Collateral Damage

Earth quakes have a way of shaking everyone and everything. They are also a reason for everyone to come closer or be lost forever. It both breaks someone while strengthening the other.

But even a small quake that can break down only one building causes fear and terror among people, but in my case it brought two people close to each other while departing the other, not permanently though.

We were on a field trip to a hotel in Japan’s most Earthquake prone area. We were taken there to show the wreckage due to the quakes, the beauty that lies in the horrors. I thought that to myself after seeing the nightmares people have gone through but the fact that they are not broken was a sight to be respected.

My name is James Haven and the girl that I had a crush on Lori Campbell and she was all that I had ever wanted. But life doesn’t give you everything you want now does it. We don’t always get what we want now do we. I keep telling myself that every time I see her and her boyfriend Jasper Sherman, who was also my best friend.

But after I found out he proposed her even after him knowing that I liked her, made me part ways with him forever. He knew it, I knew it but none of us talked to each other about it.

It broke my heart that my best friend did something so cold and selfish. But I did not let these problems divert me from my goal.

The hotel was all cleaned up and it was vacant as this area was the most terrifying in southern Japan. The hotel had 16 rooms and three floors in which only two or three rooms were filled.

Lori was on the first floor and I and Jasper were having an unnecessary argument concerning Lori. She was peeping through the window in the hallway from the first floor.

I looked at her and smiled, jasper was still blabbering but I was busy looking at that beauty. She glanced towards me and gave a smile a well, she bent her head a little further and wiped her hair off her forehead and smiled while her eyes were still fixed on me.

We were still exchanging looks when all of us felt it the first time, a sudden shiver of the ground beneath our feet. And again, it was minor but for safety reasons the tour conductors called us away from the hotel as it might collapse on us.

But the terrors really started when the next wave of shivers was very loud and shook everything, and this time it wasn’t stopping, I looked at Lori who was still near the window and her back was all I could see.

I kept calling her but she couldn’t hear me as the quakes grew out of hand, I begged Jasper to save her but he was so selfish and cold he said “leave her, save your life. Run James get away!” he started running away. I swear if she wasn’t in danger I would beat up Jasper there itself.

I took another look at the window but Lori wasn’t there, I started to shiver, then without thinking twice I rushed into the hotel. I could hear Jasper and the others calling me out but I didn’t care, all I thought about was getting Lori to safety—I be damned.

I entered the hall and saw the staircases on the other end of the hall. Chunks of bricks and debris were falling on the ground, I dodged it and found myself at the feet of the staircase. I ran up and turned to see Lori on her back against the wall beside the window, terrified.

I ran up to her and held her hand, I pulled her and went to the stairs. We stopped at the foot of it and saw that there was only one way out of this rubble and wreckage and that was going around it from the left to reach the left entrance door. I held her hand and placed another hand of mine on her back and made way by kicking small pieces of debris by my feet and running around.

We were almost there and the tremors also had slowed down—but not stopped. We were at the curve when I saw a huge block of brick about to fall on us—both of us.

I took the decision and thought of nothing but getting her out of here safely. She hadn’t noticed it and if we continued at the same pace, neither of us could make it pass the about-to-fall chunk.

So I pushed Lori far enough to get her away from the chunk and near the door, I pushed with from the hand I had kept on her back and she was confused. She fell far away from me and turned back to see me tripping and the chunk falling on me.

Fell on my ventral side and covered the back of my head with both arms and curled up as much as I could to minimize the consequences. I felt horrible after the chunk fell on me, the worst part was that I had left my left rib cage exposed, and that’s where it hurt the most.

I was knocked out and the next thing I remember was the white light of the stretcher I was on, in the hospital on my way to the ICU. It was vague and foggy but I felt someone holding my arm even as I lay helpless and in pain on the stretcher about to be operated on.

I couldn’t see at first, then I cleared my view to see her—Lori, holding my hand. It was comforting, her soft hand on my damaged body calming it down. Even in this moment of pain and misery I felt a bit relaxed to see her there beside me.

The surgery was over and my ribs were broken and I’ve had trouble breathing deeply since, till now Jasper could not see me eye to eye and Lori still grateful of me for helping her.

I was satisfied thinking that if death was to come, at least I had done something worth being remembered for.