Warnings

"You really shouldn't stand so close."

I heard the words escape my mouth but they seemed less a shout and more a whisper compared to the gravel slipping loose underneath your boots. The grinding of pebbles indistinguishable from one another filled my ears and then my head until gravel spilled from my eyes. Flesh toned roots grew from my heels and toes as I saw the soles of your boots. Your arms stretched towards anything passing by like a child trying to catch the wind from a car window on the freeway.

"Not another step."

I didn't want to have to do it. It was the last thing I wanted to do. It's what they train you for but it's never what you're prepared for. Before you know it, it's too late, your trigger finger reacts instinctively. The warm metal in your hand feels like it's a part of you, like you were born with it. The smell of that wretched powder sticks to your uniform even after you've washed it countless times. The sound of bone pierced and cracked and shattered rings in your ears till you're deaf. The eyes glazed over but still staring at you, that look of desperation, you can't get it out of your head.

"Severe weather. Take shelter."

Can't be that bad. Just keep driving. Clear skies for a moment and then gusts. The road in front of you does not exist. There is only the wind and the sound. Soon you aren't on the ground anymore and there are only shards where the windows used to be. Your head feels warm and wet. Part of you is escaping. Duck and cover. You realize you've been set down when you weren't aware you had been picked up. Facing oncoming headlights and it still won't sink in. You've lost yourself. You walk out as someone else crying into shoulders of friends and strangers amazed you can walk you can breathe you can think you can eat you can hug you can kiss you can live.