Survivin' - [B.C.]

Chapter 30: Splinters

Jared closed the door and walked back over to the other men. He looked at them both and gave a nod.

"Let's do this."

========= SURVIVIN' =========

"Cal, we're gonna get you out, sweetheart, okay?" I heard Ben's voice call from the other side of the wall. I nodded but then I realized he couldn't see me. But I didn't want to waste my breath. I barely had any left anyway.

"Cal?"

Shit.

"Okay..." I groaned.

A crescendo of sawing began and sawdust from the wall started to sprinkle over me. Like seasoning. I was fresh meat being seasoned.

The burning in my back and hand had long since ceased. All that was left was an uncomfortable and almost itchy numbness. The burns couldn't have been so bad; they were short-lived and put through my thick hoodie and sweater.

But I was still unable to deliver adequate oxygen into my lungs. Each sharp breath in was yet another stabbing in my chest. Every cough sent enough of a jolt through me to eventually hack up blood. I laid there on the floor of the house's foundation and wondered if I was going to make it out of there alive. It felt like I was drowning out of water. Like the pressure of 75% of the Earth was choking me. And once again, it was just me and splinters clinging to the walls.

I wished I could turn over and see what was going on with the wall above me. I wished I could breathe, actually. That would have been nice. But to see what the sawing noise was would have also been acceptable.

And then suddenly, cold air rushed over me and there became a huge hole in the wall. A perfectly cut, square wall that revealed four grown-ass men, Ben among them. The youngest-looking and the oldest-looking dropped down and started gently trying to remove the collapsed metal off of me.

You're not going to make it out of here, my brain said. You'll suffocate before they unstick you.

The two men were trying to say something to me as they pulled the vent and pipe away from my body. They were trying to make small talk and maybe consequentially making me feel better. But the small talk wasn't helping anyone but the walls... if they were even listening.

A blinding pain raged through my side as the two men (who looked like paramedics) lifted me up and quickly placed me on a backboard that a fireman and Ben were holding. I let out a groan of mild agony and a small curse slipped past my lips. Either no one caught it or they just didn't care. Then one of them actually did say something.

"Yeah, that's typically how I feel about Thursdays, as well," the oldest of the paramedics said with a small smile. I gave a fake and dry laugh. Then I groaned in pain again.

"Don't make her laugh, you turd," Ben said with an offended look on his face.

The four of them continued to race me through the house and then down the driveway. When they'd gotten halfway, the fireman asked, "wouldn't it have been a better idea to get the ambulance over here and load her up that way?" The paramedics and Ben gave him a stony glare and carried on... carrying.

It was liked a simple blink separated the passing sky overhead from the steel ceiling of the ambulance. My body wasn't transported from the backboard and onto a rolly-type bed that set in the middle of the back of the ambulance and instead was simply placed onto both. Ben hopped in after only one of the paramedics did so, and once the metal doors were closed, the engine rumbled to life and we took off down the road.