No Time To Bleed

They herded us through the areas and areas of people.

Max clutched onto my hand at my side. There had to be at least thousands of people around us, all trying to get to safety. My heart was jerking inside my chest as I squeezed his hand tighter.

Dear God, what had I gotten myself into?

Rain was beginning to sprout from above as crackle of thunder hissed through the gray skies. Neither I nor Max had jackets and we’d be soaked to the point, but luckily we only had a few feet to the insides of the tents.

Helicopters of news coverage moved dangerously low. This was a fascination to them. Speculation.
A complete story to watch. They didn’t see how each and every one of our lives had been torn in some unimaginable way. They didn’t see how many sacrifices my family had made, how many sacrifices my father had made, and now it was just me and Max.

“Ryant, I wanna go inside. It’s cold.” He clutched his panda to his side, something he refused to ever leave home with.

I had found him clutching it while hiding in a high cabinet in his school’s teacher’s lounge’s kitchen.

“I know. We’re gonna get inside soon. You’ll be warm.” I knew that was a flat out lie. A simple tent couldn’t hide us from the complete warmth, but these camps guaranteed us protection and good.

No zombies would ever get here.

A pang of guilt swelled through me. Jasmine’s screams radiated through my ears from that day I’d left her and Jesse. Jessica didn’t even really count considering she’d never really been anything close to my friend. I wondered what had happened to them. Maybe Jesse and Jasmine had ended up ditching Jessica, maybe they’d survived together. Maybe they were dead. I’d never really been the kind to make real friends and Jasmine had been the closest I’d ever come to one. She’d wanted to be around me, protect me, but I’d thrown that all away.

Even with that mist over my head, I was still glad I had my brother.

“We need to see your arms.” The guards ordered.

I held mines out reluctantly, faint images of the shots from my earliest childhood. My father had spared me from most of Lexicon’s cruelty. But, I’d never wanted my brother to ever face it.

The serum injected into my veins and I felt a weird warmth rush through me. My body felt healthier. But that was another rule: Anything that felt too good usually ended up being bad.

Max shook his head reluctantly and whined. “I don’t wanna get the syrup in me. That’s only supposed to go on pancakes.”

The guard’s eyes narrowed and his nails tore into Max’s arm.

“Hey! Don’t you dare touch my brother like that!”

The syringe went closer and closer to my brother’s arm who was by this point crying. My hands curled into fists and I was just about ready to tackle him. My dad had always told me to protect Max.

Horrified screams came through the crowd behind us. Max was pulled behind and a mass of bodies shoved me forward.

“MAX!”

A heavy bolt of lightning sliced into the sky again and this time I saw the blinding sparks rush through the air.

The sky became a horrid battle of soupy gray and hissing blades. One of the helicopters came plummeting down and the crowd was already running past me, knocking over tables and chairs.

The helicopter slammed into the ground in a magnificent array of amber red and orange. Smoke and gas was in the air. People were screaming, screaming so loudly and I was one of them.

I shoved past people. “MAX! MAX MAX!”

The crowd was thinning the more and more I got to the wreckage. The smell of burnt flesh and sizzling bodies washed into the humid air.

“MY PANDA! MY PANDA!” His short screams were so close. “IT”S BURNING! SOMEBODY SAVE HIM!”

I turned to his scream and he was about thirty feet away, shrieking up and down. Large men were running from behind and I recognized the haircuts right away.

I bolted for my little brother. “Max! Run to me! Run to me!”

The pandemonium drowned me out now. My legs were caving into the soaked dirt. I sprang over a body and slid on my landing. A sack went over my brother’s head and I let out a roar. My body went tackling one of the guards over. The butt of something thick bashed into the temple of my face.

“GET THEM DOWN! THEY’RE THE BROTHERS WE NEED!”

Their burly hands grabbed into my arms and my little brother shrieked again.

“Stop it! Stop it! Leave us alone!”

No one was even watching this take place. Everyone was retreating from the helicopter’s burning wreckage.

Another fist exploded into my face and blood spewed from my mouth. I coughed it up and cried. They didn’t stop punching me til I lost all consciousness.

I guess that was because I fought them too much, but I wasn’t gonna go down like a wimp. Plus, I’d been stupid enough to believe we’d be safe. This whole entire thing was a trap.