"Miles! Miles! Are you listening?!" An annoying nine year old was screaming from across the room. Miles was comfortably propped up in the large bay window seat, too distracted by the book he was reading to notice the rain falling and pitter-pattering before drawing long squiggly lines down the glass like tears. He could feel them somehow.
"Nope, not a bit." Miles retorted flippantly, simply flipping the next page as his eyes scanned over the words of the Times Roman font. He knew his sister would never give up. In fact she might have been 9 but had the tenaciousness of a 45 year old woman who done had three kids. She was stubborn, that's for certain.
And so, with his provocation, she took several steps towards Miles who continued to seemingly ignore the tenacious young girl of fourteen. She wasn't aware of it herself, but she was being lured like a fish on a line. Her lips pursed and pushed to one side of her face as her nose scrunched itself in agitation. She hated when he became oblivious to anything and everything around him. He was usually like this when he was drawn in seclusion inside himself. It was trying to crack an oyster with the wrong tools.
"Miles!" She whined. She ushered over to him, grabbing his sleeve and shook him vehemently. Rather than resist and fight it, he simply let his body relax and swayed with each urging tug of his sister's grasp. "Come on! Please?" She begged.
"Eh, you know how I feel about being in open spaces with a lot of people. Gets me...nervous." I told her somberly. I could see the hope fleeting from her eyes and I didn't even need to look into them directly.
"Okay...I understand..." She sighed and started to turn around.
"Who is he Angelica?" I inquired glancing up at her sternly.
"Huh? Who is...who..?" She tried to play it off in ignorance as she held one arm self-consciously behind her. She was acting like a prisoner being demanded by the warden to hand over the key to his cell.
"This boy you are meeting at the mall…" I responded, still eyeing her. I knew it was making her nervous.
"B-Boy?! I'm not meeting a boy!" She yelped, turning pink.
"Oh? You mean to tell me you aren't meeting...what's his name? David? The one with the curly brown hair and glasses? Has freckles all over his face? Plays football at your school?" He questioned the look of shock and embarrassment overcoming her expression.
"Wha-What?! Have you been following me or something?" She questioned, her voice becoming rather...forceful. She had taken the bait that I was invasive of her privacy.
"No." Miles replied. "He's right there." He lifted a finger to point out behind her. Angelica fell for the ruse. She spun on her heels squeaking, quite frankly like a mouse. Miles snapped the book closed, while she balled her fists and shook angrily.
Miles stood up, now a full foot and a half taller than she was. Though he was the researcher-type. He did not give off that vibe with his build which was broad and corded. Angelica growled then turned around and started whaling on his chest. Each impact a solid, resounding thud like she where attempting to pump water out of him or something.
"I hate you!" She shouted angrily.
"Oh. Well, then I suppose there is no sense in going to the mall then. Can't imagine my hater sitting next to the hated long enough for a thirty minute drive into the city where the mall is." I turned around quickly enough that it threw her off balance and she fell back into the padded window seat.
"W-Wait a minute now!" I heard her call out, I paused. "I suppose...maybe...hate IS a strong word to throw around." She muttered stubbornly.
"And this means...? Please, speak you're mind little sister. You know you can with me." I garnered her sense of guilt.
"I'm sorry! Okay? I'm sorry! But I just sometimes feel like a lab rat to you..." Angelica said to him.
"Is that so? Well, that's because you are a lab rat. You've been my lab rat since you were five and tried to read Moby Dick all on your own then give me a premise of the story--which I have to say, I didn't understand nearly half of what you were saying--it was like you were speaking a different language or gibberish. It's kind of like how you get around David." Miles answered, but he looked forwards, he didn't turn around just yet.
"Well, I can feel the love there!" She wittily retorted. Sarcasm heavily laced upon her tongue.
That's when he turned and smirked lightly back at her. "Would I offer you the truth if I didn't love you?" He asked her. It caught her off guard, my words and even most of all--my smile. Even I realized it was a rarity. Like some fabled creature thought to have gone extinct but somehow keeps surfacing if only for the briefest of moments just to disappear again.
"You're the kind that tries too hard to make it out situations. And that's okay. Angelica, sometimes going above and beyond what's called for can be a tremendously good thing. But never forget to ground yourself sometimes too. A bird that flies high up in the sky, is always going to want to be free. But a man wants a bird that he can cage and feel like he can keep it all to himself. Regardless, that bird will feel stifled for it hasn't learned to WANT to live within the bounds of reason. Do you understand what I am saying to you?" Miles inquired his younger sister.
