Tempest

Part 3 - Glass Cyclone

Espresso lowered his hands from his face and stared in horror at the blood covering them like a layer of irony paint. He didn't look up when Madeleine rushed over, and, he didn't feel any pain. He only knew he was bleeding- somewhere. Rain gushed through the broken glass window, sending a cold chill into the room, and soon enough neither of them could tell what parts of them were wet with blood from what parts of them were wet with rainwater. Espresso felt Madeleine's warm hands on his face force him to look up, until he stared back blankly at his friend's terrified gaze. Where is he looking? He thought desperately, making even the smallest attempt to know where he had been injured.

"Oh my god." Madeleine looked sick, but didn't back away. Only kept Espresso's face in his hands and held a steady stare. "Your eye."

Espresso shakily, and carefully, tried to feel across his own face, only for his finger to bump into what felt like a shard of glass sticking out from where his hair normally covered one eye. "My eye." He echoed faintly.

Of course, Espresso hadn't been able to see it, but from what Madeleine saw quite clearly, there was indeed a large shard of glass lodged directly into where Espresso's eye laid past the his dark hair. Blood ran down his face underneath, sending a drowned smell of iron into the air, only deafened by the rain and wind swirling around them. Madeleine slowly lifted the hair covering where he had gotten hit, and gasped quietly when he saw what was underneath.

Firstly, lots of blood, which had sprayed out upon impact and hit his face around the injury. Secondly, broken flesh, battered and torn from its regular spot, pulled back to expose the stringy red tissue underneath. And for Espresso's eye that had gotten punctured, bits of it were now hanging down after it had gotten, supposedly, popped. Crimson-stained thin bits of white gooey sort of fruit skin made Madeleine almost gag. And he would have, if his panic didn't shove it back down his stomach first.

"Where's the first-aid?" He said after what felt like one second too many. Wordlessly, Espresso backed one step into the hallway and pointed feebly to his office. Madeleine was down the hall before he could think.

Espresso didn't shake. Or hurt. Or even make a single noise. How could he bring himself to produce a noise when he faintly knew a glass shard was sticking out of his eye? And had he gotten hit anywhere else? Had his friend gotten hit anywhere else? He felt so small, so shocked, so entirely lost in his own mind of thoughts swirling faster than the wind outside. And all he could bring himself to do was close the door leading to the lounge and muster the words in his mind: Don't let the cold air into the rest of the building.

It felt like an eternity of invisible suffering before Madeleine returned with a flashlight and a white plastic box in his hands- one that had red lettering that said PREMIER SOINS and a plus sign painted neatly onto it. He dropped the first-aid kit and took Espresso's hand, leading him to sit on the floor with him. Fumbling, he flicked on the flashlight to set it down so it would face the roof and illuminate the area. He took out gauze, ibuprofen pills, alcohol wipes, and tweezers from the kit.

Madeleine swallowed hard before bringing himself to speak. "I have to take out the glass." His voice was trembling, and his hand hovering above the shard was just as such. "And see if there are any more." Pause, the tense air thickened with a growing irony stench, filling their mouths and creeping into their lungs like a silver worm. When Espresso didn't respond, only kept dead still, Madeleine held the large glass piece between two fingers and at first pulled gently. It made a horrible kind of quiet organic noise that no one would ever want to hear. He pulled harder now, and it came loose with more force than it looked. Struggling down a gag, and without a word, he picked up the tweezers and leaned forward to look more closely into the wound. Seeing no other smaller shards, he continued to put the tweezers to use and picked off a detached piece of popped eyeball. He paused and took a breath, bending down over himself for a moment of break.