Marble Teaser
Access to the staircase down to the first floor was through an opening on the interior wall of the hallway, in the direction Emina had originally been heading before the disaster struck. It was sheltered from the direction the shockwave seemed to have come from, but Emina still felt uneasy as she descended the debris covered steps. Her feet slipped on glass and dirt that had blown through the passage and down onto the stairs and she worried she might fall if she let go of the railing for even a second. She was also concerned that the stairs would simply give way beneath her. The whole building had been shaking, pieces of the ceiling had fallen in and walls and floors had collapsed. She didn’t feel like her fears were unjustified.
One careful step after another, Emina slowly descended to the ground level. Here too, Emina could see signs of massive destruction. Passing by classrooms, she could see more of what she had seen in Miss Makris’ room: mutilated bodies and wounded students struggling to get to their feet or help friends and classmates they couldn’t possibly save. She was fairly sure she saw the hole that led back up into the civics room, a pile of limbs and rubble beneath it.
At the entrance to the building, pieces of wall around the front doors had collapsed, leaving the doors themselves blocked but gaps leading to the outside open. Emina found herself in a flock of other less wounded students filtering out to the front of the school. Although, less wounded was relative. Almost everyone present was bleeding or burned in some way. Students cradled broken arms or supported each other on ruined legs. As a singular mass, covered in dust and gore, they staggered forward and clambered through the holes in the front of the building to freedom like a zombie horde.
For a few terrifying moments, Emina found herself trapped in a crush of bodies, people packed suffocatingly close as they pushed and struggled in their efforts to get free of the structure. Then, finally, she was through and able to breathe again.
It was winter. Cold air should have hit Emina as she stepped out of the school. Instead, she was struck by a thick heat that seemed to be carried in the air itself, rather than coming from any specific direction. Ahead, past the other survivors shuffling across the ground, Emina could see that the library and houses across the street had fared worse than the school. The library was ablaze, its roof falling in and its floor to ceiling windows gone. The houses were similarly ruined. A thick haze of smoke hung over the area, and trees and lawns had caught on fire, threatening to turn the ruined locale into a blaze.
With more students trickling out of the building behind her, the movement of the small crowd of wounded prompted Emina to shamble down the front steps to make room for those exiting behind her lest she be shoved down them instead in someone's rush to escape. Less a conscious effort on her part and more an instinctual response to the movements of the herd.
To Emina’s right, a handful of other students were heading to the front of the school grounds. Some were leaving the gymnasium while others were coming from the athletics field beyond it. Like those in Emina’s group, they moved at a glacial pace, sporting grievous burns and other wounds. Some of them called for help. Some of the more able-bodied survivors were heading in that direction to lend whatever assistance they could.
Emina made her way towards the physical education students as well. Less because of a futile desire to help and more because one of the voices she heard crying out was familiar. Amid the cacophony of shouts and groans, Emina recognised the voice of Kendra, her friend. In the midst of the insanity, there was a small comfort in familiarity.
It was a comfort that was short-lived. Kendra stumbled forward blindly, waving her arms in front of her. Most of her short blonde hair had been burned away, exposing the seared scalp beneath. The remaining clumps were charred and darkened. What was left of her gym clothes that hadn’t been incinerated had fused to her skin. She had sported something of a healthy tan, being the athletic sort that spent a lot of time outdoors. Now her skin was a patchwork of nightmares. She was blistered and bright red in some places, in others she was charred black or sported a sickly pallor and the texture of leather, blood leaking through cracks where her body had been dried out.
“I can’t see!” Kendra screamed between rapid breaths. Before she had walked quickly, as though always wanting to break into a run. Now she moved like a woman five times her age, every movement causing her pain. “It hurts! Help!”
Driven forward by the urgency of Kendra’s cries, Emina moved quicker, not quite breaking into a jog but moving fast enough that it caused her head to spin again and the sharp pain from her wound to increase. She slowed back to a more measured walk once she was within a few feet of the other girl.
“Kendra? What happened?” Emina hadn’t realised how dry her throat was until she spoke. It was like she had swallowed some of the glass that littered the ground.
“Em?!” Kendra turned towards Emina, still waving her arms out in front of her wildly, her own voice was ragged and raspy in a way it had never been before. “I don’t know. Help me!”
Emina grimaced. She didn’t like seeing her friend in such agony, but how was she supposed to help when she didn’t even know what had happened? She had thought it was an earthquake, but would that have left things so suddenly on fire and people burned and barbequed? Emina didn’t know.
“Em?” Kendra was hyperventilating. Her breaths short, fast and shallow and only getting more so the longer it took Emina to give her the help she needed. She wasn’t shouting anymore, her words now whimpers instead. With how her throat sounded, Emina wasn’t sure she even could shout anymore.
“What can I do?” Emina asked. A not small part of her wanted to simply turn and run. Seeing her classmates and teacher injured or dead was distressing enough. Seeing someone she actually cared about looking like a walking corpse or something out of a horror movie? It was too much. Yet, she couldn’t be the person who abandoned her friend in a disaster. What would become of herself if she did that?
“I don’t know.” Kendra said, “Everything hurts. I can feel my skin tearing when I move. I feel sick. It’s like I’m falling apart.”
They’d learned about burns at one point, Emina remembered. You were supposed to run cold water over them. That had always worked for her when she had minor burns. She couldn’t remember how long you were meant to do it or if the treatment changed for more severe injuries. However, she figured it was better than nothing.
“Okay. Don’t talk anymore. I’m going to help you.” Emina couldn’t bear to listen to Kendra’s destroyed voice any longer, and surely trying to talk wasn’t helping her any. “Let’s see if we can do something about those burns.”
Gingerly, she took Kendra by her less scorched hand. She could still feel the heat off the skin and the blood dripping from cracks. She could still hear Kendra whimpering at the contact. It was the best she could do. She started leading her friend back towards the gym.
She heard a person screaming before she was even particularly close to the building. By the time she was opening the shattered remnants of the door, the sound was deafening. Her head was already hurting. The howling felt like someone was driving an axe into her skull.
Emina persevered, leading Kendra down the hallway and through a door into the changeroom. Two of the shower stalls were occupied, the sound of running water mixing with the cries of one of the occupants and the quieter groans of the other.
“Is this going to hurt?” Kendra said, barely even whispering the question.
“I think it should feel better,” Emina replied. That was the best she could offer.
