Emerge from Isolation (Whumptober 2019)

Explosion

Lorna had been pulling Alex’s unconscious body for ten minutes, making slow progress away from the tent when she heard noise from other people. Her body was already exhausted from the jolt of adrenaline it had endured twice that day, and she wanted to curl up into the branches of a tree and hope no one would notice her while she slept.

“I’ll leave you here, old man,” Lorna whispered to her unconscious companion, “if someone comes this way.”

There was a snort, and Lorna dropped Alex in the snow. He groaned, and he brought his hands to his face.

“Alex, are you awake?”

“Yeah, I am now.”

Alex pushed himself upright, and he looked around.

“Where are we?”

“Raiders came, and they beat you until you fell unconscious. We tied us up in a tent, but I got us out of there.”

“Ah, so you’ve saved me a second time,” Alex said, and he chuckled.

“Can you stand on your own? I’m too tired to drag you anymore.”

Alex heaved himself to his feet. He lost his balance and braced himself on a nearby tree. Lorn placed her hands on his back to help steady him. It took him a moment, but he steadied himself.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any food on you, would you?”

“No.”

Alex searched his pockets, and he sighed when he came up empty.

There was a bright flash of light, and they turned in time to catch a large fireball rise above the treeline. A loud explosion rumbled through the ground. People could be heard screaming and shouting.

Lorna gasped, and she ducked behind a tree. Alex turned to her and gave her a lopsided grin. The blood dried on his mouth made it much less charming than she thought he realized.

"Hey, that gives me an idea," he said.

Then he grabbed her wrist and ran with her in the direction of the explosion.

“Why are we going toward the explosion when we should be running away from it?”

"To get our stuff back. I'm not leaving behind that medicine if I can help it."

"Did you know about that explosion?”

"Nope, but we're not wasting this opportunity."

"What do you think the explosion was?"

"No clue. Either it was someone here being an idiot or someone slipped in and set it off. These people aren't very well-loved in this area."

Alex stopped behind a huge boulder. They could see people running around with buckets of water. A couple of them were even trying to scoop up the snow.

"Why do they hate you?"

"I'll talk about that later. We need to be quiet."

Lorna pressed her mouth closed. She was going to hold him to that because she wanted an explanation for everything that was happening right now.

There was a moment when there was no one within view, and Alex pushed himself away from the big rock, pulling her along with them. They bolted together toward the fire. It was a huge blaze that rose several stories high, and Lorna realized that some of the trees had been set on fire as well.

Alex pulled the hood of his coat over his head, and he pulled the drawstring so that it covered his hair and his mouth. Some buckets had been left abandoned on the ground, and he went to them. He grabbed for himself and a second one for Lorna.

"Fill this up with snow," Alex whispered. "Act like you're doing something to help with this mess."

Lorna did. She lowered the bucket to the ground, and she shoveled some snow into the bucket with her hands. After a few seconds, Alex grabbed her wrist again, and he pulled her away, carrying a half-filled bucket of snow in his other hand. They ran closer to the fire, and she felt the heat of it. Several large tents might have once been in a circle, but there was a large gap that was either black from soot or covered in fire. Many of the tents were on fire, but it was the surrounding trees that were the most worrying.

Alex ducked into the closest tent they could find that was not yet ablaze. It had crates full of weapons. He dropped his bucket to the ground, and he grabbed a rifle, which he slung over his shoulder. Lorna tried to follow suit, grabbing a rifle of her own, and then she stuffed a few cartridges into her coat pockets. After he loaded the bucket with a few cartridges of ammo, he grabbed the bucket again, and Lorna was right behind him as he left the tent.

There were a couple of people who saw them, but they were too busy with the fire to pay much attention to them.

Alex ducked into a new tent. There was a person in there already, likely trying to save what he could from the fire. He lowered his hand to a pistol he had strapped to his hip.

"Hey, you’re—"

Alex slammed the bucket into his face, and the man toppled backward. He struck the man in the head again and again, and Lorna felt sick as she heard the sickening sounds of bone-crushing and soft things getting squished. She turned away, shifting her rifle to cradle it in her hands, and she swallowed back the acid that came up her throat.

Lorna shrieked when a hand clutched her wrist, but when she turned it was just Alex.

"Hey, are you all right? Are you hurt?”

Lorna fought the urge to turn and look at the aftermath of what Alex had done.

"I'm not hurt."

Alex nodded.

"Watch the entrance. I'll look for our stuff."

Lorna watched Alex as he ran to the stuff. It was more crates of things, and he ducked behind them. She looked to the crates around her, and she pulled off the lid of one of them. There were cartridges of ammunition that fit the rifle she had stolen from the guard, and she stuck as many of them as she could into her coat pockets.

"Found our stuff!" Alex said. "I don't think they've gone through it yet."

Lorna turned to him. He wore his backpack but without the blanket and the tent clipped to it, and he shoved another backpack into her arms, making her come close to dropping her rifle. She set the rifle on the ground as she shifted the backpack onto her back.

"Let's go!" he said.

Alex peeked out of the flap of the tent before he ducked out of it, and Lorna was quick to follow him out, clutching the rifle tightly to herself.

The last thing she wanted to be was left behind in that tent.

There were still people bustling about, carrying buckets of water. Someone was trying to start up a generator so they could spray the trees.

Lorna followed Alex's lead through the forest. The sounds of a crackling fire and people trying to put out that fire became more and more distant until the only sound that she could hear was the crunching of snow as they ran.