The Quiet One

2.5 | Paramedics

Hi! I don't want to make a trend of half-chapters, but I forgot to add this to the last chapter. Enjoy! This is rather important  as well ;)

The elevator somehow managed to get to the bottom floor, and everyone ran for their lives. I was pushed out and fell on my arm.

Residents stormed out of the elevator, trampling me. I scrambled up to my feet and rushed outside just as part of the building collapsed on top of me.

I was able to wriggle out. Pain shot up my arm, fuzzing my vision even more, but I managed to crawl away from the rubble.

I couldn't register what had happened. Everything went down so fast.

I blacked out.

💮

When I regained my senses, I was laying down in an ambulance. I sat up rapidly and looked around. My parents were not there.

It didn't take long before I figured out what happened to them.

I did not say anything. Grief overwhelmed me, but I couldn't cry, as hard as I tried. I felt soot tingle on my face. Ashes floated on the breeze.

I realized the paramedics were waiting until I was conscious before they did anything, like take me away. If they handed me to aliens, threw me into the sea, fed me to the Devourer, or left me alone, I wouldn't care. The paramedics were talking. I didn't listen much. I was in shock.

Nothing mattered anymore.

"The entire building collapsed," the male paramedic said. He leaned on the ambulance frame, fiddling with the rubber rim of his latex gloves.

"No thanks to the Great Devourer," the female paramedic added sarcastically. She too seemed to be relaxed, not in a rush, as she was casually talking with the other paramedics.

The bits of soot were like specks of dust. They floated idly on the breeze, gathering our faces and the ambulance and everything, coating the world in an ashy blanket.

"Where were the ninja?" the man said. A few of my drawings, burned from a small fire, fluttered by. I barely noticed. "The Great Devourer just knocked down the entire building- and kept going, like it was nothing!"

I pulled a wrinkled photo of me, Mama, and Papa from my pocket. I was riding on Papa's shoulders in a cherry blossom grove. The picture hadn't been taken too long ago, but it started to feel like forever.

"Honey, where are your parents?" the woman said, noticing that I was conscious.

I didn't say anything and gripped my photo. Bits of ash flew through the air and caught in my dirty, sooty braids. I tried to ignore them.

"What is your name?"

I kept silent. My arm ached and stung, but I didn't even feel the pain. Grief and shock overwhelmed me. Ashes clung to my hair. Nothing mattered anymore.

"My, aren't you the quiet one."