Take Me Home.

7

“He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud.”

There is no fear quite like the fear of drowning. It is the forcing of oneself to keep calm as they are held beneath the water, moving along a current that is swift and endless. It is impossible to know how long one is under the water when they are not able to breach the surface. It was that fear Seokjin felt in the river. He thrust his head above the water in a gasping breath and was met by gunfire. He went under again.

He did not know where the others had gone. There was only the rushing of the current and the coolness of the water all around him. He was pulled by the weight of his rucksack at a quickened pace that did not let up until a pain sparked up from his right leg as he was struck by something large and jagged within the riverbed. It was obvious at once that the bone had been broken. Then he struck a similar hardness and thought it might have been a rock. The pain stopped immediately as the bone moved inside his leg and cut the nerve. Seokjin stayed under all the time.

It was Palo who pulled Seokjin from the river. His head throbbed from the cold and the water; he felt ill as he choked water out of his chest. Then he lay on the muddy embankment with the useless leg left in the water, floating at the top of the frothing current. A pain in his pelvis kept him from sitting up and he knew he could not go any further. Out in the meadow, Hoseok lay flat and gasping.

Seokjin turned to Palo and said, “You will have to leave me.”

“What do you mean?” He examined Seokjin carefully. “Are you hurt?” He removed Seokjin’s boot and rolled up the leg of his trousers. He saw clearly that the bone in Seokjin’s leg had snapped in half below the knee. The pointed edge of the bone pressed beneath the skin.

“There is something here.” Seokjin pressed a hand to his pelvis. “A bad pain.”

“Let me check.”

“No.”

“Let me check. It’s only me.”

Palo opened Seokjin’s trousers and touched the area where the pain was said to be. He
examined closely and decided it was only bruising. It was not serious.

“I feel nothing in my leg.”

“You’re damned lucky for that. The pain would be extraordinary.”

Seokjin made to move and the bone within his leg moved with him. It was a wonder it had not broken all the way through.

“You will have to leave me,” he said again.

“I will carry you.”

“There's no way. You can’t carry me and expect to fight as well.”

“We have Hoseok. He can fight.”

“Not for the three of us.”

Hoseok came from the meadow and stood beside the river. He looked at Seokjin’s leg, then looked away. He said nothing at first.

“You will leave me here,” Seokjin ordered. “You will go to Tarvisio. It is, maybe, a day and a half from here. You keep to the east and you will be alright.”

“The hell I’m leaving you here.” Hoseok glared at the sky where the sun glared in return. He would not look again at Seokjin’s leg.

“You have waterlogged weapons and three rucksacks. You can’t take me.”

“There will be a town. We've passed many already. There's bound to be somewhere to go and maybe there will be an ambulance to take.”