"I...think so." She responded hesitantly. Did he just offer her...dating advice? "You're saying it's okay to go out of my way sometimes, but I shouldn't overdo it cause if I get to use to something, if we get really close there won't be much room for much else?"
Miles nodded. "Don't get so side tracked by one boy, that you lose focus of your goals or your dreams that you would think of exchanging the the two. It won't be worth it in the long run. It's always good to find happiness, but you also need to be practical. Don't grow up too fast. I want a few more years with my sister." I told her.
"Are we seriously having that pep talk?" Angelica blushed a deep carmine. Miles simply stared.
"Since mother or father has taken it upon themselves to do so, I felt it was only right that I do so." He said
"Wow. Just...wow. Miles, sweetie. I know you can't pick up on subtlety that well cause you're autistic and all...but I really don't plan on having sex with the a guy a on my first date." She scrunched her face.
"Good, it would end very poorly for him if he made such an advance on my little sister." I warned, my face returning to its stoic expression. " Dress warm, it's pretty chilly out." Miles set his book down on the book shelf in entry way. It was flush with the side of the stair case to the upstairs. Angelica ran by him like a hummingbird; fleet footed and rushed up to her room. He heard her door slam and our mother bent her head out into the hall from her improvised office.
"Is...everything okay out here?" She questioned, folding her arms over her chest. She was an older but still attractive woman of 45 but looked more near her early thirties. She had shoulder length black hair with short bangs. Her eyes were brown. She was adorned with a gold chain and bracelet, but her wedding ring was white gold.
Miles didn't answer. He just...stared. Something...didn't seem...right to him. Everything seemed off. Like this had all happened before. He closed his eyes, he suddenly felt very sleepy...
"Miles..."
"Miles..."
"Miles..."
He heard a voice calling out to him, but when opened his eyes he looked around. He was in a deserted classroom. He rose from his desk, and turned this way and that. For sure he was just in his house ready to take Angelica on her first date. But a glimmer caught his notice out of the corner of his eye. It was so blinding, but, it invoked that human sense of curiosity in him. He turned to the window and peered out. The streets were all quiet. Cars just sat with no people in them. But rising in the distance, a brilliant sparkle, like the shimmering of some extraordinary bright star. When it flashed his pupils retracted, trying to block out the light but it was so blinding. It was like a thousand sun wrapped into one explosion.
The detonation formed a perfect sphere of massive concussive force that spread out instantly from the site of the explosion. The force came like a tsunami. There was no where he could run. If he could run. What he had just witnessed was a high altitude detonation of an EMP blast. It had knocked out the nerve center of the city. The electricity was no more. No lights. No cars. Nothing but silence, at first. He could see the shock wave hitting each building, and the windows of each shattering one after another on all levels. He started to step back, his animal instincts starting to kick in. That fight or flight was stuck in the middle and it made him a little too indecisive.
Before it hit, he crouched down and cover his face. But it did no good. He could feel the pressure as it shot through the windows shattering them and sent him and the nine rows of desks hurdling backwards and slamming into the wall. As my back was pancaked, my head jarred back and slammed into the stone edifice. I along with three or four desks then just dropped like swatted flies to the floor. When he landed, he did so on my side but soon found himself on my stomach. His eyes were so blurry, a mixture of extreme light changes, the concussion he now had and his disturbed equilibrium. All of which, he then blamed for what he saw next.
As he looked up, his head barely was lifting off the tiled floor; blood running from multiple lacerations. What he saw was indescribable. Ghost figures. At least, that's the only thing he could think to call them at the moment. They were really just human shaped blurs; running frantically like bats all fluttering out at once so you couldn't tell what was what. What was really happening was his brain was now filling in all the empty spaces it had originally left out of this particular memory. As it did, he could hear muffled voices; they were screaming but rather than high pitched shrieks of panic they were slowed down and it was indistinguishable. Those shapes became clearer over time, becoming all too human as everything in him settled back down like dust kicked up on the oceans bottom.
