The night was timeless. Lacking much of his senses, by luck, the boy’s judgement remained intact. Behind him, he found a path that had been blocked, where a few paces farther was his usual way home cut off by a rockslide and rubble. Mud and loose soil broke from the quakes that the bombs had rattled awake in the earth, and from above, on the cliffside, a house had crashed down. With what remained of a roof and a heap of swarming flames that ignited in the reflections of his peaceless eyes, they were solemn, wanting only to return home then. But the only path was forward, into the town it seemed, and so he began the trek across the wreckage in the wake of the disaster. Like wading through mud, there was a dread surrounding him not knowing when it was that he would inevitably collapse. The weight of his entire body slugged and the gravitational force seemed to double every minute in his narrow world. Anchoring him down, gradually, ever expanding steel spheres seemed to have dragged along by his ankles shackled. Enslaved by the leaking blood that poured out of him, a milligram at times, it bathed his leg in a coat of red iron before a drop splattered on his path. Dragging and stumbling along, each step felt unproductive. His journey felt endless and his walk was slowing. There was a single want of staying alive that kept awake his soul from falling into slumber and insanity, but it helped not that his ears were deafened by a vortex of cries. The vivid crackling of burning streets silenced the nearby crashing waves. Above, the fleet had gone, as quickly as it had appeared, and the chopping blades of propellers left behind ruins in the making. He tried to find life, but the further he continued, no such thing remained. At a turn around a corner, the boy came about the commercial district that was a short walk away to the waterfront that he had passed hundreds of times. Yet the scene before him had grown unfamiliar already.
Shops caved inward. Glass doors and panels were smashed. As fires raged within and gas lanterns spilled outside, pipes burst and the running mixture of sweat, blood, and waters, whether clean or with filth, melted into a pot of a swamp-like place. Sweeping down the bricks of the ravaged road, oils of engines of automobiles were caught alight and ignited like a great, wild stove. Washing over the hot air, steam and smoke piled. The sky was raining ash from the chaos and havoc unleashed. As people fleeted about, those lightly injured cared for those with heaviest wounds. Treating their burns with what little clean water they could find in bottles, cuts were bandaged carefully by cloth ripped from clothes. Lying and sitting on the pavement, resting, some waited for their turn for aid. Some, by the grace of the gods, had recovered, but many were left with no life but empty bodies whose faces still carried a demeanor of fear. Those alive, yet did not wish to be, had their limbs and organs detached and smashed. Many who survived initially fainted and fell into an everlasting sleep. Ahead of him, a child sat and wailed, who was much younger than himself. Burned red and black over half a side, he cried for a woman, his mother, to wake, whose body had long been crushed by a collapsed piece of a wall. Another family panicked over their missing members. A couple stayed safe from terrible harm. Each had suffered their own troubles with woes to grief over. Praying to the gods, even those who once gone by life without much belief in the next world began to question and ask for divine intervention. When mankind had fallen victim to such horrors, they would do anything to seek an answer. The worst that could be done to a human being could never be done by gods however, but by people themselves. The attack had inflicting a shock on those who could not lift a single finger in response, but there was one out of the crowd who did his best to help despite his limited capabilities.
Through the invasive sea, Arminius waded towards him, attracted by his familiarity, that as he squinted, he still could not quite make out exactly who it was. His focus misted and he could barely see. It was a boy, tying a tourniquet around an old man’s wounded arm. When reassuring him that further help would come, he turned away in preparation to aid the next victim as if it was a test of his diligence. Trudging towards him, their eyes met. He saw the one who was in dire need and thought no more, though was shocked no less, and ran over to Arminius who accidentally found alleviation. Losing his power, the muscles and nerves in his physical body began to waver. His knees could not sustain standing anymore and the pain in his stomach became unbearable. Trying to make his way to meet this savior, he dragged a foot over an uprooted street tile and tripped. In more hurry and a last burst of energy that had been wasted, Arminius tipped over and fell, leaning over on his left side that avoided impaling himself deeper. Splashing onto the shallow waters, the droplets that misted him flickered a reflection of orange walls around him. To lift his head was a struggle and even his eyes were only half awide. Whose consciousness was hardly awake, his hair was wetted by the passable sea, dripping down his face that was cleansed of his own blood.
