River is
1. River: noun, Abbr. R. A large natural stream of water emptying into an ocean, lake, or other body of water and usually fed along its course by
converging tributaries.
2. A stream or abundant flow: a river of tears.
there are rocks underneath her feet and they feel wet and round and smooth and the water is cold and it laps at her toes, between them and up around her ankles and when it splashes it leaves drops of water on her hands and her small bare legs. She is ten, and Simon is chasing her. On the grass they've left their fishing pools, and there are big brown speckled bass that swim all along the banks, hidden underneath the grass and she is smiling and laughing and Simon says, "River." He laughs, and laughs, and slips on the rocks, and reaches a hand out, and River falls with him into the cool crisp water. He puts his face on her shoulder, and he is smiling, she can feel it against her skin and he wraps his arms around her, and he says, "I've got you," and she says, "You do."
sitting alone
The room is cold and white and sterile and she can't get out. She's tried - but there's no way. They've thought of everything. She can't do anything, but sit here, huddled up against the white, white wall, and pull the blanket up over her knees and stare down at her hands where they lie on her thighs. She talks, sometimes, just to hear a voice, just to speak, to do anything but sit, motionless, and alone here in this stark and simple cell. She wants to go home, she wants to be in her room, her mother's kitchen, her father's study, her brother's room. When she talks, she talks to Simon, because it's better that way, though she knows that he can't hear or, or maybe doesn't even know that she's missing him. She pictures Simon, tall now, and handsome, and thinks of how he puts things back together - how now he's putting people back together, patient and calm, and River wonders, "Who will put me back together when I break?"
and all around her
and Simon says, "It's okay now, it's all right," but it isn't it isn't at all, because Simon isn't there. Instead there are just the blue hands reaching down, reaching toward her, blue and reaching and her face is hot, and there is blood streaming down the sides of it, and maybe she is screaming and maybe she is not. In the hands, those big blue hands with their long, rubber-covered blue fingers, there are tools - metal and shiny and cold when touched to her skin, when sliced through her skin. There is light and it is in her eyes, and there are so many people clustered around her, there are so many people standing near, and they're laughing, and in River's head, there is Simon, there is always Simon, and he is telling her, "I'll find you, River, I promise." And she believes him.
there is darkness
So thick, now, the darkness, and River can't find her way out of it. She tries, she pushes, and she presses on the walls of her reality, and there is nothing there, there is nothing that makes sense. And the darkness bleeds in through the sides, it crowds around in front of her vision until it is as though she is looking at nothing, she is looking at night, and she thinks, "My God, they've made me blind," but then she realizes she just can't open her eyes. Her whole body is frozen, and cold, and she thinks, "Am I safe now? Will they hurt me now?" And she curls around that question, her knees coming up to her chest, and her arms circling over them, and she sleeps. She sleeps not peacefully, not calmly, just deeply, until there's a sound like a ripping open and light streams in and oh, the air that floods into her lungs is thick, so very, very thick, and it is burning, and she thinks, "I'm dying now, aren't I?" But she isn't, she's being held, and there's murmuring, and it's a voice that she remembers, and she opens her eyes, and she turns, and Simon puts his arms around her, and he says, "It's all right, River."
but she will stay there,
"...stay on the ship," Simon says, smiling. She understands his words (ship: A vessel of considerable size for deep-water navigation. A sailing vessel having three or more square-rigged masts. An aircraft or spacecraft. ), but somehow she doesn't quite know what he means and it's strange and her thoughts are slow and sluglike and they make no sense, she can't seem to make out the shape of anything that happens or anything that goes on around her, except to see the small pieces of it and she used to see so clearly. She used to just know things, without knowing how or why, and that still happens, but not the little things, not the things that make her a person, no, now she knows things that are strange to her, and would be stranger still to Simon, and so she doesn't speak of them, she just lets him comfort her. He puts his big hands on her shoulder, and he smiles, and he tells her they are safe, and she wonders what he means by that, if he knows what is to come, and if he'd believe her if she told them.
because she is waiting for Simon.