His visuals were going haywire, overwriting his perception of color and making things seem blue or magenta then that too gradually reduced. He coughed, it was hard to breathe and he curled up before he tried to push up but found pain writhing in the form of a large shard of glass embedded in his palm. He slowly pulled and tugged, breathing heavy and fast as it hurt like hell. He then pushed up off the floor and looked around at a destroyed room. It truly looked no different than if a bomb had gone off right here. Several of his classmates were laying in crumpled heaps, one nailed to a cabinet by a random piece of flying debris. He was eager to back away and became frantic.
His insides hurt, his wanted to throw up but that's when I heard it. Shouting, and it wasn't in English. He had heard from somewhere, he thought. But he couldn't bring himself to remember who the hell spoke like that. He could remember...A Korean girl he had a chemistry class with. What the hell was her name? Miles limped to the stairs, he must've landed pretty hard cause his leg was locking up. But as he did he started hear gun fire and screams and immediately backed away. He saw uniformed soldier grab a girls arm and start to drag her away. I was about to go and help the girl, but I had my own problem. The back of a gun split the back of his head open.
He was now bowed over with a North Korean pointing his sub-machine gun at him. He spoke in a tongue that Miles didn't understand but the volume of his voice and the sound of it, told him that he was highly aggressive. Mile's eyes were tearing up and becoming red and puffy. The hell was going on? But before he could get adjusted, his instinct to survive kicked in overriding his logical side. The soldier kicked at Miles, and immediately Miles latched on to his leg, coiling his arm around behind the guy's knee. I grabbed the first thing I could which was a shard of glass that had broken from the window overlooking the stairs. I jammed it in to the soft tissue behind the knee cap and snapped the glass off inside.
The wrenching motion sent the guy to the floor with ease. Not only because Miles may have just severed his hamstring, but the simple fact he knew how much a big chunk of glass felt jammed into somewhere. Fortunately, Miles could pull his out. While the man screamed an thrashed, I pushed myself up hurriedly and ran towards the stair case the other soldier had gone. There, on the first landing, he had the girl on the ground and was trying to rip the girls clothes off. Mostly of which he had succeeded. Something deep in Miles lit up like a match and he slowly pulled out a fire extinguisher. He climbed the stairs silently, hearing the young girls whimpers and the disgusting leers of the soldier.
All Miles could think about was Angelica. He could feel his blood pressure rise; pulsations flooding him with adrenaline. It was everything he could do to keep a hold of the fire extinguisher. His hands were shaking and it wasn't because he was scared. It was because with every whimper and cry, Miles could almost see his little sister laying there and it was dancing on that sensitive nerve that held him between a psychotic fit and sanity. The girl saw him first, her eyes pleadingly looking to him for help. He was no soldier, he was a student like her. The soldier then realized his shadow was rather large, and when he looked back the side of his face was met with the solidness of the exterior of the extinguisher. He didn't strike the man's temple however, but he did break the man's cheek and contort his body to spin from the sheer torque.
Mile's face was completely void of emotion now. Perhaps the worst state a person could be in, because it usually meant that the person they were hurting he had no apathy. No longing to prolong nor make it particularly quick. It was going to be vicious, and it was going to be mind-numbingly awful. As the soldier attempted to climb the steps, obviously injured from the blow delivered to him, Miles' vacant eyes stared out before he lifted one leg and stomped on the back of the man's head. His oppcipital bone being forcefully compressed by Miles biker boot, size 14. The contact made between the enamel, the hard edge of the steps themselves and the force, shattered most of the. Pieces of dentin and chunks of bone as his jaw was forced to open well beyond its capacity.
He did this not just once, but twice. The second sent fleeting nerve impulses that caused the man's legs to spasm before he backed up and delivered one last blow to the man's cranium by way of the fire extinguisher. The metal casing proved much too hard and caved his skull in. The spasms stopped signalling the man's final death. Miles released the canister and stumbled back against the wall, he was panting heavily. His body was uncontrollably shaking. He felt so cold, why did he feel so cold? It was as though he were left standing the rain in December at night.
"Are you...okay..?" Miles asked finally, he didn't look over at her. Just continued to breathe like his lungs were filling with water. He was swerving and swaying. What's going on. A new pain, one he hadn't recognized before because of the shock of what was going on around him. He knelt down by her, and again a sharp searing pain erupted against the front of his pelvis. Again he ignored it, he simply pulled of his shirt. He had been peppered by glass and it shown. He had abrasions from head to waist as he bore the brunt of the glass and the pressure wave that it made it explode like a shotgun in his face.
