We made it halfway into the street when there was a flash of white and an explosive blast that damn near ruptured my eardrums and sent me stumbling.
Ears ringing, I looked back into the alley to see a smoking crater. The pawnshop and whatever building was opposite to it had been reduced to rubble. The figure rose out of the crater on its magic carpet, looking no worse than the initial emaciated state. Like my first firefight, fear cascaded from the tip of my head down to my very toes like icy rain. Despite being over two hundred feet away, I met that thing’s frigid, blue eyes. It aimed its scepter right at me.
“Incoming!” I cried. I caught the elf’s wrist and jerked the wizard along with Judge to the side.
A second later, an arch of light raced across the street where we were standing and into the Vienna Beef shop, followed by the crack of thunder. An explosion knocked me off my feet and into the asphalt facefirst, where I felt the rough surface scraping my cheek. Groaning in pain, I got to my knees and turned to see a glowing slash in the road and a ravaged flaming storefront — even the two cars parked in front were just twisted metal husks.
Judge was stirring to my side. The elf and the wizard were kneeling next to the hooded lady, who was on her side and unmoving. Disregarding them, I looked around for Heath. I spotted him on the opposite side of the street away from where the explosion launched us, resting on the curb with his back against a telephone pole. That was when I also spotted the warped piece of metal sticking out from his left thigh.
“Fuck, Heath,” I blurted as I stumbled toward him.
He glanced down at the exposed six inches, then down to the stream of his blood flowing into the storm drain. “Well, shit.” He undid the clasp of his helmet and tossed it aside, then he pulled a fresh box of ammo from his pack and loaded it into the M240.
“W-what are you doing?” I asked as he got the belt in place and charged a round.
“Gettin’ ready.” He shifted, a strained groan escaping his mouth while he propped the gun up on his right knee.
“No. No, no, we can get a tourniquet around your leg, and then—”
“Get going.”
“Heath—”
“You got a big brain in that noggin of yours,” Heath interrupted tersely. “Why are you thinking of doing something stupid?” He turned his head down the street, across from the smoldering path of destruction, to see an amassing horde of monsters stumbling forth, drawn to all the commotion. He turned back to me. “I don’t know where your line gets off, but I’m at mine.” He reached into his collar, and, with a solid yank, pulled off one of his tags, then held it out to me.
I cinched my jaws, then wrapped an arm around his neck and pressed my forehead into his. “Love you, brother.” Taking the tag, I gave him one last smile and then marched back to the others.
The hooded lady was up with the aid of the elf, but she looked unsteady. As I passed, I noticed some blood running along the side of her face, a knock to the head most likely. Judge had gotten the wizard up, and he was keeping his gaze over to where Heath sat. He looked over to me expectantly as I got on the wizard’s other side.
“Why isn’t he getting up?” he asked.
“He can’t. Shrapnel caught in his leg. We’re going.” Just as he was about to argue, I whirled my head toward him and glared. “Him or all of us, Judge. He already made his choice. Let’s fucking go.”
He didn’t like that arrangement, but he wasn’t stupid enough to let his good virtues damn the rest of us. The elf stared at us for guidance, and I jerked my head down the street. She nodded and ushered some words for her friends. Together, we jogged down the street.
The wizard, while suffering a fall from the explosion, managed to work his feet in tandem with ours. By the time we got to the end of the block, Heath’s gun was going off in controlled bursts, and it continued to do so as we turned right and made our way into a residential alley. Once we got onto the street proper to find another alley, thunder crashed, and the gunfire stopped altogether.
We kept our pace, staying out of sight as much as possible by navigating the backstreets and cutting in between buildings where we could. The wizard was wheezing by the time we cleared one city block. After two more, he was gasping like an asthmatic. For whatever reason, my mind focused on the dried blood around his nose and mouth, thinking what the hell caused it.
Desperate for distraction, I thought about the stone jaws and the wall. The man to my side did something—something impossible—and I couldn’t even begin to start piecing it together. It was impossible, all of it. Monsters, flying carpets, a guy who threw lightning, and the mysterious trio all had to be imaginary.
