Soul Survivor

Chapter 11

Lino is the first of the crowd to step towards me. His heavy footsteps echo in the silence. Dirt and glass grind on the concrete beneath his large black boots. As he nears me I notice the sweat on his torso, making his burgundy t-shirt stick to him while the rest ripples in the breeze. His brown hair is messy as if he's just woken up but his expression is alert and focused. "Looks like I'm your babysitter for the night. Gotta keep you out of trouble." He says with a smile then, nodding to my bloody hand, "Mind if I take a look at that? Don't want you bleeding all over the place."

Sheepishly, I extend my hand to him and he supports it with his palm. While he assesses the damage, I survey his face. Dark eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he tilts my wrist gently. Wincing when he bends it back, he mumbles something that sounds like 'sorry'. I notice how warm his skin is. My hands are permanently cold even dowsed in blood. However, he doesn't seem to notice.

"Come with me and I'll patch it up for you." He offers, releasing me. This is unexpected. First, they kidnap me then steal my belongings and now I'm being taken care of? Still, I'm not going to refuse the offer and continue bleeding all over the place so I quietly reply, "Um, thanks." And trail behind him like a lost puppy.

The sun is getting low, casting long orange stripes across the world. I make no effort to talk - small talk isn't my thing. Lino leads me into a room away from the crowd. He instructs me to sit on a table next to a briefcase and a bottle of water. Exhausted and hungry, I do as I'm told. The room appears to have been some sort of café in a previous life. Now only a few rectangular tables and chipped wooden chairs remain. As I look around at the mint green walls and dark brown counter at the back end of the room, Lino clicks open the briefcase and begins rummaging through it. He picks out a roll of bandage, a dishevelled tube of cream and a pair of tweezers.

The outside wall of the café had crumbled away to reveal the sun setting on a narrow street. The road is grey and debris litters the pavement in large mounds. However, the centre of the road is clear and I stare down it. This road was once heaving with cars and pedestrians, tourists, workers, students. Where have they all gone?

A soft touch on my hand makes me flinch away. Blinking back into focus, I hold out my hand to Lino who wears a confused expression. As he slowly pours the water over my wrist to wash away the blood he asks, "So what brings you here Toni?" His hand is soft as it scrubs gently over my own.
"I'm searching for something."
"For what?"
"My family. And for answers. Maybe there's a refugee camp or something... I'm not sure." I fix my gaze to the fragments of glass, wood and porcelain on the floor.
"I'm not so sure about that. How can there be any structure at all when the world went to shit this morning for no bloody reason?" Lino puts down the bottle in exchange for the tweezers. A stream of golden sunlight dowses the room warming me. Comforting me.

"Where were you when it happened?" I ask and then wince as a small shard of glass is pulled from my palm. I try not to react the next time because I don't want him to think of me as weak.
"I was at school. It was 10am and I had stayed behind to ask my maths teacher a question. All of my friends were already at their next lesson. A bomb went off. The main building collapsed instantly and I watched it happen through the window. My teacher just told me to run home so that's what I did. As soon as I was out of school grounds the high rise next to it began to fall. I got trapped in a gap between a dustbin and a slab of concrete. I was unhurt but panicked. I could still hear everything happening around me - bombs and screams. It was hours before Zerena found me. She saved my life. She saved all of us."

All I could manage in response was "Wow." I was wrong about Zerena but I still don't know her, nor do I trust her. My hand is raw and more painful now that the adrenaline is fading from my bloodstream.

"How about you?" He asked, taking a moment to look me in the eye. I recalled to him the events of this morning. "Amazing how our lives have changed in just one day."

Lino washed my hand again and squeezed some cream onto his fingers. "Sorry," He shrugged, "but this is going to sting - it's antibacterial." He held my wrist tight and spread the cream over the slits in my skin. I gasped and bit my lip, twitching my foot and looking away. "On the plus side I'm nearly done." He smiled.
"Not helping."

The stinging lessened and he wrapped it up and out of sight carefully and surprisingly gently. As he did so, I inquired, "How did you learn to do this?"
"I'm a cadet. First aid training is mandatory for all of us."
I couldn't help but admire how impressive and useful this skill must be. "It comes in handy more often than you'd think." He added and tucked in the end of the bandage.

He remained holding my hand for a moment, as if in a trance, tracing the blue veins of my wrist. Then, as if he suddenly realised and returned to reality, he looked at me and grinned. "It's been a long day. Feeling hungry?"