| Hawaaon Ke Paighaam | Messages Of The Wind

| The Hospital: Private Room Ten |

Mein tera hoya,
sambhal le tu mainu, mainu...

Screams. Shrill, soul piercing screams. Meerab was screaming. She was screaming and he couldn't get to her, couldn't pull her to him, hold her and make it okay for her. The overhead support bar of the helicopter bearing down on his chest groaned and dug deeper, making his breath rush out as Murtasim used every ounce of his rapidly depleting energy to try and move out from under it.

He had to get to her.

"Meerab!"

He couldn't say where he got to energy to roar her name from, but it spilled out of his mouth again and again until sharp winds blew through the wreckage and brought with them a fury of salty sand, which clung to and burned every wound it found in the way. The smell of fuel seeped into his nostrils and another kind of fear set in.

They needed to get the hell out of this right now or it would be too late.

A roar ripped from his chest as he grabbed onto the metal bar and pushed up, his eyes clenched shut as he tried to block out the screams just for a moment. It took a split second for his arms to give out and flop back down like they weighed nothing, and the bar crashed on his chest again. The roar that emerged this time was of a different nature; deep, sharp burst out across his entire chest and abdomen. It was pain so excruciating that if he'd been a slightly weaker man, he'd have given in to the darkness hovering in the periphery, tempting him to stop fighting and let his eyes slide shut; to let the pain be forgotten within seconds.

Meerab.

He needed to get to her. Giving in wasn't an option. The screams intensified and Murtasim thought his chest would rip at the agonizing sounds; he would've killed the reason for those screams with bare hands. But the only one to blame was him; she'd been in his helicopter and he'd been flying. The thought of her somewhere in the wreckage, alone and in pain was more of a source of agony than the countless injuries littering his body at that moment.

Murtasim swallowed and realised that blood had pooled in his mouth. Spitting out furiously, he tried to spread his hands aimlessly around him. If he could somehow find his headset; he needed to get in touch with Control. They'd crashed in deserted lands and even though he'd alerted the control tower of their situation just before crashing, he needed to make sure people knew exactly where they were, or it would be too late by the time help arrived. His breathing shallow to avoid the constant grazing of the overhead bar on his chest, his hands felt through the debris until his fingers brushed the familiar soft fuzz of a mic.

Spitting out another wave of pooled blood, Murtasim grabbed the headset just as the wrecked structure of the helicopter above them groaned. And then swayed. His hand tightening on the headset as he whipped it close to him, Murtasim watched in horror as the twisted lines of black metal compressed, the points of impact twisting further until they were so weakly bonded together that another gust of wind would have it crashing on them, effectively making their grave.

The screaming stopped.

His body suddenly feeling numb, Murtasim focused himself to take stock of his position in the wreckage; the tail of the helicopter was behind them and from what he could tell, it was leaning more towards his side than Meerab's.

Good.

Turning his face to the side, he spat on his hand and raised it in the air to gauge the direction of the wind. Feeling it be flowing against his front, he shifted in his seat, ignoring the fresh wave of pain breaking through in his chest and abdomen. What he planned to do would be harder since the flow of wind was against the natural lean of the helicopter, but there was no other way; he wouldn't let there be. The frame of the helicopter above them wouldn't last much longer; it was going to snap and he couldn't let allow what that would mean.