Is the wizard an actual fucking wizard?
Hectic thoughts went on the backburner as the elf’s companion tripped over her feet and stumbled in the middle of the street we were crossing. The elf tugged on her arm and pleaded, but the woman couldn’t get off her knees.
I looked around frantically, waiting to see if those monsters were going to ambush us. There were none of the hellish things, but there was no telling for how long.
Shrugging myself out from under the wizard, I went over to see what the hell her malfunction was. As I neared, I heard the woman gasping; however, it sounded like she was suffocating. The elf’s hands were shaking, hovering over her friend’s form, unclear on what to do. Leaving her would be the easiest thing to do. But, as much as it makes sense to me, I can’t. I won’t. Heath chose to be left behind. Who am I to decide for her?
I grabbed the elf’s forearm and pointed to the wizard. I pointed at my chest and then gestured to the still gasping woman. The elf’s eyes darted back and forth a few times before she seemed to catch my meaning. She went over to help Judge while I swung my rifle around and got down to my knee.
The beauty was maybe five foot five, so she should weigh less than a hundred and fifty pounds. It’s going to be difficult, but not impossible.
Getting the beauty's attention, I got lower and smacked my back a couple times, pointing to her arm and leg. Words being too difficult, and not useful, she nodded. She crawled over my back, then I looped my arm between her legs and hooked behind her knee to seize her right wrist. With a deep breath, I rose to my feet with the beauty in a fireman carry.
Back in basic, we had to run laps carrying someone over our backs. This woman wasn’t so bad. Definitely beats carrying someone who weighed around two hundred pounds and smelled like a nutsack. She smelled kind of nice, no definite scent, just a pleasant womanly aroma.
Fighting against my overloaded joints, I went to turn to the others to give directions but froze once I saw a form floating at the end of the street.
Fuck me running.
There it was, floating lazily atop its magic carpet, like some like something from a whimsical child’s story. There was going to be no cute rhymes or magical banter or fanciful life lessons, just death.
I stood there and watched the form as a wave of crushing hopelessness swept up and numbed my aching body. I gave a fleeting glance to the others. The elf trembled as the blood drained from her face. The wizard stared down the street, his wheezing silent as all his breath left him. Judge was as still as I; his jaw slack, his face blank like he just had a lapse in thought, no doubt from the threat in view.
I drew a blank as well. Our tank might’ve been able to finish it off if Ji and Heath were still here, and if we had another clear shot.
“If” is such a powerful thing, the only limitation being one’s imagination. The word seems to make reality feel less cruel with all the promise of infinite paths.
“Fuck you,” I muttered under my breath.
Carefully, I lowered the gasping beauty to the road on her side, and then I turned my sights back on the floating reaper, ever approaching.
“Fuck you!” I yelled at the form, then shot off a few rounds, the bullets sparking away from the humanoid thing in small arcs of electricity. “You see something you like, Liberace! Hop down and come at me; hell, I'll even tie an
arm around my back, seeing as I blew your other one the fuck off!”
Can’t run. Can’t fight. We can’t really do anything. Not against a… whatever the hell that thing is. Well, I guess I can keep goading it. Not like I have anything left to lose.
Just for fun, I unloaded my magazine in its general direction. Once my M4 clicked, I just let it fall and hang from its sling, not even bothering to grab an additional mag. The mutilated form was only thirty feet away now, its scepter of destruction hanging in its hand.
As it drew closer and I was able to see its charred and damaged face clearly, I laughed. A loud, obnoxious, boisterous laugh came out of me. The laugh tapered off as the thing ceased its advance and just hung lazily in the air, staring at me with piercing, icicle-like eyes. Though my jubilation died, I still kept my smirk.
“Every time you see yourself,” I started, “I want you to remember me. Us. I want you to remember all of us, you burnt marshmallow.”
It trained its scepter at our disheveled party, and I kept my eyes wide open.
