Machine God: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Final Draft)

SS

It belonged to Nathan.

He moved out the pile of rubble and coughed blood. Ann-Lyze stormed toward her father and tried to help him up.

The second she touched his back, he screamed.

Probably from a bad, bad injury.

I knelt next to him.

"Where are you hurt?"

"Everywhere but my brain."

He forced his face to smile but the pain lurked behind his eyes. He wasn't the youngest anymore. Besides, a fall from up there would have shattered anyone's bones, even mine.

Near our place, I found the soldier and two diggers leaned against the wall. He was the one who threw me that grapple gun.

"Do you have a first-aid kid?"

"What?"

"First-aid. For the wounded."

He checked the side pockets of his armordillo and found the medkit. Every soldier, including me on my first mission, carried one of these packs.

A part of me smiled again.

Ann-Lyze opened the medkit, took out the injector, slid in a capsule and found one of Nathan's veins. She also took out some spray and disinfected the open wounds.

Ann-Lyze knew what she was doing.

I watched her and raised my neck. The broken ceiling seemed so far away. Even with my grapple gun, I had no secure anchor point. The rest of the floor could easily give way and crash down. Even now, tiny pebbles of concrete rained down on us with layers of dust.

A thundering roar droned from above.

My eyes fell back to Ann-Lyze and her father.

"Another floor giving way?"

"No," Nathan said.

"That's the sandstorm."