Broken [OPEN] {Earthquake Plot}

It was deep into the night hours, and her tribe slept in peaceful silence. Suki felt each of their existence like a quiet pulse in her head, a secure reassurance of their well-being. They had taken camp in the woods outside the fence of District One, and the city was obscured from view by a dense screening of foliage. It was safer this way, as each twinkling light from the town felt like an eye to burn through the night and suss out their secret passage.

But now, in the darkest hours of the wee morning, she drifted in dreams that were growing increasingly tense and anxious. It was nothing she could understand in this slumbering state, but she felt a palpable dread seeping into her mind, passed by countless mouthless entities. The trees were hushed, the animals still…


And then her dream world exploded into a thousand terrified and tortured voices screaming out their pain as the very rocks shook and rent asunder.


The excruciating suffering of so many wounded and frightful clawed at her mind until she felt torn and bloody from their pleas. Something was desperately wrong, and it was this knowledge that dragged her to wakefulness with a panicked cry.

Long minutes passed in silence, except for the sleepy stirring of those whose rest she had disturbed with her nightmares. Five…ten minutes ticked away…and then the ground began to tremble in fear beneath her hands. Tent poles swayed, and their fabric collapsed inwards with the loss of support, bringing the fragile domiciles crashing about the ears of their inhabitants like balloons deflating from a pin prick. Folds and folds of fabric suddenly swathed Suki in a deadman's shroud. Inside her head, she felt ready to explode with the sheer pressure of all those voices; the spots of light in her mind that signified living beings, they were extinguishing in heartrending numbers.

Fighting free from the asphyxiating cocoon, Suki could see for the first time. The forest was shaking, and her legs fought for balance on ground that heaved and buckled.

An earthquake

Sirens began to wail pitifully in the distance, coming from the direction she knew the town to lie in. Buildings of stone and wood, more devastating than these simple tents, must be collapsing from sudden structural damage…with all those people inside of them. It took little time for her to realize the implications, and even less to know that she must do what she could to help. After all, she was a healer, and her tribe would be in good hands with TiRain to watch over them. Her spirit would not allow her to abandon so many wounded. The tribe would understand.

The rubble was strewn about like the bones of some enormous muttations, bits of steel protruding from ruined buildings like broken ribs. It was a struggle getting anywhere quickly, and Suki hardly knew where to begin. She was progressing on a vague intuition, and even that was beginning to disintegrate within these man-made environs. Then in a momentary lull in the surrounding confusion, she heard a plaintive cry:

"Help…"

The sound was so muffled and indistinguishable, that it was nigh impossible to ascertain the direction it came from. Cupping hands around her mouth, she mustered up enough spit on a parched tongue to call out, "I hear you, where are you?"

Dust hung in the air like thick storm clouds or banks of fog rolling in to obscure the surroundings. It nearly whited out Suki's surroundings, if not for her skills with direction and tracking honed over years in the wild, she would have found herself lost in mere moments. Shapes loomed from the surroundings like predators reaching to snare and entangle.

"Over here! There's a victim pinned under some debris!"

The reply came from closer than she expected, but east or west...directions meant nothing in this blind maze.

"Please help!"

Pains were shooting through her chest from everything she'd inhaled, and instinct drove her down to her knees. With head lodged between the shelter of her knees, a wracking cough took over, bringing up thick phlegm that was alarmingly black and tinged with a bit of blood. Going on like this would only create another victim, she had to take a minute to clear her lungs. When the chest tightness at least seemed to ease its clawing; Suki ripped a long strip of cloth from her shirt and tied it around the lower portion of her face, hoping to filter out some of the debris. One slow breath...then another...as the pain receaded. With it gone, and cleaner air bringing its supply of oxygen, her head cleared of its disorienting fog and began reaching out again for that sense of the injured.

There it was. Close...just a bit to the east of her.