“Hey, hold on!” A faint call reached for him from the other boy who ran towards Arminius.
Sliding onto the ground that grated his knees, he was slowed by the water that lifted a wave of mist afloat behind him. He came to kneel beside Arminius, but he did not quite know where to start. With his hands held out, ready to act, he took the wounded by his uninjured arm and flipped him over onto his back, startling him slightly. His expression changed from determination to fear but he steeled himself regardless. Pressing on the wound around the beam, his shaking fingers could not cordon off the oozing blood that flowed, streaming onto the inundated street. Like an art on silk of embroidery, the blood painted the shadows with threads filtering out.
Examining with a mumble, the gears of this selfless mind spun rapidly, “It’s too deep…”
Soon, his sights were fleeting around every corner of the strait. All was burning or had already burned. Realizing that he had been wrongly searching for impossible materials, there were those which lined the streets of the town too many to count. Restaurants, though not specifically their stores, but their outdoor seatings with tarps and poles above sheltering the phantom customers from sun, rain, or snow. But they were too wide and large, and far too heavy to move. Then, to those beneath, he spotted his blatant answer. Thinking no more, the youngster stood and rushed to the nearest shop, slipping over the smooth and wet tiles as he did, with conviction to see the stranger to him survive. He reached for the chairs and yanked them away, tossing the lot over the floor. When the indoors were ignited by a fireball of leaking gasses, he worked quick before the glass cracked and shattered. Covering his eyes from a shard flinging by, a cut slit his cheek. In a race against the unfavorable construct of time, the boy grabbed the table cloth and stripped it from the table. Dashing away, he avoided the danger of the collapsing block that came crashing down. His balance regained after yet another slip as he fought his way to the wounded. Hurriedly laying down the table cloth, he lifted Arminius by his arms and hauled him across with an unwavering spirit and the strength of a measly child who had never worked so hard in his life. Settled on the cape-like tarp, the wheezes of the dying boy quickened.
Rolling the ends of the cloth around a hand into a pommel-like handle to pull onto, the young rescuer lugged him away. “Just hold…on…I’ll take you to a…doctor…” The foreign accent of his’ was picked up, as clear as it could ever be, as he struggled to manage his breath.
Backward stepping, making sure that his patient had not slipped off, the foreigner would occasionally look back on his path to see where he was dragging him towards. Downtown, the liveliest quarter, where there he hoped to seek for more aid from professional doctors and nurses, or even half-experienced volunteers. Hopeful from the vast flock of crowds and pedestrians, the footfall around them thickened. Returning back to the stranger, he gritted his teeth and tried to race his pace, but however strong-willed he was, it was not yet enough for him to run. Arminius’s eyes widened on a brief instance of familiarity. Through his vision, washed out of blood, that made of the face developing into outlines, the boy above him brightened him like a long-lost revelation that was long-sought too. From a shard of vestige that was buried so deep it had been forgotten, he was sure that they had never met before or perhaps it was a question of whether that was just another’s memory.
“Julien…?” Arminius recognized him and feebly named.
The foreign boy, without knowing one another, was taken by surprise. Drawing a relaxed expression that was in shock behind his facade, it seemed fitting that it was the only realistic emotion that he could portray then.
More questions than answers arose out of the foreigner. “How did you…” He stammered.
His pace of steps normalized upon finding a natural rhythm, hauling Arminius. They neared the waterfront and the main path to the church where many would flee to in times of calamity. As one’s heartbeat raced, another began to falter. Being taken away again into the darkness, there was a minute it took to fade. Calling him, they were the last sounds of the night that Arminius heard. His consciousness took flight and his body was filled with a sensation of paralysis. Sucked away into the abyss, his soul battled to break out from its lightless prison. The warmth of his blood kept his body alive who addressed the night sky. Beyond the earthly realms where Julien was calling him from with sweat running down his chin, there was a chilling feeling. The stars in the heavens blanked as his eyelids were drawn to shut.
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