Descent Into Madness

Chapter 2: Look After One Another

I flashed the torch around and, seeing nothing threatening, sunk to the floor next to Phineas and shifted him to what should be a more comfortable position. Angling the torch, I pulled his shirt sleeve up, only to realise the wound was too high up for that to work. I pulled my Swiss army knife back out and cut the sleeve away from his injured arm.

Surveying the wounds, my mouth went dry. I turned away, closing my eyes as I took a deep breath.

I can do this.

Looking back at the injuries, I forced myself to ignore who it was on the floor and clinically examined the damage.

Three lacerations lined his upper arm up to the shoulder. Two on the bicep, one on the deltoid. Blood was still seeping from them; he had already lost a lot of color, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast against his now pale skin. Laying the torch down, I pulled off my vest, bunching it up and pressing it against the wounds.

Phineas bucked, an anguished cry breaking past his lips. It pained me to hear him utter such a sound, yet it also gave me a weird feeling of relief to hear something come from his mouth.

I wrapped the vest tightly around the holes in his skin and tied it, allowing my eyes to run over him again as dread rose in me.

Did I take too long to stop the bleeding? Has he already lost too much blood? Even if I could set up a blood transfusion, our blood didn't match. It would do him more harm than good.

I ran a hand through my hair.

There are many areas in which I'd done significant studying, yet, somehow, medical studies slipped through the cracks for the most part. Perhaps... perhaps I just never truly considered that we could get hurt.

Sighing, I slid up against the wall where I could place Phineas' head in my lap, taking comfort in watching his chest rise and fall. I went to run my hand through his red hair when I noticed the amount of blood on it. Raising my hand to my face, I registered all the slivers of glass stuck in my skin and all the cuts that covered it.

As if seeing it flipped a switch, the pain set in. Aches in my muscles from moving Phineas, stinging in my fingers and palms where they were cut and impaled. The smell of both our spilled blood suddenly became overwhelming and I buried my nose against one of the non-bloody spots of my sleeve as the reality of the situation slammed into me.

Phineas was injured. Some sort of hideous creatures that wanted to kill us roamed this place. Our way home was trashed. Even if our friends reopened the main portal in our dimension, we would still have to get past those monsters to reach it, or they could become injured if the creatures managed to get through the opened portal instead. Of course, if the day there proceeded as normal, Candace's 'mysterious force' may have already struck, causing the portal to either have disappeared or be destroyed.

Candace... Mum, Father, what would they think when we didn't show up for dinner? Despite all our adventures over the years, we always made sure to be home on time or to, at least, let our parents know where we would be.

Pulling my mobile phone from my pocket, the no signal symbol flashed mockingly at me, causing me to frown. We had updated our cellphones to be able to call from anywhere in space and time, and I could have sworn we'd added alternate dimensions to that list.

Stuffing the phone back into my pocket, I moved the torch to shine on my hands and pulled my army knife back out; this time to use the tweezers. I angled myself to where my hands weren't over Phineas and began picking out the fragments, the beam of light reflecting off the stained red glass. Each piece removed sent a sting of pain through my hand.

Pulling out a particularly large piece, I dropped it to the small pile that had built up. I checked to see if there were any more slivers, but I couldn't find any. My hands still felt as though something was in them.

Gingerly, I shifted Phineas from my lap, bending his uninjured arm under his head so as not to leave him without some sort of pillow. I simply looked down at him for a moment longer before standing, pins and needles shooting through my legs.

Shouldn't he have woken up by now? If--when--we got out of this, I'd read up on medical information and procedures.

I ran a hand over my face, realising too late that by doing so, I'd smeared it with blood.

Picking up the torch, I stared at him for a moment more before turning away.

I'd neglected to take in much of the room when we had come in, too concerned with Phineas' well being, but now was as good a time as any to figure out where I had trapped us.

When I shone the beam deeper into the room, it reflected back at me. I blinked, looking over the row of computer screens built into the far wall.

Walking across the room, I looked over the console underneath them, covered in keyboards and joysticks, and felt my lips quirk up slightly.

A control room. I couldn't have planned this better.

After righting an overturned swivel chair, I placed the torch down on the seat and rolled it to where the beam would shine on the place I needed it to.

I cracked my knuckles. Time to do what I do best.