Only One Trail

Pain—nerve-singeing, burning pain.

Darkness enveloped me, my lungs screaming from the effort to breathe while the tissues and ligaments refused cooperation.

“I must be dead,” the thought bubbled up through the panic that coursed through my brain, strangely calm.

No, this did not seem like death to me—rather, the moments before life ceases. Of course, the pain was telling of my physical state. So not dead, but perhaps a short jaunt from it.

Just as I wondered which of my organs were failing, a sliver of color—glowing blue—made its way into my field of vision.

A deep, racking spasm ran through me again and again, leaving me breathless.

Ahh, my lungs had won their battle for life! Huzzah!

The clacking and chattering of my teeth left me concerned they would break from the impact; the sound alone sent sharp, stabbing pain through my frontal lobe and jaw tendons.

The muscles in my eyelids relented at last, and I was able to fully discern what surrounded me, though comprehension was a stranger to my disoriented faculties.

Rapid blinking swept some of the fog from my eyes but did nothing for my mind.

Little Bear! Dear God!! Where was he?! At that thought, I wrested myself up from the ground and cast my gaze about for my small son.

How long had I lain unconscious? Where was he? Was he hurt or lost? It was night, but it had been late afternoon in my last memory.

My maternal panic overrode the pain, and I dragged myself to crawl along the wet, rough, pocked pavement. My fingertips slid with each small, shuddering forward movement. Lungs quivering, muscles trembling, every nerve in my body on fire… but it didn’t matter. I had to find him. I had to see that he was safe.

Crawling stiffly, the oppressive weight of my wet jeans and sweatshirt dragging at me, I was thankful for the damp. It had plastered paper and plastic refuse in place and molded various detritus into a swampy mess that grew up along the reddish brick walls and patchy, chained fences up ahead—leaving me an unhindered path to the opening of this concrete hellscape.

At the mouth of the trash-laden fence and garbage-clogged bricks, beyond the long, unkempt, overflowing commercial dumpsters, I saw the inconsistent flashes combined with the distinct purr of engine noise and scattered snatches of popular music that signaled cars—which meant life, people, help. There was a mildly busy road up ahead, and then my mind flooded with more fear as my heart tried to climb out of my throat.

Bear!!

Visions of my son’s bloodied little body and glassy, unseeing eyes refused to share the stage of my mind’s eye—until worse visions of him being lost on his own, or snatched away by some perverse stranger with horrifying intentions, replaced them.

I tried to scream, but no sound came from my mouth—just a billow of bluish-purple smoke.

Had I the time and leisure, I would have been enchanted by it.

Sinew and ligament screamed for respite as I clawed my way along the cold ground of what I came to realize, through my pain-addled fog, was an alleyway.

The blue glow of the neon sign proclaiming the venue Moonlight Tap cast its light over my desperation, its steady buzzing the soundtrack to my rising terror.

Fear and pain became my coach and cheerleader on that path that, to my mind, was unyielding and interminable; they were wonderful at their job… a credit to their profession.

Reaching out my hand in the repetitive and seemingly unending sequence that had brought me from my initial start—where consciousness had reclaimed me—I felt soft blades of cold, dewy grass. It told me that I had reached the end of the alley, while the jagged cracks and gravel let me know my hand had found the sidewalk.

Struggling on my belly across the space to the rusty fence links, I pulled myself up hand over hand. Empathy for that rusty old fence flowed through me as my own muscles shrieked and twitched. Ever so slowly, one link at a time, I climbed upward. At last, breathing heavily with my lungs working double time, I clung to the fence in a semi-standing, semi-leaning position and held on for dear life. My knees wobbled and threatened to betray me, but I held fast as my arm extended in an attempt to hail a passing car.

I had to find Bear, and that meant that I would need help.

I looked at my hand, and it looked so strange.

And there it was—something so small but so important. The shadows fell all wrong, and the light was strange… like I had never seen before.

My thoughts cleared ever so softly, and I realized that Little Bear would never have gone off on his own—and that my son and I had been at home, in our house. Our locked house. Our two-story white house, with its beautiful yard full of bright green grass along a small street on a corner lot in the middle of a Midwestern suburb.

The nearest alley was a half hour away, and they were all well-kept.

A vicious shudder rolled through me, starting in my skull and making its way down to my toes. Exhaling more of the strange-colored smoke—its consistency closer to mist—I blinked at the odd-looking shadows and bizarre lighting.

And then I turned my eyes skyward, and all doubts left me.

My gaze flickered back toward whence I had come, and there, along the gray, uneven bricks of the back-alley wall, was a large charred patch that sparkled and squirmed, shifting colors as it slowly solidified… and trailing from that was the now-dispersing slime that had come from my trek across the alley floor.

The glittering trail was changing color as well, the solidifying bits bonding themselves to the pavement… but there was only one trail. If Little Bear had come with me, then there should have been a separate trail—solidified, but still some sign that he had been there.

I leaned my head back against the rusty steel post and grasped the chain links tighter, never more relieved that my mother had been working from home. Harry wouldn’t be back for hours. My mother, however, would have already had her break and would have come to get the coffee that I promised her when I let her know that Bear and I were going for caffeine and a snack.

There was no way to tell where I was… or possibly when. I would find out, and then I would find my way back to Bear. But at least he would be okay until I got back.

Under the light of the two crescent moons that lit the sky of this world, my legs finally gave way, and I sank to the sidewalk with relief at the realization of Bear’s safety—and finally allowed myself to break down into tears of release.

Author’s Note:

This story is structured around delayed recognition rather than emotional escalation. Meaning emerges through pattern, repetition, and physical evidence, allowing form and sequencing to guide the reader toward understanding without relying on overt catharsis.