Just as I’ve burned my tomorrow, the wizard rushed in front of me and clapped his hands together with the same rumbling force as before. At the same time, a wall earth raced from the ground, blocking out the sun and casting a deep shadow. Before I even had a chance to process the feat, a blinding arch of lightning pierced through the wall and lanced the wizard square in the chest.
The world slowed as the wall in front ruptured inward, and the wizard flew into me. A yellow radiance painted the world gold, and then everything went to black.
Chapter 4
The world came back in a slurry of purple and black, then green, violet, and then I was able to discern colors from the blurry array of images before me. It felt like someone had glued kaleidoscopes to my eyes after I got off of a rollercoaster with lots of loops after popping some Molly. The world refused to stop moving to the point that I couldn’t tell if I were standing, sitting, or unhurt.
The homologous mess before my eyes bloomed, blended, and swirled together in a violent spiral before everything became whole and still again.
If you jump off a skyscraper, it isn’t the fall that gets you; it’s the abrupt stop at the end that does. Whatever fall of a drug trip I was experiencing came to an abrupt end, clarity jerking me back from the recesses of ambiguity. As soon as the world stilled, the contents of my stomach came rushing out as acidic bile. Several minutes of dry heaving followed until I was empty. It took several more minutes of gasping while I stared at the vomit soaked dirt before everything clicked.
Dirt?
I pushed myself away from my mess and stared at the ground: more dirt, twigs, dried leaves, and patches of grass. Expanding my focus, I looked up at the towering trees crowding around me as if I was a child lost in a horde of adults. The discordant screams kept confusion driven panic from overtaking me. My head felt like an air balloon, making it difficult to focus. But after some blinking, I got a clear picture of my surroundings.
The first thing I saw was the wizard at my side. The sight made me jump. The blank features made it seem like he was dead, then the smoking hole of charred flesh and bones of his chest cavity confirmed it. After another dry heave from the smell of burnt flesh, I looked toward the source of the screaming.
The elf was kneeling in front of the beauty, who was currently on her back and gasping violently.
I dismissed them entirely when I saw Judge resting against the trunk of a tree with his hand pressed to the side of his neck. His hand was completely scarlet.
I scrambled forward, falling face-first into musty earth before I found my coordination and crawled the rest of the way. With nervous hands, I ripped the first aid kit from my person and was about to start dressing his wound when Judge stopped me.
“Girls,” he gasped. He took a second to catch his breath. “Treat them. One’s hurt bad.”
“Speak for yourself,” I retorted indignantly. “You’re bleeding from the fucking neck.”
“Rock shard clipped the meat under my ear,” he responded, then his features strained with a wince. A coughing fit overtook him as he looked back to the women. “Help the civilians first.”
“We don’t know what the hell they are.”
Judge trained his smoky-brown eyes on mine. “Please,” he said in that resolute, whiskey-smooth voice of his. “Only you can help them.”
I ground my teeth in frustration. After a glance at the girls, I looked back to Judge and said, “Only if you let me see first.”
He nodded and pulled back his blood-crusted hand. Leaning in, I gave a thorough look. The area was dirty and bloodied, but I was able to see the wound: a gash roughly an inch and a half long, starting on his jaw and stopping just under his earlobe. It bled, but it wasn’t pulsing in spurts like a slashed artery would. The cut may clot up in the next few minutes and stop bleeding.
With the confirmation of Judge’s life not being at stake, I told him, “Don’t move and don’t die.”
He snorted and gave a thumbs up.
I fought against the throbbing in my head and marched over to where the elf was still crying. Frantic words left her mouth as her hands wavered over her companion’s body, unsure of how to help. She stopped for a second once I settled next to her. She said a series of things and pointed to me, and then to the beauty. I opened my med kit and gestured down to the woman with a nod. Hastily, she shifted over near the beauty’s head, giving me space to work.
Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if I could help. Everyone received basic training for administering field aid, but the extent of our abilities was keeping someone alive until a certified medic came in. My memory provided me a little extra know-how on the body, but that doesn’t always translate well.
