Cursed Souls - Chapter 4 4 The new World

“So we are all basically trapped in a dungeon?!” Oaki said outraged.

“What do you think happened?” Ember said unnerved.

“So let me get this straight some crazy ass scientists knew the world was going to end but decided to not warn anyone and put the fate of the world in the hands of teenagers hmm… Let me think for a second where could this possibly go wrong? This all just sounds like a great idea… NOT!” Said the boy.

“Let’s go to the medical floor, there’s no use in trying to figure it all out now… sounds like we will have the rest of our lives to do that. But right now Oaki… you need medical attention.” Noah said in a calm but bossy manner almost sounding like, we’re doing this first’ kind of attitude.

Before anything else could be said Noah grabbed Oaki and carried her up to the medical floor. When he got there he sat her down on a pre-made hospital type bed. He grabbed a rag and put it in warm water then sat next to Oaki and started to rub the blood off her face and neck. He looked in the drawer next to them and took a steri strip or butterfly band-aid and put it across the gash on her head to close it.

“So um… this is going to be awkward but I’m going to need you to take off your pants,” he said in a very awkward and uncomfortable tone.

“Um… no way!” she protested.

He looked unphased by her reaction. He bent down under the bed and pulled out a drawer. There was a pair of night shorts and hospital gowns.

“Here. I need you to change so I can see your leg…” he said in a respectable.

She never wore anything short, she always wore long clothing outside of her house. She never even showed her arms or legs. Oaki looked over at him clearly uncomfortable with this idea. She really didn’t want to change. He started to walk over to the side of the bed and pulled the curtain around her bed.

“Let me know when you’re done,” Noah said.

She looked down at her leg. Since everything had happened she hadn’t felt the pain. But now it was shooting up her leg and her head started to pound again.

“Are you done yet?” He asked from behind the curtain.

“No! This is awkward! I don’t wanna change!” she protested once more.

“Look I understand that it is really uncomfortable but you are going to continue to lose blood unless I bandage you up.” He said in a practice.

She looked down. At her leg again. Her eyes started to well up with tears. She gave into the pain and started to change. She unzipped her winter jacket and took off her sweater, t-shirt and tank top and started to put the gown over herself. The gowns here were odd not like any she had ever seen. They weren’t long dresses but instead long t-shirts that went down to the thigh.

“Um… can you… oh… can you…uh… help me really quick?” She asked him in a fast pass tone.

“Yes ma’am,” he said, opening the curtain.

He went behind her and tied up the back of the gown. While tieing the back of the gown up he looked briefly at her bare back noticing scars everywhere across her back. He left and went to exit to behind the curtain again after he finished tying her gown. She started to unbutton her jeans and move them down past her hips when a jolting pain went up to her leg again. She started crying quietly. The pain was so intense.

“I can’t do this, it hurts too bad.” She said her voice weak and shaky.

“Can’t do what?” He asked concerned.

“I can’t get my pants off. Every time I try there is a sharp jolting pain that goes up my leg.” She said crying.

“Do you need help?” His voice was full of sympathy.

“No!” She snapped at him.

She tried again to take the pants off with no success. She gasped the pain shot up to her spine this time.

“Oaki… you might make it worse just let me help you.” He said gently.

“This is so embarrassing and humiliating! You don’t understand” she cried.

“I don’t understand your exact situation no… but I do understand. It’s scary. But you have to trust me. Here I’m going to put my jacket over you so you won’t have to worry about me seeing anything you don’t want me to see… okay?”

She sat sniffling for 30 seconds.

“Here actually I found some morphine. Before we try to take the pants off to fix your leg I think we should take some of the pain away first.”

“…Okay” she spoke hesitantly.

She pulled her pants back up. She heard running water.

“What are you doing?” She asked him from behind the curtain.

“Well, I would assume you want me to wash my hands and put on gloves before starting an IV.” He said.

“What… an IV. I don’t want an IV.” She said.

“Oaki it’s the fastest way to get it into your system. And I don’t wanna try to bandage your knee up without pain medication. Now how much do you weigh?” He asked

“110 pounds” she replied begrudgingly.

“Okay.” He said while coming over to the outside of the curtain.

“Is it okay for me to come to pay the curtain?”

“…yea,” she said hesitantly.

He took out an alcohol swab and rubbed it over the vein in her arm then he placed the IV bag on the hook. He put the IV into her arm then placed the medicine to the line above them near the heart rate monitor machine.

“How did you know how to do that?” she curiously asking him.

“When I was little my grandmother was really sick, and when I turned 11 my mom and I took a class to learn basics for her medication and how to read blood pressure, hook up oxygen, and do IV lines etc. After that, my mom went to school and became a nurse. And when I was 14 I volunteered at the hospital a lot, because my grandmother passed away.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Sorry for being stubborn.” Oaki said in a remorseful tone. “It’s fine… now, how do you want to do this?” she asked.

He looked at her leg and back at the short bottoms he handed her.

“Um…” her face started to turn red.

“If you can get your pants past your hips, then I will get my jacket and then we can get the rest off”

“…okay,” she said agreeing.

Noah left the “room” and waited until Oaki said he could come back past the curtain.

“Okay… jacket first and eyes up!” she said.

“Okay,” He said.

He gave her the jacket and she put it in front of her. He knew that the gash was a lot worse than he originally thought. He took the belt off from around her thigh over the pants and her leg started to bleed again. He put the belt back on her leg.

“Okay, I’m going to pull this down past your knee and calf now. You will feel a little pain because I have to pull over the wound.” He said with a little pain in his face.

