Foreverland Is Dead

like a junk drawer dumped onto the floor, each piece unrelated to the next. Each piece broken.
    Something inside her had died.
    She throws the blanket off, her joints stiff. There’s a full-blown fire in her boots. Slowly, she slides her legs off of the mattress, places them gently on the floor. Her pulse slams in her heels, her feet swollen and snug inside the rubber.
    She doesn’t think, just reaches down and pries off the right one, ignoring the slivers of pain that bore through her heel and into her thigh.
    She stifles a scream. Her breathing is shallow, rapid. Awareness hangs tenuously on each breath. She opens her eyes.
    The sock is red. The back of it completely worn away, revealing scorched tissue, red and angry, as if a belt sander had been laid on her heel.
    She wedges her finger under the sock, hand quivering, and peels it away. It sticks on the floor. The cool planks bring little relief.
    Ten more breaths and off comes the left one, not as bad as the right. The sock not as red.
    She waits until her pulse stops hammering in her heels. Now that her feet are out, the pain recedes and they swell without constriction.
    I walked through the night.
    That’s how she got back to the bunkhouse; she trekked through the midnight hours until she crawled back in bed. There’s no memory of it. Like every night, there’s only falling asleep and waking in the morning.
    She didn’t expect this.
    She didn’t expect to sleepwalk to the bunkhouse. It would’ve been better to sleep on the hillside than mangle her feet. Infection could be the end.
    Her backpack isn’t in the bunkhouse. It must be out there, on the hilltop next to the split boulder and dead tree, where the slope leads to the trees where there’s an opening, and tracks, and…
    And memories.
    That’s why she feels dead inside. She remembered her past in that place, the memories forced inside her. A past she wants to forget.
    She stands, welcomes the pain to blot out thoughts, erase the guilt and rot and ugliness. She has to stay present, be in the here and now, not there.
    First, she must tend her wounds.
    She knows where to find medicine.

    “You’re up… Oh my God!” Mad shouts, stepping out of the kitchen.
    Cyn hobbles past the dinner table. Mad gets out of the way, staring at bloody streaks, the shiny wounds on her heels. Cyn falls onto the stepstool next to the sink, lets out a troubled breath. Pain crawls through her legs and into her stomach.
    “We thought you were a goner.” Mad reaches into the pantry. “When you didn’t come back last night, I didn’t think we’d ever see you again. You must’ve walked all night.”
    She’s holding a white metal box, staring at Cyn’s feet.
    “How’d you do it?”
    “I don’t remember.” Cyn takes the box from Mad.
    “That came with Miranda’s last batch of clothes. There’s ointment and gauze and enough wrap that you can get those covered.” Mad bends over, grimacing. “Those get infected, you’ll be in a world of hurt.”
    The box is filled with small amounts of iodine and triple antibiotic and other low-dose pain meds. She’ll go through all of those before it’s over. Cyn opens the medicine cabinet beneath the sink, looks at the brown bottles with pills. She’s not sure what they’re for or how much to take. Last resort, she decides. If I start a fever.
    She begins to close it. “What the hell happened?” she blurts.
    Mad steps back. Cyn’s tone is direct. Harsh .
    “This thing was full, but now there’s a bunch missing.” Cyn pulls out a clear plastic bag. “Where are they going?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t use them. I don’t even know what they are.”
    Cyn doesn’t know, either. But they’re missing. And the shelves of food are half-empty. They shouldn’t be, not by her estimates. She looks at Mad.
    Mad shrugs, looks away.
    “Where is she?”
    “Up at the brick house, I think.” Mad takes the keycard off of her neck. “Here’s your key.”
    “Keep it.”
    Cyn slides an empty pail from under the sink. “Fill this.”
    Mad brings her fresh water. She helps clean the blood from her feet. Cyn winces when she comes near the wound. Mad doesn’t stop. She cleans it, scrubs away the dirt and dead skin. She applies the iodine and triple antibiotic. Cyn does the wrapping, though. She weaves the ACE bandage over and under each foot until they’re fully wrapped.
    She tests her weight. It’s manageable.
    She opens the kitchen door. There’s a small fire on the