No. Focus. Stand inside today and keep the future away.
OK.
First sign: difficulty breathing. Judge caught a rogue piece of stone shrapnel, and the wizard had a lot more lodged in his chest. They were standing further away from the wall when it exploded. A larger rock may have struck her throat and collapsed her windpipe, or at least caused swelling. I brushed the blonde locks of hair that fell in front of her neck and then froze.
No bruising or signs of blunt trauma, but her trachea was offset to the left side of her neck.
Oh, shit.
“Off!” I yelled at the elf. “Get her cloak off now!”
She stared at me, completely oblivious. I tugged at the beauty’s heavy cloak and mimed pulling a shirt over my head. The elf lifted the other woman’s head and worked her legs under her back while she reached over and collected the fabric. After some coaxing, the elf got the cloak over the woman’s head and yanked it off with a jerk.
When she did, I did a double-take. Sticking through the beauty’s cascading hair were two pointed ears with tufts of white sprouting from them like cotton. I didn’t get to question what the hell I was looking at because the woman started convulsing. Sounding like she was choking, her eyes started to roll into the back of her head.
Drawing my knife, I grabbed the hem of her tunic and slashed down to her waistline and shucked aside the fabric. Aside from her assets and pale, porcelain skin, there was nothing to indicate she suffered a chest puncture. If it’s not a sucking chest wound, then it has to be a collapsed lung.
Or what if it's punctured lung?
Frantically poking around her sides, I didn’t feel any depressions or see any bruising to indicate otherwise.
No, she’d be coughing up blood. Stupid.
The elf was sobbing over her friend’s head as the convulsing started to die down. She wasn’t getting enough oxygen to her blood. Her brain’s going to shut down, and she’ll die.
Song of a bitch, son of a bitch, son of a bitch—
Think. Think. Think.
She was gasping before we ran from the thing on the carpet. She had to have landed hard enough to cause enough blunt force trauma to her chest cavity. There’s a word—there’s a thing I have to do—what? I’ve seen it performed twice
in the field by combat medics.
Spontaneous pneumothorax!
If it’s that, then I have to perform a chest decompression. Spilling everything from the first aid kit, I rummaged through the bandages, sterilizing wipes, and gauzes until I found the fourteen-gauge needle. Once the needle was in hand, I froze.
What if one of her ribs broke and was filling the pleural space in her chest with blood? Or what if the trauma to her chest was so severe that it caused a wide tear in the lung tissue? With damage like that, I would need a valve to regulate airflow for the next four or five hours to allow her tissue to mend itself; even then, she might not survive.
The beauty went still and stopped making choking sounds. The elf wailed and tried rousing the woman on her lap but to no avail.
Time’s up.
Her trachea had shifted to the right, which should mean her body tried to compensate for the lack of oxygen by trying to overwork her uncollapsed lung—the left one. I moved her right arm aside and felt around under her armpit for the gap between ribs. At this point, I’m just guessing, going off of things I’ve seen in passing. But if I do nothing, she will die.
With my finger pressing into the tender flesh between ribs, I bit down on the plastic housing and drew out the needle with the other hand. Taking a second to line up the area, I stuck her.
Air rushed out of the catheter as I withdrew the needle, sounding like someone cracking open a pop can. A heartbeat later, the beauty came to life, gasping, drawing in whole breaths of air. She almost sat up flailing, but the elf and I kept her down. My attention stayed glued to the catheter. If blood started rushing out, then she’ll die in the next hour. After a couple of minutes, nothing leaked.
Luck allowed that procedure to work. And I don’t even know if it’ll hold up. On the two occasions where I witnessed this, both men suffered from through-and-through shots, and both needed chest tubes because the damage was so severe. However, if she suffered from spontaneous pneumothorax from a heavy fall, then the internal damage had to be light. Air has nowhere to go if it leaks into the chest cavity, so the release of pressure should be enough.
Heart of the Resonant- the Soldier's Tale Page 5