Heal the Broken (UNCONTINUED)

Chapter 8

8.

* * * Beware, this chapter may be very emotional and graphic. 

[Lexi's POV]

After breakfast the guys cleaned up and I went to take a shower and after that a nap. My PTSD attacks always took a lot of me and I basically was exhausted after them so I needed a lot of sleep. As I was in the shower I cried, hard, but not hearable for Greg and Niall. I had told them about my ring and Josh dying but not how he died, yes, in battle but I told them nothing more. Those images of that moment were fresh in my mind, like it all had happened an hour ago. After my shower I went to my own room this time and laid down in bed and I quickly fell asleep, dreaming about that moment. It was all so real when I dreamed about it, sometimes I screamed, yelled, cried and everything else you can imagine doing in dreams. I was like I was there, living the moment right now, only I wasn't, I was just having a very graphic, real feeling dream. 

[Flashback]

It was January 2nd and our 5th day in Iraq. Up till now nothing had happened and non of us expected something. On our patrol that ended 2 hours ago we hadn't seen a soul outside of our own and I had nothing to do on the base's medical centre. After our shift we'd always play poker with our patrol and we also did after this shift, it was like any other day. 

'In or out.' Josh said to me. 

'Huh?'

'In or out Lexi.'  

'Out.' I said putting my cards on the table. I stood up and walked to the counter getting some cold water out of the fridge. I looked out the window and everything was still calm. All you saw was the gates of our base and people walking around, doing patrols. I walked back to table and sat back down seeing Josh and Mike going at eachother again, the games usually ended with them going up against eachother and there was big rivalry with them, they keps score of who won the most. 

'Beat ya sucker!!' Josh said putting his hands up smiling and then he gave me a kiss. 

'Yeah yeah, ok. Good job man, well played.' Mike said and he also stood up to get some water. As he walked back over to the table the door swang open and my dad ran in. 

'Everyone get ready, we have incoming!' and as he said the alarms one the base went off and everyone started running around getting their stuff and to their places. This was it, our first battle. Josh and I ran to our bunk, he got his gun, I got my scrubs, we gave eachother a kiss and both went to our posts. As I walked into the medical centre it was already busy. There were people running around everywhere, loads of blood on the floors and a lot of screaming from our patients. The doctor inmedeatly assigned me to a victim of the first blast just a bit outside our base where we had our first lines of defense which obviously couldn't hold the enemy. I didn't recognize him but as always I talked to him like I had known him for ages. His lower left leg was blast of and his right upper leg had a really big cut in it, you could see his bone. I put pressure on his right leg, trying to stop the bleeding but there was no stopping it, blood was going everywhere, getting out of multiple spots and he passed out quickly due to the blood loss. The docter called it as there was no saving to do anymore and as I washed my hands more patients were brought in, it was madness, I had never seen anything like this and the drills we had on the base were nothing compared to this. 

'Incoming! Bom shreds hit him as you can see and he has been shot in the chest. It's not good, he stopped breathing on the way over here.'

I looked up and my mouth just dropped.

'Josh! No, no, no, no, no, JOSH!' I yelled running over to him and I grabbed his hand.

'Get her out of here!' The docter yelled to one of my mates knowing he was my other half, but I refused to go.  

'Get out Lexi!'

'NO! I'm staying here.'

'Fine, but you better clear your head and help us then.' the docter said and I nodded hesitantly. 

'Start CPR!' he yelled and so a mate of mine did. 

'Lexi, put pressure on this.' he pointed at a piece of medal in his upper right leg. It had made a big wound and it was bleeding uncontrollably. 

'Looks like it hit the main artery' the docter said and I turned white and swollowed. I had learned that the chances of surviving this were very small. This couldn't be happening, not to Josh is what shot through my mind over and over again and I put pressure on his wound as hard as I could, I felt like my whole weight was on there. 

'He is still not responding sir.' my mate who had been doing CPR for over 10 minutes said. 

'Lets try some shocks!' the docter yelled and he quickly grabbed the machine, attached the bandaids on Josh's chest and yelled:

'CLEAR!'

We all stepped back and Josh got a shock. Still nothing. As the machine charged my mate did CPR again and another shock was given. 

'CLEAR!'

We had done this routine over 5 times and so I knew what was happening but I couldn't grasp it. 

'Lets call it.' the docter said and my eyes shot open and I ran to Josh. 

'NO! No, no, no, no, no! We have to try, we have to continue!' I yelled but the docter just shook his head and walked away, of to his next patient. My mate grabbed my shoulders trying to get me away from Josh but he couldn't. I pulled myself away from him and I started doing CPR on Josh, but deep down I knew it was done, the docter was right, the only thing left to do was calling it but I couldn't, I had to, I can't, this is Josh, he has to survive, he has to.. As I was doing CPR the power I put in it became less and less and adventually after about 10 minutes I just layed on Josh's chest, crying uncontrollably, knowing it was done. I heard other patients being brought in with simular injuries and normally I would've moved on to the next patient and gave it my best but I couldn't. I just layed there, on his chest for what felt like hours till battle had calmed down and they had called in my dad to get me away from there. I was broken, dead inside, ready to walk out of the base, search for the enemy and let them shoot me. Josh had died, on my watch, I was there, I had nothing to live for anymore, absolutely nothing. Josh was it, Josh was my world, my chance, my one, and he was gone, gone forever...