The streets were so crowded that a person couldn’t see from one sidewalk to the other. The stench of thousands of bodies mixed with the scents rising from the thousands of food vendors to create a nauseating aroma. It would be impossible to move very far in any direction but she would find him.  She had to, and soon. How, she had no idea, but she was determined and refused to let any doubt cloud her mind. Her wavy auburn hair stuck to the Chap Stick on her lips as she whipped around in place. First she needed to find a way out of the middle of the blocked off street. She glanced at her watch and started to become frantic at how much time had passed already. She turned to the multistory buildings lining the road and tried to push through the masses, but without much progress. She couldn’t give up though. She desperately got on her hands and knees to try and maneuver through the tides of surprised people from below. And it worked! She started to gain ground in a relatively straight direction from what she could tell.

After much too long she finally found the sidewalk. Ignoring the looks of annoyance and startlement, she jumped up to see where she was. Apparently she was in front of Chuck’s Hamburgers, which was almost at the intersection! She had headed in the right direction and the amount of people surrounding her was slightly lessening.  She began to run away from the makeshift stage and towards the bakery where she knew their cars were parked. She could only hope they hadn’t gotten in them yet.

It was hard and slow work dodging in between the throngs of people and trying to avoid those who pushed back. Once she tripped hard over a woman’s shoe and slammed head first into a man’s chest and he promptly shoved her to the ground. Someone stopped to help her but she forced herself up on her own and kept going. Her ankle barely supported her weight and she thought she might have sprained it. Blood ran from scrapes on her arms and hands but she told herself to ignore the pain. She had lost more time and couldn’t afford to do anything about it now.

She’d gotten lucky actually, because the fall had landed her pretty far down the right way. However, her heart was quickly sinking. There was no way he was still here; she was taking so long and she was still so far away. Tears started trickling down her face against her will making it extremely hard to see. She pushed herself to go faster but her ankle wouldn’t let her and there were still too many people in the way. Her heart was pounding and her lungs burned, adding to her pain.

Suddenly, a stroller rolled out right in front of her. The woman shrieked and the baby started screaming as she hit the ground again. This time she couldn’t get back up. Her whole foot had gone numb and completely inhibited her from even standing back up, much less put weight on it to run. She curled up in pain clutching her ankle, chest heaving with the effort to keep from sobbing right there. All was lost. He was really gone. Forever this time. She began to feel very dizzy and her vision was sprouting large black spots. She vaguely noticed people starting to gather around her but none of them offered her any help. She heard shouting and screaming and then a flash of light on metal cut across her eyes.  She didn’t know what was happening but she didn’t care. She saw that the metal was the shiny silver of a car’s bumper. Her thoughts grew fuzzy as she wondered how a car had gotten into these streets. They were all blocked off for the music festival. She thought she should try to move out of the way but her foot throbbed enough to make her squeeze her eyes shut, the darkness and pain taking over.

Fire. Burning…fire…FIRE! Her ankle was on fire! The intense burning sensation brought her abruptly back from unconsciousness and she cried out. Her eyes flew open in confusion and saw through blurry vision that she was still in the middle of the road. Now the car was almost on top of her but it wasn’t moving anymore and there were more people than before. There was a man kneeling next to her, watching her eyes twitch back and forth as he yelled into a phone.

“She’s awake now!” he called over the noise of the mob, “She was only out for like five minutes. I think something wrong with her foot and she might have a concussion.” The car honked its horn obnoxiously and the man gave it a dirty look before covering the receiver and yelling that an ambulance was on the way. The driver leaned out the window and called back, “Well can’t you just get her out of the way? It’ll take hours to get an ambulance in here and we’re on a schedule!” The man next to her scowled then turned to ask her if she could hear him. She slowly nodded.

“Do you think you can stand up?” he asked and she nodded again. He helped her up very gently but tears streamed down her cheeks and she swayed violently as her foot protested with waves of pain. That’s when she knew she was still unconscious.  She had never actually woken up. For that’s when the door to the back seat swung open and she heard a familiar voice ask, “What’s wrong? Who’s hurt?” and another one say, “What are you doing? We need to be back at the

hotel by six and we’re going slowly enough without you wondering about. Sit back down!” only not in English. Her eyes snapped to the source, cutting through the crowds of now screaming people. The driver ordered them back inside but the two men ignored him, turning curiously to see what was holding them up. She saw recognition flash across both of their faces and she locked eyes with the first. She reached out for him, forgetting everything and took a step forward, but that was as far as she got. As she fell, a silent name left , drowned out by everyone else. But she never hit the ground. She didn’t know how, but suddenly she was in his arms as he caught her. The last thing she knew was his angelic voice, full of alarm, saying her name. Then the darkness took her again.