Falling for Sin

Caged Lion

Before...

     It was chaotic— the air thick with smoke, the ground trembling. The hospital tent buzzed with activity- soft sobs, whispered prayers, the distant vibrations of generators. The smell of disparity and gunpowder made me queasy as I looked around.

Faces contorted in agony, limbs twisted, eyes pleading for release. The weight of survival pressed upon me— the guilt of choosing who lived and who died. "You did your best," they'd say. But how do you reconcile healing with destruction?

"Nurse Sinclair" they'd murmur, their voices fragile. "Will I see my parents again?" And I'd lie, because the truth was too cruel.

One soldier was brought in, uniform soaked in blood, His leg— shattered. His chest riddled with fragments of metal. The blood seeped through the bandages, staining my hands.

I scramble for supplies—the sterile gauze, the iodine— but they elude me. The soldier's gaze wavers and it was then I knew he didn't have much time left.

"Why didn't you save me?" He interrogates.

"Why?" His voice trembled and my hands shaking. The soldier lays there, eyes half-closed, as if the answer could mend the shattered pieces of his body.
There were more than a dozen people in the tent, but at this moment, it was just him and I— a nurse and her wounded charge.

"I did everything I could," I began, my voice trying to stay steady.

His eyes searched mine, seeking absolution. "But you're a healer," he rasped. "You've mended others. Why not me?" My eyes stung with tears. I didn't have an answer for him. I sat there—a nurse who couldn't save a witness to fractured humanity. The soldier slipped into restless slumber, and I wondered if forgiveness would ever find its way to my heart.

"Lia, hey, wake up" My best friend Jacqueline shook me awake. I woke up to see her beside me. She wiped the tears from my face. "Did you have that dream again?" She asked. "It keeps getting more and more vivid I swear I could even smell the air." Jackie rubbed my back.

"Lia" her voice gently spoke. "You need to talk about it. The nightmares, the panic attacks—they won't go away unless—"

"Unless what?" I blurted, my fists clenched.

"Unless I spill my guts like a wounded animal? Share the horrors that cling to my bones? You think that'll heal me?"

Jacqueline flinched, her empathy a thin shield against my rage. "I just want to help," she whispered.

"Help?" I sighed. "You can't help. No one can. Not with this darkness. Not with the dreams—their eyes, Jackie. The eyes of the dying, the dead. They haunt me...accuse me. I stitched them up, held their hands, and they slipped away anyway."

"Dahlia—"

"Don't!" I quickly got up from my bed. "You weren't there. You didn't smell the blood, see the fear. You didn't watch hope drain from their eyes like sand through an hourglass. You didn't carry their souls in your nightmares."
"But I care," Jackie insisted. "I want to listen. Maybe—maybe sharing will—"

"Sharing?" My laugh was almost a cry. "You think talking about it will exorcize the demons? Make me whole again? How do you mend the guilt— the choices? The soldiers who begged for their family and I couldn't save them. The soldiers who screamed and I couldn't silence their pain."

"You're not alone," Jackie said, her voice trembling. "We can find a therapist, a support group—"

"Therapists?" I asked as a rummage through my dresser. "They'll nod, take notes, and prescribe pills. But they won't change the past. They won't silence the screams. And the support group? A circle of broken souls, each echoing the other's agony. Misery loves company, right?"