mind every time she closed her eyes. After a moment of restless snoozing, a nightmare would wake her up. She would be covered in sweat, shaking uncontrollably... And the images had probably never stopped showing up. She couldn't quite remember. Maybe she had just grown so tired that her body no longer responded to the stimuli that normally awakened her.
And then she'd slept. For days, a whole week perhaps.
How could she know? She hardly remembered her name. Actually she hadn't remembered it before checking the patient file that had been left to the table next to her.
Jill Stanton, missionary.
God's work. Was that what she had been doing?
Amara. She had watched as her eyes had turned expressionless. And then she had run for her own life, leaving the woman in the hands of the merciless assassins. There was blood in her hands. Amara had bled. And Funaya, the other woman she'd been holding, too, had bled.
The little boy, Chima, had bled.
There was no God.
She looked at her hands now. There were small wounds and burns all over them. But no blood. Wounds would heal. They already were healing.
She had bled, too. But now she was healing.

“You look fine to me,” the doctor said, smiling solely with his mouth. There was no joy in his eyes, nothing that guaranteed Jill she truly looked fine to him. Her blond hair had lost its natural glow, greasy strands were hanging on her face which was probably covered with yellow patches here and there, as the bruises were slowly fading. And then there were the burns.
Although, by the look of the backs of her hands, they had taken the most damage as she'd attempted to shield her face.
The ringing in her ears after the blow... even now, she had to struggle to hear what the doctor was saying.
“...so I think you're ready to be discharged. At least you shouldn't be tired anymore,” he joked.
How wrong he was. But, against all odds, she eventually got up to her feet, collected the small amount of stuff she had with her into a simple canvas bag and walked out of the hospital.
People in the streets stared. Stared at her scarred face, her blunt expression. Pity, disgust, curiosity... it made no difference for her. They were all hostile.
She turned her gaze down, averted their eyes; tried to hide. And ended up looking ashamed. But she had nothing to be ashamed of, had she?
She had done nothing to prevent death. There had been death all around her, and she had made no effort. Other than running away.
There was a lot to be ashamed of.

She opened the door too hastily. Her feet almost failed her as she drew in the scent that, no matter how mild and faded it was, reminded her of happiness. Food, air-freshener... even the smell of the air conditioning was distinguishable to her now. Even though it didn't really smell, the air in a shat without air conditioning did smell. And the odor of her place was the opposite of that.
She was dreading to place her fingers on the sterile surfaces of the house. She was dirty.
It had started to rain. She hadn't heard it until now as the drumming against the roof had gotten louder. A regular person could've concluded from the sheer sound that there was a storm rising, but Jill noted it only when she walked to the window and saw the heavy raindrops... and that was about the extent of the sight. It was a thick rain.
She undressed and chucked the blunder of clothes into the garbage chute.
She couldn't use the shower. She would've contaminated it. So she shuffled the stairs down, passing locked apartment doors behind which there were probably families playing Trivial Pursuit in front of the fireplace, asking questions like “What was the Iraq War also known as?”
That was surely a fact worth knowing.
As was it that it claimed the lives of nearly a hundred thousand civilians. Civilians who probably pleaded the killers to save their children, civilians who cried for their moms and dads before being brutally slaughtered.
Jill pushed the front door open and stepped out into the rain, letting it soak her and work its way through her messy hair to clean the scalp. She didn't feel the sharp drops crushing against her skin, hitting the ailing spots in her ravaged body.
And she didn't hear the first shout that was addressed to her, the crazy naked woman standing on the pavement; but the second time the shouter was close enough so that the sound actually reached her ears.
“Hey!”
She turned slowly to look at him.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She remained silent, hoping he would just leave her alone. But he came closer, taking his coat off. When he finally reached her, he wrapped the long, black trench coat around her and looked at the apartment building behind them.
“You live here?”
Jill nodded weakly and didn't put up much of a resistance as the man guided her in and up the stairs. That's exactly what she had done in Nigeria: followed the men, the rescue team, out of the war zone and left behind the casualties she could've tried to help.
She pointed out her apartment door which was left open. He shoved her into the bathroom, under the shower. As he put the warm water running, she shivered.
After standing under the steady flow of water for an unknown amount of time, long enough for the shivering to end and her body temperature to return to its normal level, she stepped out and wrapped herself into a huge towel.
The man was sitting on her couch and turned around the instant she came to the living room area. She was dripping water on the wooden floor, and he looked like he was about to mention that. But she spoke first.
“Why are you doing this?”
The man shrugged as if it was obvious.
“If I hadn't done it, someone with less helpful intentions could've gotten to you.” He tried to reach her averting eyes. “It's not safe, you know, running around naked in Chicago.”
“I can handle myself.”
He studied her face and chuckled, which made her angry. There was nothing funny in her current appearance.
“With all due respect, miss, it doesn't look like you can.”
He had some gut to tell her that. As if he knew anything about her.
“Get out,” she said silently but with such determination that it wiped the smirk from his face. He seemed unsure.
“I don't know if I should leave you alone...”
“Get out,” Jill repeated. She had just enough strength left to keep her voice even. He got up and walked, all too slowly, towards the door.
“Get out!” she screamed and this time her voice broke as she was trembling with the attempt of fighting tears. He froze, and after a moment of deliberation, returned to her.
As he pulled her closer to him, she gave up altogether. Tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving behind wet streaks that were wide as the River Nile. Her shoulders shook as she took a staggering breath and she felt his hands stroke her damp hair comfortingly. He didn't ask anything, which was good, because she didn't want to answer.
She didn't ask him to stay, but he did. He held her close every time she woke up in panic, afraid of the faces she saw in the dark corners of her bedroom. When they stared at her, their piercing eyes filled with accusations, she turned around to bury her face to his chest. He rubbed her back and she fell asleep again.

It was a sunny morning. She put the coffeemaker on and gazed at her reflection in the hallway mirror. During her last checkup in the hospital, the doctor had said the wounds in her face would most likely heal completely, without leaving any scars. Hands and arms would be another thing, though.
She'd just combed her hair which was starting to reach the shoulder blades. Maybe she would let it grow this time.
The doorbell rang and she tightened the belt of her bathrobe before opening the door.
A smile of fake surprise lit her fragile-looking features as she saw Chris standing in the stairway. She stepped aside, letting him in.
“Mm, coffee,” he said as he entered the kitchen. “Exactly what I needed. How did you know?”
She laughed and took two mugs from the cupboard, pouring them full. They settled down at the table and looked at each other: Chris studied her face, figuring out her mood for today, and she answered his gaze, making the task easier for him.
She was feeling okay. And that was thanks in no small part to Chris.
Everyone needed a miracle at least once in their lives. Her miracle was Chris. He had emerged out of the blue, at the point where she had already fell down from the cliff, to catch her and pull her up.
And there she was, sipping coffee with him sitting across the table, in the apartment she had been more than ready to sell out. It had felt like a wrong place for her to live. It was a happy place, with happy smells from her former life. And she had been severely damaged.
But now, even though she very well knew there was no returning to what she'd once been, she knew that she would cope.
And she could be happy.