Episode: 1.10

--- Rook ---

A loud whine she was all too familiar with filled her head, as a dull ache she was even more familiar with filled her body.

“Shit…” she cursed forcing herself up, at the price of making everything hurt twice as bad.

She tried opening her eyes, before blinking rapidly, hoping to clear the blur that encompassed her vision and what little she could make out was obscured by smoke, though maybe her concussion was just that bad.

(Don’t… sm-smell much… in way of… incendiaries…)

(With that… that force… it must’ve… must’ve been a non… non-local… con-concussive…)

(This… much smoke… extra bomb… keep people… disoriented…)

Her eyes drifted a bit, not seeing much in the way of damage to the building or people, mostly knocking people around, but the few people she could still see standing were trying to run away from the scene of the explosion… or limp away, some people were doing that too…

(Must’ve… shock factor… want people off-balance…)

Her face scrunched up; thoughts blurry in a way she wasn’t comfortable with in the slightest.

(Damn it… can’t think straight…)

She rubbed her hand against her aching skull, hoping to draw out some of the pain.

(Need… need to, to clear head…)

She almost let herself fall to the ground, content to just lay there until the pain stopped, before her jumbled mind managed to remember something, or rather someone…

“S-Sienna!” She called, barely hearing her own voice, only knowing she’d spoken due to the feeling of her tongue catching in her slurred to her speech.

(Wait, there was… someone else… someone weaker…)

Her eyes shot wide, as she scanned the ground as fast as her aching body and mind would let her.

“Alyss!” She tried, desperately hoping a kid hadn’t been hurt on her watch.

(Crying… Fire… Bullets… Blood…)

She shook her head pushing the bad thoughts away.

(No time… for that…)

Her hand brushed the base of her spine, before massaging the tissue around it, making sure it was all still in one piece, otherwise she’d be next to useless.

Feeling no damage, she pushed her torso up before forcing her knees to slide under her, after all the real trick was standing up.

(“Come on soldier…”)

Her teeth ground together, her thighs killing her in a way she wished she could forget.

(“On your feet!”)

Placing a foot on the ground she cursed as the old ache next to her spine started acting up.

(One foot… in front of… the other…)

She placed her hands on her knee and pushed, using her entire body to stand up, despite the aching pain.

(Just like… last time…)

Her other foot now on the ground, she forced herself to take a stumbling step, before pausing as she regained her lost balance. Eventually she forced herself to take another step, and then another after that, until her legs finally remembered how to walk right.

(Now where’s the… kid…)

Her eyes drifted around the room, getting an easier view of everything now that the smoke had begun to clear.

The building itself wasn’t too damaged, but all the stands and potted plants had been shredded in the explosion, leaving behind a metric shit ton of debris all over the place and injuring the unlucky few who’d been unfortunate enough to get caught in the initial blasts.

“Alyss! Sienna!” She called again, hoping either one of them would answer.

(Damn it! They couldn’t have gotten that far…)

Her eyes swept the ground trying to find mother or daughter.

“No…” She shook her head, remembering an old lesson Chris taught her. (If you’re wondering where something landed, first look at where it was launched from.)

A large hole in the wall connecting the food court to a maintenance hall of some kind, showed her where the explosive had probably been planted. As did all the broken stone and metal blasted away from that wall.

(Miracle none of the rubble killed… anyone…)

She froze before immediately pushing away any connection between that thought and her missing companions.

“Not going there.” She told herself with a shaky breath, before glancing around once more.

(Okay, that’s about… twenty meters away… since it didn’t kill me that means more than one bomb was set off… so wall probably took what a third of the blast… I was thrown about five meters… Alyss and Sienna both probably weigh less than me…)

She frowned. “Meaning they should still be close enough to see…which they aren’t…”

Both her hands found their way through her hair as she scowled at the scene before her, “Where the fuck did they go?”

She paused, noticing something else. “Actually, where did everyone else go?” She knew there had been more people laying around the now empty area.

(There’s no way everyone managed to get up and clear out that fast…)

A hand gripped her shoulder, and before she could break it, a twisting feeling spread throughout her stomach as her world was once more consumed by darkness.