Erik

"Where the hell are we going?" I shouted, keeping the bundle of white cloth which had now turned to grisly red pressed against the fatal wound. The trailer was speeding madly down the night desert road with Josiah at the wheel. Wooden horse carvings rattled inside the glass cupboard. Soeun was crying silently by my side, though he did not stop providing me with new cloths they had inside one of the cabinets for medical use.

"To a doctor," Josiah bluntly replied. He was way too occupied to elaborate. If the laws were still in effect in this region, I was sure we were exceeding the speed limit by at least 80 miles per hour.

I figured I should just keep my mouth shut and concentrate on keeping Jessica alive. She was in a dreadful state; beads of cold sweat were forming on her forehead and a pained grimace was permanently fixed on her pale complexion. She was losing blood fast. Slowly dying.

My mind was clouded by internal distress, but at the same time, wary of every single movement she was making. I was so used to seeing only a grin or a smirk on her carmine lips. This vulnerable girl devoid of life and color was foreign to me, making my heart ache with worry.

Why, though?

What had she done for me?

What significance did this woman have for me? I clenched my teeth to dispel the doubts. After all, a person's life was in danger. Imminent death was just around the corner. Only those with no hearts would feel nothing at the sight of this much blood and gore.

I put more pressure in my hands against the bullet wound that gushed out pints of claret fluid. My hands were painted red and the cot supporting Jessica's unconscious body was voraciously sucking up the liquid. It was a revolting scene. I had not seen gunshot wounds in over a decade. I briefly closed my eyes to even my breaths and refrain from puking up the apple.

"Soe, warm water," Josiah hollered.

Soeun stopped his sobbing and perked up, nodding even though his lover couldn't see it. I didn't understand what it meant but Soeun must have, somehow, as he scurried to the sink with a clear bowl. He came back with lukewarm water filled to the brink and found himself a smaller cloth to soak. Then, he laid it on top of Jessica's forehead and began to massage her arm. Her skin was cold as ice.

"How long do we have left?" I could not help asking. If there really was a doctor in this place, Jessica needed one fast.

"Ten more miles," Josiah answered. "Keep. Her. Breathing," he stressed. I didn't need to be told that.

The next few minutes flew by. Jessica went into shock once, and with impromptu medical guidance of Josiah and Soeun exchanging his place with his boyfriend, we managed to still her vitals and prevent her condition from being aggravated. I was mentally and physically spent by the time the camping van reached the peripheral area of the desert where an ominous forest started out of the blue.

"Out of the way," Josiah softly ordered, and I did. He lifted Jessica's limp body up, making sure her injury was well bandaged and stanched. Then he quickly got out of the van and ran toward the line of young sequoia trees. I followed him along with Soeun.

Somebody lives here? I wondered to myself. Usually, doctors would live somewhere populous and bustling with people, wouldn't they? That way they could actually treat patients and earn enough money to make a living. At least the monetary system was still intact albeit fragile in the Wasteworld.

"How far in?" I questioned, gaining no response. I wasn't really expecting one either.

Soeun was leading the way with a flashlight in his hand. Had the flashlight not been there, I might as well have considered myself as blind as an abyssal fish. The canopy of leaves disrupted the channel of moonlight glistening down from above. What sort of freak lives in this kind of macabre environment?

Suddenly, there was a coruscation up ahead. A swift flash of amber shone in my retina and I frowned from the unexpected beam of light that was shot straight into my eyes. All of us stood still on the spot.

"Stop there," a voice rang out from a speaker hidden somewhere up in the trees.

As Soeun frenetically shone his flashlight around and Josiah calmed him down, a barb wired fence was found about ten yards in front of us. And beyond the fence, there was a fortress-like concrete building with impressive size. In the middle of a sequoia forest. I swallowed down an indescribable feeling along with saliva and stepped forward.

"I said stop."

"Doctor Mikhailov! It's me, Josiah Nolett!" Josiah hollered out toward the building. I looked at the lifeless form of Jessica, her limply hanging arms and eyes screwed shut in unconscious agony. We were seriously short on time.

All the nighttime sounds of the woods surrounded us as soon as a static silence from the speaker befell us. Crickets chirping, leaves rustling, and wind blowing. No one dared to move.

Was this Doctor Mikhailov supposed to be an acquaintance of Josiah? Why wasn't he responding at all?

Just then, the huge electronic door attached to the tall barbed fence opened with a massive, shrill sound of metal being scratched against metal. I cupped my ears to protect my eardrums. The door, apparently, had not been opened in a long time. However, Josiah spent no time evaluating the frequency of the gate's usage and darted straight inside without a word.

