Sharp, white-hot pain.
It tears through you before you can even understand it.
A quiet scream slips from your open mouth while your body folds forward where you sit. Your hand flies to your side, your fingers clamp over the source before your mind can catch up.
Your vision tightens, then widens. And tightens again. The edges of your vision blacken in uneven strokes, like someone had dragged charcoal over a canvas and forgot to finish sketching it.
For a second, the room refuses to settle.
For a second, the floor pulses with every breath you take, the hum around you distorting with it.
The ground tilts when it should stay still, from left to right, and right to left. The fatigued racks lean into one another, their outlines bending into a mass of limbs. Bodies blur at their edges, dragging themselves into shapes that vaguely look human.
You wrenched your hand out from your side.
For a moment, you stare as blood covers your fingertips, sliding down your hand and soaking the band aids red.
A small dagger protrudes from your side, its hilt covered in soot.
You hook your hands beneath your top and drag it up. The fabric sticks for a moment before peeling away from your skin. You then take off your gloves next, dropped without care onto the dirty floor while your damp hair spills loose against your face.
You press two fingers gently along the wound.
A pained gasp leaves your mouth.
The dagger shifts slightly with the your shuffle, sending another hot line through your ribs. Your teeth clamp together hard enough for your jaw to ache. You probe around the wound with your hand, forcing yourself to feel around the hilt instead of pulling it free.
The kneading pressure pulses behind your eyes, weaker now, but still there. It comes and goes like something breathing against the inside of your head like dough being roughed.
You reach back along the piece beneath you, your fingers searching blindly over the surface.
Your fingers miss the first time.
Then hit something hard.
Pain snaps up your hand and you hiss through your teeth, curling your fingers once before forcing them open again.
You will it.
A medium-sized compact rectangular bag slides across the floor from behind you, its rounded corners scraping softly over concrete and grit.
It leans against your leg and stops.
The red of the medical bag pulls at your attention, then the zipper pulls itself open.
Individual packages rise from inside, smeared with soot and dust, hovering unsteadily in front of you. A thin film of water forms around them, first a sheen, then a harsh, clear layer. It clings to the plastic, pulling the grime away and washing it off in swirling ribbons until the packages turn mostly clean.
You open your palm, and water thickens above it, coagulating into a trembling mass before spilling down your fingers.
You wash your hands the best you can.
Your breathing shakes through your teeth while you tear one floating package open.
You pull out the gauze and press it around the dagger.
The first touch nearly folds you over.
Your shoulder hunches while your vision pinches. For one stretched second, the room becomes nothing but amber light, humming machinery, and the dagger sitting inside you like the mistake of your life.
A bottle of saline solution uncaps itself above your hand and tips over your finger before you grab it.
Clear fluid spills across your fingers first, washing the blood and grit from them before running down onto the skin around the wound.
It burns the moment it touches the pink of your flesh. Your clench your other hand, hoping it would drag your attention from the pain.
More.
And more.
The saline runs down your side and soaks into your attire, turning the fabric pink beneath your hand. Every breath makes the blade feel like it is moving, even when its not, so you force yourself to swallow nothing.
You press harder, working the gauze into the space around the blade, packing it enough to slow the bleeding without shifting the metal inside you.
Your hand reaches under the piece beneath you, searching through the mess until your fingers feel soft fabric. You drag it out and find an extra shirt bundled under the metal, inside a plastic bag.
You rip it from inside the bag, bunching the soft material in your fist before tearing it down the middle, you then knot both torn ends together with clumsy fingers until it becomes one long strip.
You feed the cloth around your waist, careful to guide it above and below the dagger.
You cinch the cloth hard at your side and tie it off with shaking hands, trapping the packed gauze in place while leaving the hilt untouched.
Your hands are painted red.
For a few seconds, you just stare at them. Blood sits in the lines of your palms and beneath your nails.
Black minerals crawl across your fingers and the backs of your hands, some band aided and some not.
You take a moment to catch your breath before wiping your hands on your shirt, though it does not clean the soot of your hands.
You reach toward your right side, slipping your hand into the stuffed white pouch.
Two bright blood pills rise into the air from it, hovering in front of you.
The lingering taste of copper and salt permeates your senses, so you wipe your lips with the back of your hand.
The lingering taste of copper and salt clings to your mouth, so you wipe your lips with the back of your hand before tossing the pills onto your tongue before swallowing them dry.
You lift your left hand and see your silver bracelet reflecting the dim light. The time and date glow white across the small screen.
You stare at it then cup your hands.