"Here...You need to change into this." He told the girl and then, without waiting peeled the torn undergarment that once straddled her chest and the blouse she was wearing away. The girl was understandably in shock. Class gets bombed, school mates get shot and you nearly get raped by the guy who might just kill you even if you do give him what he wants. He pulled one of her arms through the sleeve of his shirt then the other and finally pulled it down over her. He remembered her looking over at him, then down at the shirt that was nearly three sizes too big then back at him.
"Thank you..." She stammered, Miles nodded but the pain was growing worse. Over time, he laid back and rolled onto his right side. "But you have to wake up now..."
Why am I getting so cold? He wondered. It didn't look cold outside. But it wasn't a matter of weather, his body was going into shock. When he fell to the floor in the classroom a chunk of glass had embedded itself in his pelvis. It was the source of his leg locking up. Miles eyes slowly closed as he stared over at the girl. Looking at her now...she took one the resemblance of his sister. He didn't have the strength to be surprised. He just watched, feeling and hearing heart beat in his eyes before they finally closed...and he awoke to the reality that he knew. Miles had wandered back into his home after his retribution. In fact he had collapsed from his head injury, the concussion he had as well as his continued bleeding.
His eyes stared up to a dark ceiling; he then let his head roll to the side. In his dream. He'd saved her. In truth, he had failed. He'd gotten so overstimulated he had hid. He had killed two soldiers and wounded a third. But the girl he saved in truth was Chermi, Chermi Leigh. A junior. She had dark hair much the same as his ice cold sister who now lay next to him. He had been holding her hand and now it seemed to not want to let him go. He pried her fingers as gently as he could before he leaned over, forehead to forehead closed his eyes.
"I will do the hardest thing I know how to do for you right now...I'm gonna keep living. I may get dismayed because you won't be there to make me smile. But I'll do that much for you at least..." He kissed near the pale flesh yet sundered and rolled to his left and struggled to his feel. His tears of pain, of agony just from his admitted defeat but he had to find a way to keep from bleeding to death first. That's when his genius intellect kicked in shortly thereafter, his dread. He came to the conclusion that'd he have to cauterize the damn thing to seal it.
"That's wonderful news...The doctor of the family is dead next to her daughter...Well, she has taught me a thing or two. I just hate what I'm thinking right now." Miles muttered to himself. "First things first though..." He hobbled over to the book shelf, catching himself on it as he stumbled to his knees. He crawled to the other side where a cupboard was.
Please tell me you are in here and you still work..." Miles tried to fumble in the dark, grabbing a hold of something surprisingly heavy. Pulling it out, it looked like a duffle bag so he just pushed it aside. What he was looking for was the battery operated lamp. He found it at last. Now, he could actually see, hopefully. "Moment of truth time." He turned the dial and the LED, his eyes dilated quickly enough that he fell backwards and rolled rubbing his eyes. "Ah damn it! It works too well! I'm blind!" He fumbled with it. "Is there a dimmer switch?" His thumb then clicked something or another because the lanterns light became a focused spotlight. It was a flashlight too? What was it? A decepticon or something? Next it would probably make him an omelet.
Still rubbing his eyes as they tried to adjust he shone the light on the duffle bag. It was red. And white. But as his vision cleared, he could swear he had just hit the jack pot. His mother's own First aid kit. It was cram pack full of essentials. From bandages to syringes. It even had his mother's own Lidacaine, Bupivacaine and even Morphine?!
"Did you expect me to get impaled to day? Geeze." Miles sighed. Slung the strap of the tote bag over one shoulder. Although to be honest, it was more like a camping backpack. The thing was huge and heavy. It was going to be an obvious target. But it was going to a crucial part of his agenda. Not just for himself but for those he rescued along the way. But he had to get the glass out of him. He could feel effects of blood loss starting to get to him. He had to hurry. He grabbed the tote and the lamp and headed to the bathroom, he shielded the window so prying eyes couldn't see the LED lamp he was using. Setting the bag down, he opened it again and this time dug into the various assortments. He couldn't find it fast it enough and he was running out of time. He took the lamp to his mother's room. Strangely, she had requested the ground floor.
