People are still digging in small scattered teams, occasionally calling for silence with a raised fist in the air. Smartly dressed men and women are talking into microphones in front of cameras. A child is crying somewhere, the noise somehow piercing through the machinery and the chatter.
There is a haphazard collection of vehicles – ambulances, fire trucks, vans with satellite dishes on top of them, massive jeeps, flat beds with shadowed machines lurking in their bellies. As the natural light darkens, headlights tunnel into the shade.
The world that those criss-crossed, glowing yellow tunnels show is very different from the world we left behind. The beautiful church has gone. Most of the houses are gone. The plaza and its pretty fountain have been churned up, left in furrows of rubble.
There are fires still burning, electric cables still dangling, the smell of dust and destruction.
I make out the shapes of human bodies, broken and abandoned. At first my brain doesn’t register what I’m seeing, but logic forces me to accept that I am looking at people who didn’t make it. They can’t possibly be alive – they’re too twisted, too taut, too still. I can’t see any faces, and I’m glad.
I see smashed tables, shattered glass everywhere, trees and plants mashed up into the earth. I see a mangled baby’s pushchair, upside down, wheels pointing skyward. I remember that baby, chubby-cheeked and sleeping, and it takes my breath away.
The machinery is thudding and hissing, and the fires are smoking, but other than that it is eerily quiet.
I look up, unable to keep my eyes on the destruction. Thick clouds of dust float in the air, motes dancing in the electric light, but higher than that, right up in the heavens, the sky has faded to a deep blue. It is clear and beautiful and perfect, the just-emerging stars looking down on this desecrated patch of earth.
I try to stand, wanting to find him, find my friend whose name I still don’t know, wanting to tell him to look up at those incredible stars.
A woman in green scrubs places a firm hand on my shoulder, pushing me back down. I feel the sharp sting of a needle, and look on as she hooks me up to a drip. Worried that it might be some kind of drug that will knock me out, I am filled with a need to know about Harry. I need to know that he is not out there, alone in the dark.
‘Where are the others?’ I ask the medic, desperately. ‘There must be others? Please? I’m looking for Harry?’
‘Is okay,’ she replies soothingly. ‘Go to the hospital now. Others are there. Okay?’
‘Is Harry there? At the hospital?’
The medic shrugs, obviously not sure who Harry is, and adds, ‘Many people are there. Maybe this Harry.’
They’re simple words, but they feel magical. There are others at the hospital. Many others.
Harry will be at the hospital, I tell myself. Harry will be fine. Harry will not be one of those crumpled shadow people discarded in the rubble, battered and empty shells where people used to live.
I’m told to lie down, and I do, even though I have spent way too much time lying down recently. I let my head fall back onto the stretcher, and feel the pain in my arm start to fade. Morphine. Must be. Excellent stuff. I’ve lived with that pain for so long now it feels odd to be without it.
The medic carries out a few other checks, asking me to look at lights and follow fingers and answer questions, then the stretcher is lifted and pushed into the back of the ambulance. I lie there, staring at the brightly lit roof of the vehicle, blinking rapidly, trying to stay awake.
There is a clatter as another stretcher is pushed inside the ambulance. I turn my head, and see him lying next to me.
I study him and realise how battered he is. They have cut away his shredded black T-shirt, and he is covered in cuts and grazes and streaks of blood. Some gashes look deeper than others, and one side of his torso is painted with violet bruising.
I put my fingers to my face, and find it sticky with drying blood from the cut. I might have a fashionable scar. Something character building, Harry Potter-esque. Something to show that I have survived a great battle.
‘Hey,’ I say, as the medic finishes fussing around him. ‘You’ve got a drip too. Are you on morphine? It’s pretty good, isn’t it?’
‘It really is. You okay?’
‘I’m okay,’ I reply.
I reach out, stretch tired fingers towards him. He takes hold of my hand, and we lie still and silent and connected as the doors are slammed shut behind us.
The engine starts and the ambulance moves, jolting our entwined fingers. I cling on – we’ve been through so much together, and I’m not ready to let go just yet.
‘So. We’ve seen another beautiful sunset, and we’re not in pain. No excuses. What’s your name? I’m Elena.’
‘Nice to meet you, Elena.’ He smiles in a lopsided, almost-asleep way. ‘I’m Alex.’
Chapter 9
The first thing I notice when I open my eyes is that they don’t hurt. I can blink without the sting of grit and dust.
