Fractured Memory by Jordyn Redwood

groped for the grave.
    Better chest rise this time.
    Again, Julia pushed harder on his chest as tears coursed down her face. She was tempted to throw her fist to the sky at God for putting her in this position. Exhaustion would overtake her quickly and she’d be useless.
    “Eli!”
    A shudder from his body caused her to stop compressions. Murky river water spewed from his mouth and he coughed violently. Julia reached across his body and grabbed his shoulder and hip and rolled him toward her, collapsing on the ground next to him.
    Her hand trembled as she laid it on his cheek. She could see the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and she smoothed her thumb over the doughy coolness of his cheek.
    “Eli...open your eyes...please...”
    A faint flicker of his eyelashes and finally she could glimpse the pale blueness of his eyes. Unfocused. She could see his pupils weren’t dilated. Good. He coughed more and closed his eyes. He became still again, though continued breathing. She examined the cut to his forehead—just a small trickle of watery blood from the gaping wound. At least the icy water had constricted the open blood vessels and stopped any bleeding.
    As the last bit of strength seeped from her, she begged him. “Eli, please, open your eyes. Wake up.”
    And he did as she asked. His eyes locked on to hers with a flicker of recognition. In that moment, she knew he would live.
    His hand found its way to her face. “There are those brown eyes I’ve been waiting to see.”
    Again, that phrase that always brought so much peace.
    What did it mean?
    Julia couldn’t hold her eyes open any longer and she slumped onto the riverbank.

SEVEN
    I nstead of finding herself in the sweet blackness of sleep, Julia stood in the foyer of her old Craftsman bungalow and reeled with confusion. How was she here in her old home? The house was exactly as she last remembered it, including its peaceful calm.
    Am I dreaming? Did I die? Is this a memory?
    The home had been a gift from her parents. Together they had worked for two years to bring its stories back to life. Hours spent removing layers of dirt and paint to reveal beautiful wooden paneling and heavy rafters. In that time of endless cleaning, sanding and staining, it was the closest she had ever felt to her parents. The months of difficult work showed how much they loved her—not so much in words, but in every moment they spent making her house a home to cherish.
    Resting her hand over her heart, Julia listened and could just make out the sound of sandpaper, her father’s voice and the lilt of her mother’s laughter. Grief overwhelmed her.
    Those moments were gone forever. All she had left of them was what she could hold on to from the past. How long would she be able to remember them? Even now the vividness of her memories of them were washed in sepia tones—dull, muted—fading.
    A knock at her front door refocused her attention. She glanced at her clothes. The nursing scrubs that she’d been wearing that day.
    Today was that day.
    No, no...no!
    Dread bloomed in her chest like a drop of blood in water. Behind that door loomed the monster that would try to steal her life from her. Julia tried to flee from the terror, her feet slipping as she raced backward, but with every step she took back, the door came closer until the knob thrust into her hand.
    “Julia?”
    A voice.
    “I’m coming.”
    Julia’s mind screamed at every action, but her current will couldn’t stop the actions of her past self. Her present mind a prisoner of these events—watching them unfold through barely open fingers as the horror movie played on the screen.
    Reaching above the door, she grabbed the decorative, antique brass key and slid it into the lock and released the only barrier between her and death.
    A blast of light blinded her, and an intense pounding echoed through her head. She reached her hand up and felt wet sand drip onto her. She could hear the distant rush of swift waters. Her eyes