As soon as we all stepped inside the boundary, the amber light I had seen before doubled, tripled, and multiplied tenfold all around us to cast us in the spotlight. The spotlight was leading us to a door to the concrete fortress like a carpet. Josiah tramped across the poorly lawn and entered through the door when it opened mechanically. In one look, I could tell that this building was built not by one man or for one man.

It was, with a high chance, a special facility for the government that was abandoned after the War that decimated the entire globe. That explained why it was in such a secluded place, though not too far from the forest entrance.

Dim lights in the hallway drove the dark away and at the end of it, there was another heavy door with a lock that necessitated a code or a card for access. Josiah lifted his glance up at the surveillance camera right above our heads and shouted: "Open it! We need an operation for a bullet wound immediately."

When the door opened yet again, the dead screen of the lock turned green with digital letters reading 'GRANTED' on it. Now there was a staircase waiting for us. Up or down?

"Come downstairs to the bunker, find room B211 and enter code 1478 to come in," the voice instructed.

Following Josiah downstairs, I could study all the cobwebs and dust that shrouded the interior of the place. This place was ancient and definitely not properly managed for god knows how long. It was a wonder how all the electric systems were still functioning. How did this guy get a generating source that aged at such a slow rate? It must have been some highly essential governmental facility for the systems to have lasted this long.

Once downstairs, Josiah found operation room B211 and got Soeun to enter the code 1478 with his blood-coated hands that matched the color of his cardigan. I felt sorry for the frail boy as he trembled like a cornered deer. The negative emotions I had against him had partially dissolved because of the horrendous situation that had assailed us. All because of that Jerome King. I only had a vague idea on who he was and what Jessica's past had to do with him, but it was reasonable to guess that he was not exactly an affable fellow.

The room was already set in preparation for surgery, and there was a stoutly built man wearing a white mask and surgical gloves inside. A microphone was behind him on the desk. That had to be the medium through which he had communicated with us.

Jessica was laid on top of the green bed. All the medical gears were pulled close to her, and I helped find the required items that Doctor Mikhailov demanded. Everyone was in a rush. No questions were asked.

"Nolett, you stay. You two," the doctor pointed at Soeun and me with two fingers, "get out."

I didn't even have the will or time to protest. Soeun grabbed me by my arm and we were thrown outside the operation room. I collapsed on the waiting chair across from it and Soeun stood five feet away from me with his arms crossed. I buried my face in my palms—I didn't mind the dried blood smearing on my bandages. Now that Jessica was handed over to a 'professional' who could hopefully fix her up, every last bit of tension that was straining my nerves left my body and I sat there languidly with no strength in me to stand. It was exhausting.

"Who is that?" I asked in a sluggish voice. Soeun glanced at me with a sad expression.

"Doctor Mikhailov?"

"Yes. If that's the masked guy," I confirmed, nodding in a tired manner. I leaned against the cracked cement wall and let out a sigh.

"That's Illya Mikhailov. He used to be a surgeon at the shelter Jos worked at. So they know each other," Soeun answered.

He walked over to the wall next to the operation room door and sat down on the ground, carding his hands through his hair. I wanted to let him know that red streaks were marked on his raven black hair, but shut my mouth thinking that I must look no different.

"And he's like—a real doctor?"

"Dude. I said he was a surgeon at the citizen shelter. What do you think?" Oh right. This was still the same guy who got on my nerves.

"I mean those times were wild. They hired a bunch of untrained civilians to do a shitload of work that had nothing to do with their jobs." I spread out my hands and studied Jessica's blood splotched on them. I had to wash my hands.

"He's good at what he does, so worry not," Soeun replied, though he seemed more anxious than me. He put his thumb to his lips like he was going to bite at the nail but must have realized that it couldn't be sanitary so put it back between his knees.

"...I think we need to wash our hands," I remarked. Soeun stared at me for a moment before standing up and beckoning me to follow him somewhere. "Wait, you've been here?" "Once." Came back the short reply.

"Then why were you all scared outside?"

Soeun turned around abruptly with a fierce expression. Maybe I probed at his high self-esteem with this question. "I was not scared," he asserted. "I just...don't have good memories about this place."

I decided not to pry. It had to be a personal thing, and before that, we weren't that close to share hurting pasts with each other. To tell the truth, I wasn't even sure if we were on the same side at this point. Jessica was my companion, Josiah came off as a nice and trustworthy guy, but Soeun? Our correlation was an ambiguous one.