It was Spartan, like always. The woman could not leave dust bunny alone. Made him feel bad for here patients. I found them--tweezers. He'd have to go and raid his father's whiskey cabinet for that. Now having the things he needed he stepped back into the bathroom and began his audacious plan to remove a bit of glass embedded in him. He laid the lantern on the side and angled the light. Removing his pants, his shirt he had gone without. Carefully now, after dabbing the ends of the tweezers in disinfectant gel hand sanitizer he peeled back is own skin. Who ever heard of this as emergency surgery in the middle of San Francisco at home, needs to get better eyes. This was downright medieval.
Miles could feel the metal inside him and it was not pleasant. He gripped the sink at first, clutching the porcelain edifice. His body was vehemently trembling. The pain was just so unreal. Every bit of him wanted to grab the morphine. But there was something inside fighting it. Something keeping him from expending even a drop of a vital resource—at least, on his self. The perforation was a three inch gash that he approximated had drove a sliver of glass about two inches deep. It was located on his waist line near his right hip. He hissed, and gritted his teeth when the tweezers touched the lodged piece of glass. It had gone even deeper than he thought.
Miles groaned in pain, wincing as he felt the tweezers pry the severed tissues apart inside his body. His eyes roamed the room as unfathomable pain racked his body. The glass was slippery; he couldn't quite get a grasp on the glass. It had become so painful; he was pounding on the sink with his hand as if begging himself to stop. He wanted to throw up, but he wouldn't give up. How could he? With veins producing themselves along his forehead from stress and effort he threw the tweezers into the sink before worming his thumb and forefinger into the deep gash.
Instantly his body seized, and his face contorted painfully. His breath hitched, only sputtering as spit flung from his lips when he forced them deeper into the muscle tissue. There, he felt the object of his agony. A three inch long, three inch wide shard of razor sharp glass. He was lucky. Had it gone any deeper it would have embedded in his bowels. It had, however, severed an artery. He grabbed the outside edges gently, pinching it between them. He now had the daunting task of retrieval.
He had no choice; he had to pull it out slowly. Which was very painful. Otherwise he'd risk severing another artery or snapping the glass and risk further punctures. As he slowly began to pull at the shard, the intense pain became all too evident and it wound up his groan until it was an all-out scream. His hand jerked back pulling the blood stained piece of glass out entirely and letting it drop into the sink. He was now kneeling with his head against the edge of the sink, panting unsurprisingly. That last effort made him hold his breath for nearly four minutes. He felt like he was drowning.
He collapsed, falling over as the blood started oozing out of the wound. Without the suction the glass had created to fill the void now torn into his body, he began to bleed more freely now. By now, Miles was quite pale and even though he struggled to drag himself to the towel closet, his vision was blurring and his thoughts were getting hazier. But something in him urged him on, inch by painful inch. He dragged himself across the floor and then reached up with a bloody hand and locked onto the door as tight as he could. His arm strained as he began lifting himself, trying to pull himself to his feet. He quickly latched his other hand onto the handle; it too was a bloody mess.
Pressing his head into the door, he urged himself to stand on one foot, then to rising slowly upright before stumbling back. He slammed into the bathroom door catching himself on the frame. He was damned if he was going to break one more promise to Angelica. He forced himself back forward, opening the closet and grabbed a towel quickly tying it around his waist an improvised means of keeping pressure on the wound. The towel would also absorb the blood.
"I have to stop the bleeding." He told himself pressing his hand over the tight knot. The wound was in such an odd place it was hard to localize it with pressure. "It looks like I'll have to cauterize it. I don't have time to look for a needle and thread." He grabbed the bag of medical supplies. Groaning as he struggled to lift it up but he had and grabbed the lantern and hobbled into the kitchen set the bag down.
Limping over to the gas stove, he then looked down at the many pull out drawers around the sink. He'd need a match. The stoves igniter was still reliant on electricity. He drew out one drawer after another until he found a small box of matches. Setting the lamp down on the counter top, he opened the box pulling out a single match then struck it setting it ablaze he lowered it before turning the knob slowly dispensing the gas. The stove pilot lit up revealing an open flame.
"Next I need a knife..." He thought quickly, and then decided on the long bread knife. It had no real edges to speak of. Nor was it serrated. He carefully removed the grate and slid the blade over the flame Now he had to wait…