Water fills them from below, the kneading sensation behind your eyes coming and going until a small bowl of water forms.
"glup!—Hahh..."
Water spills from your mouth and runs down your chin, soaking into your top.
You close your eyes for a moment, leaning your head back while your breathing steadies by the second.
The empty medical packaging ignites mid-fall after you will it. Flame eats through the plastic before it collapses inward, snuffing itself into black tar that splatters against the ground.
You shake your head and open your eyes again, throwing a glance toward the entrance.
Leaning forward, you stare at the mess left across the room. Your gaze drops for a few seconds before the pockets of the dead begin to shift, fabric tugging and folding like unseen hands are searching through them.
"Hahh..."
You will the contents closer.
One by one, the contents of their pockets were laid bare for you to see, yet it amounted to nothing more than junk.
Your gaze ran over them and landed on one before the phone rose into your hand.
The lock screen glares back at you, bright and untouched, like its owner had not died only minutes ago.
With a sigh, you carefully stand up, pushing through the rounds of pain and walk towards one of them.
You kneel and grab their hand before you press one finger onto the screen.
Nothing.
You try another.
Then another.
Still nothing.
Your jaw tightens. You swipe up and punch in a random string of numbers.
It worked.
tap...tap tap.
The lock screen dissolved and the home screen slid into place, its background glaring at you.
You sift through the apps one by one, opening what you can, pulling anything that looks useful and sending it to your bracelet. Files. Images. Messages.
Each transfer makes a small red bell on your bracelet appear thrice.
Ding~!
A notification dropped from the top.
Hesitantly, you tapped the message and a group chat took over.
Another message. Or notice, in this case.
「XXX has left the chat.」
One after another, names vanish from the chat before you can even read them properly.
Not even a second later, a small time code appears above the phone inside a red box, the counter ticking up.
00:00:03
00:00:04
00:00:05
It was you, recording just in case.
whummm…
The group conversation fades into the background while you scroll up, your thumb moving slower now.
Again, the fans bearings smother everything, swallowing the depot, the bodies, and even the sound of your breathing until all that remains is the screen in your hand.
「Change of plans. We're meeting at XXX instead.」
Your finger pauses over the older message, you trace it once with cold eyes, before you text it over to your own bracelet.
Ding~!
A new message slides in.
「Chat unavailable.」
You switch apps.
The map opens next and you punch in the location with slow taps. The route calculates a moment later, lines crawl across the screen while you note the distance, the turns and where it branches off from the main street.
whummm…
Once more, the fans bearings grind through the depot while every remaining file finishes transferring to your bracelet. One red bell after another flashes across the small screen until, at last, it goes dark.
With everything set and done, you plant a hand against the ground and push yourself up, pocketing the phone.
Your leg almost gives beneath you.
A second stretches into several, and those bleed into three long minutes of forced movement.
In the far corner, away from the scattered supplies, the fallen lie beneath a harsh tarp. Damaged crates and rusted, bent rods have been dragged over them in a crude attempt at concealment.
The air returns to its stale stillness, dust floating through the dying light.
You throw one last look at them, you turn and walk the way you came.
With a small flick of your fingers, your piece slides back to your side.
You glance at it once, and its outline begins to blur. The obscured silhouette shimmers harder with each step, warping like heat rising from pavement until its shape becomes difficult to hold in your eyes.
And.
When you crossed the doorframe.
tzrraak!
Lightning splits the sky.
Rain crashes down in sheets.
Cold droplets slide down your hood, souring your mood and weighing your clothes against your skin.
Garbage litters the pavement in soggy heaps. Plastic bags lie torn open near bins. Paper flattens into pulp across the sidewalk. A shopping cart rests on its side near the curb, one wheel spinning lazily with the wind.
You raise your head to the sky and draw in a breath for every thump pulsating from your side.
Then back down.
Your gaze follows the lonely figures staggering through the ruined street.
Even the one getting beaten on the far side of the metal fence.
You step down the heavy sidewalk while distant red and blue lights paint the horizon, where high-rises litter the sky.
More.
Then more.
The closer you get, the faster they scurried off, harsh coughs filled the air with blight. Their eyes run over you before fading away.
A man hunches beneath a broken station, hacking into his sleeve until his shoulders shake. Beside him, a child sat on an overturned crate, both small hands wrapped around a steaming paper cup.
Broken light casts between their gazes.
You follow where the child stares and find an armored vehicle crawling lazily down the dilapidated road.
It spews out something and nothing at once.
Dissolution.
Death.
whff—THUD!