There was a restroom not too far away from the surgery room, and thankfully one of the lights worked. Even here, spiders and rats had made themselves a home in all corners. I winced from disgust but shrugged it off as the faucet provided clean water. It vaguely smelled of nature so I assumed Doctor Illya Mikhailov drew in water from the creeks in the forest through makeshift canals or something. Other than that, it was nice to have my hands cleaned of all the gruesome red and wash the half of my face with cold water. Soeun excused himself to use the toilet so I exited first, walking outside to explore the facility a little.

I let myself lighten the burden on my shoulders as I took a different path from the one I had come from and peered around the corner. There were a lot of rooms; the bunker must have been used for various purposes. All rooms needed an access code but one door was open with mild luminescence oozing out from the thin crack. I gently pushed the door open and scanned the spacey room strewn with documents, medical tools, and electronic devices everywhere. Was this the office of Doctor Mikhailov?

It wasn't a decent move to furtively ransack the office of a man I had not even been officially introduced to, but curiosity got the best of me. I lifted one of the loose papers that were on the floor and tried my best to read the unintelligible scribbles on them. This doctor had the handwriting of an ape. Since I couldn't decipher it, I flung it back on the floor and picked up a syringe that contained opaque green liquid in it. Whatever it was, it did not look friendly so I set it back down on the shelf. Then I walked around the desk and looked into the many monitors that showed images of the places we had been at. The fence, the lawn, the hallway, the stairs, and a whole lot of places that I haven't, and probably won't, tour around during our stay.

Sitting on the comfortable chair on five wheels, I swung myself around once and then put my focus back on the monitors. Since I couldn't physically be in all places, I thought watching through the numerous eyes of the CCTV's would be an acceptable alternative. So I did, moving my gaze from one screen to the other and pondering to myself what purpose those rooms may have been built for.

About four minutes had passed. Soeun did not come looking for me. I decided to linger around a little more since I wanted a distraction from every stressful circumstance I had gone through in the past two days. Jessica will live, I self-suggested, so don't worry your brain out over it.

It was a humongous facility. There were more underneath the ground then up, just like an iceberg. The government must have used it for military purposes, too, as I could spot tanks and helicopters in a certain area. I was in awe. Never in my life had I seen things like these. I mean, yes, through the televisions and newspapers when the post-eruptions of the War were still waging in my youth, but I was kept in 'safety' to see everything from behind sealed doors. I was stupidly happy then, though, and these were none of my concern at that time.

The screens kept on changing to show different parts of the building, both inside and out. I watched every screen with immense interest, scrutinizing each room and hallway precisely. My one good eye was pleased for once.

That was when I saw a movement.

A small movement in the shadows on the monitor that was placed on the far left side. I could not see what it was at first, thinking maybe it was some kind of a large rat or a dog that the doctor kept, but the more I studied it, the more it looked too odd to be an animal. Whatever it was, it was moving at a slow pace, somewhat bizarre. I cocked my head to one side and leaned forward to check what it was through the poor definition of the surveillance camera screen. And then I nearly stumbled out of the chair in surprise because...

It was a person. Right inside the office.

My eyes shot up in alarm and met those of a youthful girl who was aiming a lengthy blade at my throat.

"Who are you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. Her tone was high and cold.

I slowly rose from the seat with raised hands, attempting to shy away from the tip of the knife. Now that I got a good look at it, it was a blade that protruded out of the end of one of her crutches. Crutches. That explained the peculiar movement.

"I-I'm...," I faltered, mouth dry and mind blank.

"Erik?" A familiar voice called me from behind the girl's back. Would anyone have imagined the voice of Soeun Jeong being a huge relief to my troubled heart?

"Nikole?"

Soeun entered the room wearing a confused, slightly agitated expression. I turned to face him, but the girl named Nikole didn't lower her deadly weapon even as she moved her gaze to see Soeun coming up to us.

"Soeun," she said, in a much-relieved voice. "Long time no see."

"...Yeah." I could see Soeun averting his gaze and licking his lower lip to dismiss whatever thought that was swarming his brain. He then touched the outstretched blade with his fingertip and forced it down. "No need for this. He's with us."

Nikole reluctantly did as suggested but eyed me with hostility and distrust. I couldn't say anything in my own defense, as it was evidently me who had intruded their place and the doctor's office without permission.

"You've got a lot to explain, Erik guy," she intoned.

My eyes fell.

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A digital drawing of Soeun by me

Thank you for reading! A new setting woohoo!

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