Vitality In A Wasteland

9

A screaming deep within somewhere unknown. Ears sounded echoes like gunshots, water gently dripped upon hair from a broken pipeline. A finger gently caressed stone while a mouth tasted cement. Ace coughed and gulped, he tried shooting up but a hulking mass of concrete held him. He desperately reached out with his left hand while his other scrambled to try break him free. His vision had spots and blurs; his legs felt like they had fallen off. Crack, crumble, bricks, and mortar hailed down as his arm desperately yearned to break free. Somehow miraculously he crawled free, sprawling upon jagged concrete crumbs. He pulled himself desperately up, even though his legs felt like he was floating, and the beating continued in his mind. He held a palm to his head, it felt soft and wet, he held his fingers as close to his face as possible gasping at the sight of deep red. One step, two step. He limped and cursed; his throat felt like he swallowed a whole floor of glass. He rubbed desperately at his eyes, dust cleared enough for his near sight to return, the lights and flickers around were all too distant to account.

Ace held a hand to a doorway and desperately sprawled across a shelf, his fingers lurched onto small boxes and knocked over bottles. He felt his hand touch a sign, he put his eyes as close as he could, it read 'infirmary'. Ace continued shuffling through shelves, rising small boxes and bottles to his face.

He found a bottle of water; he shot the cap off and depravedly threw it to his face. He swept at his eyelids again and his vision wavered. He took sight of the messy shelves from his knockings and broken cases. He limped forward and froze seeing his reflection in front of a mirror. His forehead was completely red with a cut running from above his left eye, through his eyebrow and to his hairline. The blood crusaded down his ragged shirt and several lacerations from the explosion lingered large red cuts across his ruined pants. Automatically he continued searching the shelves and found a bottle of antiseptic solution and some bandages. He stared at his reflection, dabbing the solution onto a bandage. He held it to his head, a million jolts of thunder shot across his skin, he screamed. He held in his tears, dabbing away at the huge cut across and fewer smaller lacerations. He pulled bandage over his head, his arms strained but were strong enough to keep him wrapping and hiding the huge wound. As for the mental strain, his brain still felt like it had been struck with a sledgehammer. He found some pain killers. He took them down in a gulp of water and sat against the wall for a while. When his head felt less like it had been struck by a sledgehammer and more like it had been hit by a nail he limped out of the infirmary.

The floor with broken concrete and steel plates where he had been knocked out sat besides a huge hole that broke through several living quarters. He waddled through the hole taking note of flipped over beds, broken furniture and caved in sliding doors. The exposed hallways made a path through most rooms in the bunker, it ended upon a hallway leading through several opened rooms. Ace slowly walked by and watched in horror at the first corpse he seen, a security guard whose face had been completely darkened, clenching to a rifle. Ace hesitated but picked up the rifle to use as a cane to help him walk on. He passed several more fallen security guards, each time his eyes widened, and his heart skipped a beat. He came across the cafeteria where a trail of blood ran across the walkway between flipped over benches and to the ruined kitchen where a familiar body lied... Markus. Ace swallowed and clenched his fists, he walked on through the bunker, his ears finally began to stop rustling and instead he could hear an equally annoying buzzing and several alarm lights shinning red. He called out, "Hello! Hello! Is anyone here!" There was no response, it made Ace's chest sting. He limped past his room where even his robot was left as a scrap pile. He searched desperately through his quarters, his parents were nowhere in sight. And his sister... perhaps she was in her room. Ace pushed open her broken door and expected her to be patiently settled into her bed... but she was not. It was only her empty sheets with all being left was her small teddy bear. Ace clutched to it; she must be here. Maybe she was just hiding. Yes hiding. Because none of this was real, right? Ace ran through what he had seen, it was all a blur and strain. Had he been dreaming? Was he still dreaming? He pinched himself, his skin was numb and empty. He must be dreaming...