The Last of Them All (editing)

Chapter 28: Fire and Ice

I squinted hard and tried to stifle my cries that had lodged their way into my throat. After a few moments of silence, and the return of the cold that had come earlier I opened my eyes and looked from in front of the rock.

"Justin!" He was lying face down in the dirt, arms sprawled over his head, probably unconscious.

I rushed to his side and grabbed his shoulder, but immediately pulled away. His skin was hot to the touch, literally radiating heat. Oh well, my fingers felt numb anyways.

I pulled his shoulder towards me until he was lying in my lap. I wiped the stray dirt away from his face, and his eyes remained closed. Oh gosh, what had happened? Please be okay, please be okay, I muttered to myself. His chest rose up and down slowly, his breathing shallow and the pattern abnormal.

I didn't know what to do. I sat there with him in my lap, my tears slowly falling onto his tanned skin. I closed my eyes, hoping that all of this would go away, that I would be back home in my bed. This wasn't happening, he was okay, we were all going to be okay.

"Ali?"

I looked down to see Justin's eyes slowly opening. They fluttered before his blue ones finally stared back into mine. I cried out in relief. He shifted himself from off of my lap and sat up. Within a moment he had wrapped his arms tightly around me and I was encased in his embrace. He smelled like smoke, and his touch was incredibly warm, but I was grateful.

We were interrupted by a shrill cry that chilled me to the bone. We separated only to see Clara, hovering over Andrew, who had no movement in him whatsoever. I glanced at Justin, and then helped him to his feet before we quickly made our way over to where she was kneeling on the ground.

"He, he, oh gosh!" She spoke too fast for me to comprehend half of what she was saying, but my mind was racing just as fast as her words were. "I don't know what happened he jus- Justin caught on fire and I hid and then- then then, when it was over I couldn't- I couldn't find Andrew and now he's lying there and I can't I can't get him to wake up." The tears poured down her face and I knew she was analyzing everything that could have happened, did happen, and what could have gone wrong. "I think, it's cause, well-" Her words rambled off at an immense rate. "He probably got hypothermia, and I didn't know how to stop it, and then he probably just fell asleep but when you have hypothermia and fall asleep then you just, you just-"

She broke down and started sobbing into her hands. I held back tears to no avail as I stared at Andrew's lifeless form, lying there on the frozen ground. Our best friend, just lying there.

I guess when we escaped we all knew it was a possibility, but it just played there in our minds like a big science project we were procrastinating. Now that it was due it stayed there hidden amongst everything else. I guess the reality hadn't hit me yet. Or Justin.

Justin dropped to his knees at the sight of his childhood and life-long friend. He let out a cry that sounded inhumane and made me shiver even more than I already was.

We have to do something. I got up and approached Andrew. I placed his limp arms down by his sides and placed my hands softly over his chest, where the bandage from his surgery still remained.

I breathed in deeply, and pressed down hard. I pulled up and repeated that several times. In a moment my own heart started fluttering from what I felt.

"Guys!" They didn't respond at first, so I called again. "GUYS!" My heart was racing. "Come look, come, come feel."

Justin came over at first. He placed his hand cautiously on Andrew's heart, where it should be.

"That's weird," Justin didn't know how to react, and he just stood there. He replaced his hand there again and realized what it was. "Clara!" The two of us almost dragged Clara over to where Andrew was, and placed her hand over his heart.

"What is-" she choked back tears, "what is that?" Shocked covered her face and she knelt down on the ground. We followed.

I placed my hand over his heart again before speaking. "It's it's beating that's for sure."

Clara just seemed relieved at the fact that he was (probably) alive. The problem was, he wasn't breathing. He lay there completely still, his features the palest they've been, and his fingers, nose, and lips blue. Anyone that would have come across him would have automatically pronounced him dead.

After I moved my hand Justin immediately placed his where mine had once been. "It's- it's so irregular. That's definitely not a normal heartbeat. It's almost as if," He removed his hand and scratched his temple. He placed his hands along his lap and wiggled his fingers like he was playing a piano, the way he did when he was thinking. He got almost incredibly silent, before seriously turning towards me and Clara. "It's almost as if he has two separate heartbeats." He shook his head. "But that's, that's impossible. There would too much blood flow and circulation, it wouldn't work out."

I placed my ear over his chest and listened really closely. I spoke as I did so. "Justin, if there's anything we've learned from the past month, it's that nothing is impossible." I held up my hand as if to tell him not to speak. "Wait, it's it's slowing. It sounds like, as if the second heart died or something. It sounds like there is only one now."

I was pushed back by the sheer force and felt myself tumbling backwards into the snow. Andrew had shot up, his eyes wide open, before lying back down immediately with a loud thud, his eyes tightly closed once more. Clara gasped and grasped his hand between her pale ones. His chest heaved up and down at a fast rate, his breathing short and raspy. Within a few moments it slowed down to a normal pace, rising and falling like the snow blown around by the wind.

His eyelids fluttered before his green eyes were revealed. A groan escaped his parched lips and he tried to sit up but regretted it immediately.

"Andrew!" Clara cried out and wrapped her arms around his neck, planting a large kiss on his mouth. He held her back as best as he could but pulled away after a couple of seconds.

"I," he panted, struggling for each individual breath. "I, I can't breathe," he stated, his lips parting up in a slight smile.

'Aw come here!" Justin cried. Him and I enveloped Andrew in a large hug, tears streamed down my face and stuck to my loose strands of hair, before Andrew let out a loud groan and we pulled away.

"It hurts." He simply stated. He struggled to hold back the cries of pain that he wanted to let out. "My heart, it, I don't know what's wrong but it- it feels like it's on fire."

"Well you feel like you're ice." I stated. Rubbing his fingers in between my palm to try and get his circulation back.

"Come on," Justin said, rising to his feet. "I think it's almost morning, and they're going to be looking for us undoubtedly."

Justin braced Andrew up against himself as Andrew slowly rose to his feet, crying out in pain as he did so. Justin led the way with Andrew as we continued to make our descent along the mountain. Every few minutes we had to stop, because Andrew was not doing so well. After all who could blame him? He nearly died.

The sun peeked over the glowing horizon, daybreak was coming. We were able to see up ahead better than before otherwise we would have missed it. Our salvation. Our way home our ticket off of this mountain, or at least out of the snow.