He didn’t want to hurt her. That’s the last thing he would want to do.

“Okay,” she said closing her eyes and gripping the jacket.

He took them off and saw her eyes pouring with tears. He grabbed the shorts and raised them to her mid thighs where her jeans were previously. He walked behind the curtain again.

“Tell me when you’re decent”

She reached down and pulled the shorts up.

“Okay.”

He entered back and looked around. He got supplies for disinfecting the wound, as well as things for stitches, gause, and a bandage. He looked at her leg and started to clean the wound. He looked at her calf and saw a small shard of metal against the tendon in the back of her knee. He removed the shard and cleaned the rest of the area. He put numbing medicine in and around the wound and started doing stitches.

She stopped crying once he had come back into the room. She had tightly been grasping the jacket and closing her eyes while he worked on her leg. She felt him wrapping a bandage around the leg, and after that, she opened her eyes slowly.

“Are you done?” She asked.

“Yes. Now let’s get all our stuff and go find our rooms.” Said Noah.

He found a wheelchair in the corner of the room and brought it over to her. He took her and lifted her off the bed and gently placed her in the chair. He grabbed all their clothes and placed them on her lap. He grabbed two extra hospital outfits. Different ones with a t-shirt and long pants. He drew back the curtain and removed the sheets and placed them in a yellow hamper so they could be washed. He looked over in a cabinet and sound pain meds. He pushed the wheelchair and went back to the cafeteria. There were lists posted outside with names and floors instructing people where their rooms were. He found his name and Oaki. Floor 6 room 308. He looked at the layout. Only stairs or ramps no elevators here. He took her down to the room. They hadn’t spoken since everything. Until they reached the door of the room.

“How do we get into the room?” She said puzzled.

There was a key sitting on the edge of the doorframe. He grabbed the key.

“I guess this?” He said

They opened the door and there were two other keys sitting on the table along with a calendar. The room was small. There was one dresser with an alarm clock, one bed, and a bathroom a table and mini-fridge. Noah walked over to the middle of the room. There was one poster with a meadow and sunrise on it. He went over to the bathroom and closed to door. Oaki couldn’t believe how much he had done for her. She was struggling to process the crazy world she just stepped into. She heard him turn on the water. She then wheeled herself over to the mini fridge.

“Nothing in here,” she said in a disappointed voice.

She then walked over to the dresser the top two drawers were filled with men’s clothes. A pair of pajamas that looked the same as the ones from the infirmary. Then the next two drawers were women’s clothing. One drawer had her clothes in it from home.

“That’s weird how did it get here?” she said thinking aloud.

She ruffled back through the men’s clothes. One drawer seemed different than the plain clothes that were in there. She lifted up a black t-shirt from the drawer. It smelled like Noah then thought. ‘These are probably some of his clothes.’

The water turned off and Oaki threw the clothes in the drawer before rolling away from it. A few minutes later he exited the bathroom in a towel. He went over to the dresser and looked for clothes. He checked the first bottom two and didn’t see any close. He then went to the top drawers and grabbed pajamas and went back into the bathroom. Oaki continued to snoop around the room. She lifted the calendar and saw that it was a calendar for the next 100 years. Just then someone knocked at the door. She rolled over hesitantly.

“Who is it?”

BARK BARK! BARK BARK! She knew that sounded familiar and swung the door open. It was Kure and Dao.

“Did you hear we have to share a room with who were assigned to? That’s so stupid and there’s only one bed!” Kure complained

“Shut up you dummy!” She said with tears in her eyes.

She rolled closer to him and hugged him and started crying. She let him go and looked at him.

“We have to get you cleaned up. What happened to you?” She asked.

Kure had glass shards stuck in his back and arms. She put Dao on the bed and rolled out of the room and closed the door behind her. Kure rolled her up to the infirmary. He sat on the bed as she took tweezers and pull the shards out of his arm. He finally answered.

“Honestly I don’t know what happened. We were at school and then there was a bright light then pitch darkness. I woke up in an underground tavern that was pitch black. And there was a girl there too. We walked a few miles then found the main floor and got here.”

Kure winced as she sprayed disinfectant in his arms and back and coated it with medicine and bandaged him up. They rolled down to Oaki’s room when they finished in the infirmary.

“So who did you get?… yanno as your “partner”?” Kure said smirking.

“A kid named Noah,” Oaki replied.

“Did you know him before?” Kure asked.

“Nope.”

“In the cafeteria, before the telemonitor, people were whispering and no one else knew there partner either before all this happened. Since our high school is so sectioned off. Three classes per grade level and each grade level isolated to a certain hallway in school. Maybe that’s why… I guess but I think whoever did this set it up so we didn’t know each other who we “partner” with. People were also talking and yesterday the first day back after breaking lots of people are saying now that they felt like they were being watched.” Kure explained.

“This is all so messed up. Why out of all of us did they choose us?” Oaki asked.

Just then a crowd of kids was circled around the outside of the cafeteria. Noah ran up from behind Kure and Oaki panting out of breath.

“Oaki where have you been? I have looked everywhere for you!” Noah shouted.

She turned around and looked at Noah.

“I went to clean up my brother.”

“Haha so this is your her roomie” Kure mocked. “How sweet.”

CRASH. ZOON. Just then the telescreen showed a girl exiting the building. ‘It was 1am… did they say not to go outside?’ shend though. The building doors closed behind her as she started walking. Then she was pushed down and a spear was thrown at her straight through her chest by an invisible force. Everyone gasped… she died. The first casualty of the new world.