Favoured Ones

Chapter I

"Keep speaking, we're coming for you." I called out, racing up the crumbling staircase with precautious speed, to where I was sure I'd heard a weak voice call out.

The house responded to my call, groaning desperately, as it shuddered against the still feral lashes of wind. I was becoming increasingly aware that its old and aching bones were stubbornly relenting to its wounds.

The storm, Naya, had reached its peak the day before, with gale force winds and streaks of lighting crashing through the sun bleached sky. The small town of St. Oelwein had not fared well, sat in a once neat valley; it had acted like a funnel leaving it helplessly vulnerable and pliant to the storms malicious power.

I'd volunteered immediately, a freshly graduated doctor – Hippocratic Oath still fresh on my tongue – eager to gain experience and move towards making a name of myself, I had rushed forth with naive enthusiasm. I matured quickly, simply put. Sobered by the sudden shock, as I initially took in the all too real destruction left in Naya's wake.

"Lora we need to wait for the rescue team, it's too dangerous in here!" Jacob paced in the doorway, hugging the green med kit to his chest, as if it would protect him from the miscellaneous objects raining down on us. He was one of the town's residents, volunteering like myself, I'd only met him an hour ago.

Grimacing when the timber blocking the oak door bit into my hands as I tried to haul it away, some hardness bled into my voice "You know they won't get here in time." I growled and I cursed under my breath as my muscles strained, "Come and help me Jacob!"

"Hello? Please I'm stuck in here!" someone cried out from behind the door.

The floor beneath my feet swayed dangerously. "Jacob!" I threw him an urgent look. His fists clenched with uncertainty, before he reluctantly rushed over to me and joined my efforts in removing the debris. I found myself thankful for his ox-like build, as with the third consecutive shoulder thrust, the hinges gave and the door fell away.

We immediately went to the elderly man strewn across the floor, pinned under a wardrobe. I knelt next to him, took his wrist and noted the irregular rhythm of his pulse as Jacob maneuvered to find a good leverage point on the heavy furniture.

"We're here, its okay. Does anywhere hurt?" I tempered down the torrents of adrenaline that tried to make my voice shaky and uneven.

"My leg, it got knocked up pretty bad." He panted in panic, in shock by now. I reassured, hand moving to clasp in his, as Jacob set about gently removing the entrapment to the side.

Finally free the old man slumped in exhaustion close to passing out; I spied the open fracture on his tibia and grimaced for him before quickly moving to staunch the flow of the torn artery spluttering blood from the wound.

My knees clattered together when the house shunted forward and nearly fell onto the patient; I hastened my tying of the bandage as the previously small creaks and pops crew in intensity and volume. "Time to go." Jacob gnawed his lip before scooping the man up in an unorthodox position and bee-lining for the exit with speed I once thought beyond human bounds.

The room, now absent of its long stayed owner, sighed in relief as it gave way to its own weight; I barely gasped, watching in slow motion as the hairline cracks on the ceiling grew deeper and thicker. Briefly, overcome by a dull calm, I thought how I would prefer to pass out before the house crushed me to death.

"Loralie!"

___

As I floated in the white expanse of what I assumed to be the afterlife or a purgatory of sorts, I  pondered my time alive, cliché as it was, what else was I meant to do? It felt like I'd been lazily drifting in this mysterious current for an awfully long time and in all honesty I was starting to get bored.