Tales of the First

“Oh, good idea,” Wendy said when she saw it. She and Charlotte helped Lucy into it.

“Sienna, you go in front. We’re going to have to navigate around the glass and rubble. Charlotte you push the chair. I’ll stay alongside and keep an eye on her.”

“Perhaps we should try the Primary Care Centre first,” Charlotte said as she began pushing the chair. “It’s in the direction we’re going and they might have some oxygen.”

“Ooh that’s a good idea,” Wendy said. “I should have thought of that. I suspect they’ll be swamped but it’s worth a try.”

“Okay, let’s go.” Sienna rubbed at he head. A strange headache was creeping into her skull and she hoped it was just the stress and not the fog. She went ahead of the others kicking smaller bits of rubble out of the way and grabbing the larger chunks and lifting or pushing them out of the way. Fortunately none of the lumps was too large for her to move but they were large enough for her to worry about just how much damage the airburst had done to the town.

What was harder was when their path was blocked by an injured person. Sienna couldn’t bring herself to push someone who was unconscious or worse out of their way – she might hurt them worse than they already were – so she guided the others around them.

It would normally have been a five minute walk from Costa to the Primary Care Centre but in the chaos it took closer to half an hour and by the time they reached it Sienna’s stomach was roiling. This was taking too long what if Lucy was already dead or too far gone to save.

“Doesn’t look like we’ll find help here,” Charlotte said as they rounded the corner.