Guardian | Camp Cretaceous

Scouring Main Street 1/2

Thankfully, the clinic was relatively untouched, a small miracle considering the chaos surrounding it. Azriel finally had the means to properly treat the infernal injury that had been nagging at him since the fall.

He sat on the edge of an examination table, wincing as he peeled off his soiled shirt, the smell of sterile antiseptic filling his senses. Bunching the blood-stained shirt up, he tossed it into a far corner, cursing under his breath. There were countless little cuts and bruises littering his body.

Azriel slowly peeled away the layers of filthy bandages, his arm throbbing more than it had already been, the wound exposed to the air. Removing the final layer felt like tearing off his own skin, but he gritted his teeth and bore it. There would be another scar to his collection, it seemed, a deep gash where the branch had pierced his arm. The skin was swollen and bruised, the edges jagged and raw, but there were no signs of infection. It looked a mess, and the agony was grating, but it could've been much, much worse.

He'd had much worse.

"Now the fun bit," he muttered, reaching for the antiseptic.

Azriel winced as he dabbed the antiseptic on the wound. He clenched his jaw against the burn, refusing to make any sound as he cleaned away the dirt and dried blood. This reminded him too much of those years serving Atlas—nights spent patching himself up in dimly lit rooms, always alone, always in silence; he'd get beaten if he made a sound.

The memories hit him like a tidal wave, his fingers tightening on the bandage as he started wrapping the wound, the rough texture pressing into his skin as the flashes of blood, gore, and the vilest things he'd done resurfaced. Flashes of nameless, faceless people—innocent, a lot of them. Good people whose lives he'd taken without question...

He hadn't felt a thing when he killed them.

Azriel's breath hitched, his throat tightening. He had been a weapon then, honed for destruction, taught not to think, just to obey. Without memories, he'd been malleable. He remembered the ease of it all, the detached calm that had settled over him as he cut down his targets, the silence that filled his mind as he watched them fall. He'd been their sword for four years before his memories returned, and he had brought Atlas back from the slum they'd fallen into...

It was his fault they controlled so much of the world now, his fault Aegis had fallen into disrepair... And now, because of him, for the first time since Atlas had been founded, when they had a different name, they had no opposition. They had the world dangling from puppet strings.

But now wasn't the time for ghosts.

Azriel forced the thoughts back into the endless abyss where he'd buried them, tying off the bandage as swiftly as he possibly could. He couldn't let the others start wondering what was taking so long. Getting to his feet, he heard the door behind him creak open, and glanced over his shoulder to glimpse a flash of green looking through the threshold.

Brooklynn's eyes immediately locked onto his now-bandaged shoulder, then traced the network of scars that branded his back. She didn't say anything at first, but the flicker of concern in her expression was unmissable. The same one she'd worn that first time she'd seen Atlas's handiwork, the lessons they'd etched onto his very body.

"Azriel," she said, stepping further into the room. "How's your arm?"

He shrugged. "I'm fine, Brooklynn darling. I feel much better now that I've actually treated it." She nodded, then her eyes fell on his hand, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. "It isn't broken." He'd lost his head briefly after Ben fell, but he'd reined it in quickly, as he always did.

"Good." She paused. "I treated Yaz's ankle."

Azriel raised a brow. "I didn't know you had training."

"It was required before I was allowed to actually do some of the things for my vlogs," she told him. "Anyway, she'll be okay. There were some compression socks at Sporting Goods." He'd suggested they raid the undamaged buildings for supplies, as they didn't know how long they'd be here after they alerted the mainland with the emergency beacon.