Comfort Food

Where did it all go wrong? I run rapidly through the darkened forest, the night vision mode sputtering in and out of my goggles. My right leg burns from getting grazed by bullets when we escaped and using my super speed on an empty stomach makes me nauseous, but I have to keep going. I stare down at the unconscious form in my arms. Autumn was bleeding profusely from her head and had been out like a light for the last hour. I try to retrace the events of the night in my head, but the pain and sickness is driving it all away.

I need to stop to fuel back up. And more importantly, I need to stop and take care of Autumn’s injuries. The escape will have been meaningless if we both don't make it. I slow it down to a normal, non-super-powered pace. The nausea that was somewhat kept at bay is not hitting up at full force. I quickly set Autumn down against a tree before I collapsed and heaved down next to her. Not much comes up aside from spit and a little water. I close my eyes and turn to lean against the tree myself to finally catch my breath.

In and out, in and out, in and out. The breaths come out shallow and fast. I’ve been hyperventilating for a while, but I needed to put as much distance between us and those who attack us as possible.

In and out, in and out. I’m getting a little more control back of my breathing. I can feel my heart slow down considerably as the appropriate level of oxygen is starting to fill my body. My eyes opened after what felt like an eternity of breathing. One of my goggles is still in night vision mode, while the other one has crapped out. At least one still works.

In and out. I’ve finally gotten control back, but the exhaustion hits me as soon as the calm retakes my body. I’ve been running for an hour on very little fuel in a random direction. Sighing, I lean towards Autumn. Her breathing looks fine, which is good. I get up to kneel next to her, I dig through the backpack I hurriedly brought with me when we were escaping. There’s a tiny first aid kit inside, like there should be. We are all required to carry at least this anyway.

I pop it open and take at the little bottle of antiseptic it comes with. I dab it on one of the clean bandages and wipe her head where the blood is at. The cut, although much longer than I thought, was also quite shallow. She probably has a concussion, but we’ll worry about that if she wakes up.

When. When she wakes up.

My stomach turns and twists. The hunger caught up after the nausea left. I go back and dig through my backpack. I pull out a little portable gas-powered hot plate and a canister to make it usable. Digging a little deeper in the pack reveals s’mores supplies. We were planning a little camping excursion, mostly just for fun, before we were attacked. Glad I was put in charge of carrying the s’mores supplies. Lots of sugars and carbs, which will give me the quick fuel I need to get back some vigor.

I hook up the canister to the hot plate. I can’t perfectly see everything, but I’d rather not make any fire or use any electric lanterns in case they tried following us. The hot plate eventually lives up to its name. I can feel the heating radiating from it. I’ve never made s’mores very successfully before with good conditions, let alone trying to make them on a hot plate when I can only half-see what I’m doing.

Graham crackers rest on each thigh to keep them off the ground, but available at a moment’s notice. The marshmallows get placed flatly onto the hotplate, not really having any better solution in mind. While the Marshmallows become gooey on their own time, I take some chocolate and hole it just above the hotplate, where I can feel a little heat coming up. The chocolate was already a little runny when I opened up the package, so it quickly started dripping onto the goo-ifying marshmallows. I place the runny chocolate on one of the graham crackers and then immediately start working on how to get the marshmallow off the hotplate.

No proper utensils on hand, I take off my grimy gloves and do something a little dumb. I grasp the hot, gooey marshmallow in my hands, trying desperately to scrape it off the hot plate. The hot marshmallow burns, the hot plate burns, and all in all this was a terrible idea, but I still couldn’t keep myself from laughing and smiling as I did it. I eventually plopped whatever amount of the marshmallow goo I was able to scrape onto the opposite cracker, and then combined the two halves.

I couldn’t see very well, but even I knew this s’more was a mess, and anyone who saw it would say the exact same thing. I bite down into it. The marshmallow was both too gooey and a little charred. The chocolate was still a little too solid. It was an objectively mediocre s’more. Despite that, though, I couldn’t help but tear up a little while eating it. This small moment, this little comfort, this reminder of Summers gone and past was sure to keep me going through whatever other trials and tribulations were coming.

I smile then look towards Autumn, “I’ll make you one when you wake up.”

I keep chowing down on my mediocre s’more, letting the tears flow all the while.