Resonance

Chapter 9 - Carter Holderson

The soldier's wound was deep, and it didn't help that the arrowhead refused to leave its place in his bone. Well, not that I couldn't get it out, but his friends had tried to pull the arrow out after he was hit. Of course, with his bad luck, the wood just snapped, leaving half of it inside of him. Like a large splinter, I thought. 

"Will I survive?" he asked, looking down at me with what he must have thought was a brave look - I thought it was more of a facial spasm, but anyways. I finished wiping away the blood on his leg with a towel and stood up. 

We had received word that the king of Scoria had been successfully assassinated, and that the plan was to go ahead. Of course, next thing I knew, our army had begun their attack on the Scorian forces inside the city. They were few in number, and I had no doubt that we would be victorious. But the casualties on our side were racking up too - no doubt our enemy was putting up a good fight. 

"Hello? I'm not going to die, am I?" the soldier asked, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. 

I fetched a wet towel from a bucket and bent over until I was face to face with him. "You will not die if I remove the arrow before you get an infection, but there's a large chance that you won't be able to walk for a few months. You might lose your leg permanently if something goes wrong. So what do you want?"

He sighed in relief, and clenched his fist. I already knew what he was going to say, so I turned around and went to get a forceps and a scalpel from the tray besides the small bunk. "Go for it."

"You might want to hold on to something - this'll hurt. A lot."

After washing my hands, I knelt on the cool ground, wiped away the new blood, and examined the wound closely. The shaft of the arrow was snapped and was a bit short, but it would give me enough leverage. The arrowhead itself was an armor piercing type, and I felt a little better about the odds. Unlike other more damaging types, armor piercing arrows consisted of a single narrow point like a needle, or sometimes a trident-like shape. This one was of the first, so it would be easier to remove. However, I quickly realized that it was embedded extremely deeply in his bone. If I were to remove it now, then any pressure or stress near that point would result in a fracture or worse, it would literally snap his leg in two. Which meant that it needed to stay. For now, at least. 

Nodding to myself, I stood up and went to go get one of my specialty saws. This one's blade was tiny, but extremely sharp and resilient. I had it made from a misshapen diamond that a dealer couldn't sell, and mounted it onto the end of a small metal screw. "W-wait! What are y-you doing?"

Feigning a wicked smile, I mimed stabbing someone and laughed at the fearful expression on his face. "Just kidding." Even a soldier, who was supposed to be the epitome of manliness, could be reduced to a pitiful state with just a little pain. I had been urged by my parents to join the military and to become a "man", but seriously. If I did, there would be one more such "man" in the world, yes, but being a doctor on the battlefield, I could help way more who had lost their manliness to the evils of pain. 

I bent down once more besides him, and began to cut the arrow head off, making sure it was even with the surface of his femur. He probably wouldn't grow that much anymore, so bone growth wouldn't be too great of a problem. After I finished, I stood up and examined my handiwork. "Good news. You'll be able to walk even right after this, but I wouldn't recommend it because it'll hurt like crap."

"Wait! You're just going to leave my bone showing through like this? What?" he cried, panic-stricken. I shrugged and went to clean off my tools in another bucket of water. "I could do that for you, if you want." The soldier's face turned ashen gray, and he shut up immediately. 

"Great. Now, the stitches." I took out a curved needle and a ball of string. He looked away, and grit his teeth in preparation for the inevitable. When I was younger, I was extremely afraid of this bloody doctor business and whatnot. But, well, it always hurt when someone else was in pain, especially when I saw her suffering. I didn't care anymore about how I felt from that first moment; every time she screamed, it hurt me worse than physical pain. I stabbed the needle into the soldier's skin a lot hard than I intended, and he howled. 

"Sorry!" I said, as reassuringly as I could. Shit. I got distracted. But anyhow, I carefully sewed his skin back together without any further mishaps and made sure that it would hold until the flesh could have time to heal back up. Wrapping a piece of white cloth around the wound, I stood up and once again went to wash my hands. "All done."

"T-Thank you! Thank you so much, Dr. Holderson! You're a life saver!"

I smiled and dried my hands, enjoying the look of happiness on the soldier's face. He stumbled out of the room, and I followed him out. To be honest, I didn't really care about any of my patients. Sure, it was good to help people and whatnot, but they didn't really mean anything to me. 

Standing on the hill where our unit had been stationed, I gazed out over the ruins of old Peimonu, watching the soldiers comb the crumbled buildings for any Scorian soldiers as the sun began to set in the distance. 

Amy...

Just where are you now? Are you still slaving away, literally, in the evil dungeon that my parents call "home"? Is that goddamn pedophile that I used to call "father" still abusing you? Does he still beat you every night? Do they still starve you and leave you out in the rain and snow? Or did they sell you to some cruel man with even more wicked desires? Are you still.... alive? My eyes moistened and I clenched my fist. 

No.

No.

That's not possible. That can't be.

A tear made its way down my cheek, and I didn't even both wiping it away. I'm sorry, I thought, clenching my fist. The nails that dug into my palm were both mine and not. Damn it! Why? What's the point in that "age" clause? Seriously, who gives a fuck! Age? It's just how long we've managed to not die for anyways. What does that have to do with whether we can own a slave or not?

If only I could have been 19 when I was forced to leave the house, disowned... I might have been able to take her as mine. I would have freed her from the evils of slavery, and made her mine not as property but as the light of my life. I would personally make sure that she would never suffer. 

A sad smile came over my face as I gazed off into the distance. A few drops of blood dripped from my hand onto the ground, disappearing into the soil like tears falling onto a wet towel. 

 Amy's already felt enough: ever since I found her lying, bleeding and abandoned, in the snow countless years ago, her pain was my pain. Even after I was exiled from my family, I still lie awake at night sometimes, thinking that I had just heard her screaming in the chambers underneath our mansion, only to realize that I was hundreds of miles away. 

I promised myself that I would find her again one day, and I didn't care if that meant searching the entire continent with a magnifying glass. I. Will. Find. Her. 

"I love you, Amy." I whispered, knowing all too well that the silver-haired girl wouldn't be able to hear me.