The journey to recovery

Chapter 57

Chapter Fifty seven

Tanzania/Denmark

Pungent taste of copper jostled me awake. In the blur a wide area colored orange flickered at a steady heartbeat.

Sharp as the pain in my shoulder and abdomen my vision came back unlike my hearing robbed by the white noise.

At my left shoulder a wooden stick the size of a baseball bat was lodged in it. The very moment my chest rose while my mouth opened to shriek in anguish I got the familiar taste of copper in my mouth.

The flapping of the flames finally drowned out the ringing in my ears. Above the flames the roof caved in with fine dust sprinkled into the flames while the beams jutted out of the rusty iron sheets.

My ears pricked at the shrill that pierced the hot air.

" Ian"

" Alvin"

" Fergus"

" Anyone? "

My legs shook on my ascend against the wall both my hands were pressed on my abdomen in a futile attempt to reduce the pain.

I shot my arm up and waved my hand till pain drilled in my abdomen and I keeled over to the ground and gasped at the jostle of the stick in my shoulder and the drill of pain in the abdomen.

Combat boots pounded against the concrete floor before my name was called again and the unscathed Miguel squatted above me.

" Ian you're alive let's get you--" uttered Miguel my hand showed out to his face.

The helmet crashed against the floor while I shook my head.

" I'll be careful does this arm hurt?"

After the crash of the helmet against the floor again he drapped my arm around his shoulder.

Only about two seconds in he buckled under both our weight and held his abdomen in pain.

Despite the scratches and cuts and now his abdomen he seemed fine. He gave it another try though this time successful.

Down at our feet ripped off ears,legs and other body parts were strewn across the floor while above the beams lowered and the iron sheets screeched against each other.

Wham

A dust cloud at the far corner of the ware house settled and cleared out before it exposed a body impaled by a steel pole.

" Come on" urged Miguel right before my abdomen writhed in pain and I sunk to the ground were splodges of blood that flew from my mouth landed on while Miguel crouched to the floor too with his back towards me.

On my belly with my shoulders square my elbows were out in front of me and managed to pull my entire weight forward.

After the cry and splatter of more blood my elbow of the good shoulder did the rest of the  work till a hand was clasped around my ankle.

" Please help me" he begged as his lungs wheezed. His leg hung only by a few strings of flesh while half his face was burned off.

Since it was a shell of his old self before our eyes it took me a while to realise; it was Tuhari.

Miguel cast a look at me who gave a curt nod. With a shallow breath I got up on my two feet still hunched over before my hand wrapped around my uncle's bicep and pulled.

Tuhari's dead weight seemed to increase by the distance further travelled. At my right I found Miguel splayed on the floor with a fountain of blood at his mouth and produced a staccato sound from his throat mixed with the cut of iron sheets that folded in on us.