…aerogel…
- There’s a lingering scent of scorched iron. The air recyclers are straining to keep up. Everything had gone to shit so fast.
"Reynard, are you all right?" Liliana asks. Her face pops up in front of him and her hair looks a bit frazzled. She’s a wonderful sight to see. She looks as relieved as he feels.
He grunts, knowing she will understand. They are Irish twins born less than eleven months apart and she’d always taken the role of older sibling seriously. She knew him better than anyone else in the universe. He was her sun, moon, and stars.
"All right, let me help you up. Deep breath, yeah?" She strains and levers him to his feet. He contemplates falling over for a moment, then decides that would be too painful and forces his legs to hold him. Liliana takes some of his weight and it’s a relief to whatever medical horror is taking place beneath the dark red of his uniform tunic.
She can see the pain on his face. "How bad are you? Take that off and show me–" She stops when he snaps his fingers authoritatively. "What?"
He signs one-handed: We have to go. There’s nothing we can do about–he gestures at his abdomen–now. Aid workers will be gathering. We can get help at the shelter. I’ll survive ’til then.
She laughs a bit wetly and he ignores how close she is to tears. She always got so emotional.
With his left arm slung over her shoulder and his right hand chattering to keep her calm, they make their way out of the building and onto the street. The nearest emergency shelter is thirteen blocks east and there’s some damage that looks to be blocking off some streets.
Reynard feels a shudder go through Liliana when she realizes the distance they have to travel, but she doesn’t complain. She takes over finding the best path for them, freeing him to focus on mitigating his pain and not passing out.
From here he can see a crack in the dome behind the jagged tear in the holoscreen projected sky. Green filler had been used to seal the crack as an emergency measure. It was a strange sight to see and somewhat disturbing. Dome life was usually so idyllic. The holoscreen sky was always beautiful, no matter what vision was projected against it, and the weather was scheduled and manageable. There weren’t supposed to be crashes and bangs and mysterious whatevers that tore through the dome sky and caused buildings to explode and the ground to quake.
He signs: Let’s go, Analily.
"Anywhere with you, Nardrey."
