Kit--

Felix knows a nearby hospital and leads me down a set of winding alleys to get there, gunshots firing all around us. I can feel my heart pounding against my chest and I worry that it will pop, like a balloon that's been stepped on. Felix and I manage to share the wait of the unconscious elven soldier between us, but the body is still heavy and we aren't able to move quickly. I wonder if we should have left them, or if we should have taken them to a medical tent--but I remind myself Paralia is a Resistance-occupied city. (At least, that's what Felix had told me.) The hospital is probably where they're already keeping their wounded. 

We manage to survive our trip to the hospital, and my suspicions are confirmed. There's a group of Resistance medics waiting outside the hospital. I guess the hospital must be full, as they've set up tents to store bodies in. I don't know if they're dead or alive and I decide I don't want to know.

"Who in Claaws' name are you?" One of the medics shouts at us. They're short, and thin, with a mess of freckles and ruffled blond hair on their head. They look mostly human but their eyes are strangely animal-like. 

"We're civilians. We're not here to attack," Felix calls. He begins to set the body on the ground and I mirror him, stepping away from it as soon as possible.

"I'm Felix, and this is Kit." He gestures towards me. The medics eye us warily.

"I already stitched up the wound on his..." I trail off. What's the word, again? I realize I can't think of it.  I realize I don't remember the word and I feel scared and worried because what if I forget everything again and I never remember anything again but most of all I feel useless and stupid and now the medic is waiting for me to finish the sentence but I can't remember the damn word and I don't know what to do.

Felix, thank the Powers, seems to sense that I can't speak, and finishes for me. "They stitched up the wound on his abdomen."

Abdomen, that was the word I was looking for, the one I couldn't find but Felix could and I feel stupid and useless and scared--and the medic is giving me a concerned look--and I realize I'm not ready for this, for the real world. Not yet. Not ever.

The medics bring us into the hospital and say we can spend the night there. The building is already packed with other refugees from the city, and I see nurses and doctors bandaging wounds and passing out supplies. I wonder how long I'll be trapped in here, listening to the sounds of the ill and watching death and suffering from the constant droning noise of gunshots. Days. Weeks, maybe. 

I feel like I'm suffocating.

Felix and I are uninjured and so we're guided into a smaller room, which an absurdly low number of peole are in. I guess hardly anyone who was able to get to safety did it safely. I almost feel like laughing at the irony of it.

"Are they...alright?" I hear the blond-haired, freckle-faced medic ask Felix. I notice the medic's greyish-green uniform is covered in blood. I wonder whose body it was once inside of. 

Felix glances at me. "Kit? You're alright, right?"

I nod. "Yeah. I...had kind of an accident a while ago. Damaged my memory a little, that's all." A little. Ha.

"Is that how you lost your arm?" The medic asks. 

I shake my head. "No. Was born without one."

Eventually, the lights are turned out and everyone lays down on one of the white cots lined against the wall. A few of the medics--including the blond, animal-eyed one--end up spending the night in the same room as us. I guess it was the only place with space left. Somehow, I'm able to fall asleep, the sound of gunfire still ringing in my ears.

~~~

Kind of a long post, I'm aware.