Steadier steps brought her around the edge of what had once been someone's home, and movement beneath a jutting bit of stone drew her close. A young woman -- almost unrecognizeable in her coating of grime and filth -- labored with an unwieldy set of bolt cutters. On closer inspect, Suki could just make out the trapped figure of a boy with his legs pinned by the rock.

Trudging steps turned into swift strides, and just as the pair loomed directly in front of her, a wave of terror flowed into her chest like a hard slap to the face. It nearly doubled her over. The boy was sobbing, scared, panicking...

"Oh god..." She couldn't suppress the painful groan. It felt like talons scraping at the inside of her brain, digging bloody furrows at the backs of her eyes. Bile rose in the back of her throat, fueled by fear that was bleeding off the injured boy in shimmering waves. She had to get him calmed down.

Suki reached out, flattening her palms against the sides of the boy's face and capturing his attention. The whites of his eyes showed in a stark rim around dilated pupils and dark irises, like a balking horse, and she spoke to him like one.

"Shhh, you have to calm down, slow your breathing...yes...in, out, just like that." She took a calming moment to breathe with him, providing a soothing example. "Good, that's very good. What's your name?" Even as she spoke, her voice kept carefully low and even, it was a strain to hide the pain and fear that she was experiencing second-hand. Her eyes left his face in a swift assessment of the predicament. The other girl, a medic it looked like, was still battling with the unyielding rock. Suki offered her an encouraging smile.

"That's good thinking, maybe we can shove some rocks under it to keep it from sliding down further on top of him? Then maybe find a piece of metal to use as a lever?"

The other girl scrambled around, checking on Thadeus and dragging large rocks across to brace the infernal slab. She was economical in her movements, self-assured, or at least appearing so for the victim's benefit.

At her age I was so shy, afraid to confront the uglier aspects of life. I hid away in the woods…shunning my inevitable role. I wish that I'd had half her guts.

Flowing in a steady stream through her head, the thoughts couldn't fully block out the destruction around her. Buildings toppled, cracks gaping in the ground like wounds to the earth. The flicker of wood catching fire bounced eerily off metal and stone alike.

Metal. That's what I am here for.

Suki hunted around until she found a slightly bent bit of steel that had once formed a flag pole. It was heavy and bulky, weighing her down as she wrestled it free from beneath a pile of rubble. It caught on every uneven surface crossed, scoring a large furrow in the ground where it dragged behind her. At one point, the end stuck fast, jerking her to a halt so suddenly that Suki fell forward over the end in her hands, the cold metal leaving bruises across her shins. But she only grabbed it, tugging loose with a fierce yank, and continuing back the way her path led to the trapped man.

Thadeus was unconscious when she finally returned, his face ashen and gray - although whether from ash or blood loss, it was hard to tell.

He's not going to make it, I can't save him…

She teetered to a stop, looking down at the dying man and seeing a guilt-induced panorama of faces…a collage of all those she hadn't been able to save.

Too late, Suki, you're too late. He's going to die, and it's your fault if he does. You should have been quicker, better, you should have come up with a solution to keep him alive.

A litany of recriminations. None of them would keep this man alive. He was still breathing, and that was something, and she couldn't waste his breaths on her own masochistic indulgence. The metal pole dragged against tired arms, but she hefted it up, shoving the blunt end into the space between stone slab and the rock beneath it. Another boulder sat conveniently to serve as a fulcrum, and Suki hefted the metal pole atop it, the free end jutting into the air.

"Alright, when I get a hold of him, lean with all your weight on that bar. Hopefully it will lift that slab enough that I can drag him free."

She sank to her knees beside the unresponsive body. Something was wrong. His chest wasn't rising. Suki frantically checked for a pulse…none.

Oh gods, don't let me lose him too!

She gestured hurriedly to the girl. Her fingers already weaving their grip into his shirt at the shoulders.

"Hurry, I can't get a pulse, he's too far under the rock to resuscitate him until he's free. Ready? On my count of three, push. One…two…three!"

Her body strained, feet scrabbling for traction in the loose scree. He was heavy, so heavy. A little more, just a little more and she could drag him loose.

Gods help us!