Swept Away

    The flashlight flickered on the muddy ground at her feet.  Her heavy breathing sabatoged her efforts to silence the surroundings in hopes of finding Sam.  The pattering of rain on the leaves around her cloaked the sounds of any children she might find in the wreckage.

"Sam!" Terri cried out with all her strength.

    The arc of light from the flashlight swung from side to side in a panic.  The light was painfully inadequate to locate her son in this disaster.  She reached up to cover her mouth in a vain attempt to keep from crying out again.  The missing tooth and blood trickling down her chin was a minor annoyance.

    A gurgled cough barely noticeable in the night echoed through her like a cannon.  She instantly doubled back and sent the flashlight into an uncontrolled frenzy, swinging back and forth through the darkness on an invisible pendulum of hope.  She reached the spot her senses had guided her to in search of that cough.  Looking down, she stopped inches from a shoeless foot covered in blood and mud.  Slowly, the light rose along the mangled form of a child.

"Mom?" Sam gasped and fell silent.

    Tears streamed down her cheeks leaving streaks of flesh amid the dirt and blood.  Terri reached down and grabbed the broken body of her son.  She scooped him up and held him close praying for his life.  Suddenly, the rain-soaked ground around her began to wash away.  She clutched her son with all her strength and although he could no longer speak, she heard him say, "I love you mom."  Her heart sank, even deeper than her feet into the mud beneath her.  She knew the end was near and her will to live failed her.  She allowed the water to take her at last.