Therapy - 5/19

Samantha helps me sit up in my bed, placing a piece of fabric, dirty with god knows what, behind my back for support. I wince in pain. After the neck brace incident, it was probably a good thing that I could still feel pain down there at all.

Luckily, I’d been able to swallow since the initial injury, allowing me to stay alive through a series of lackluster nutrition drinks because they couldn’t tube feed me. Now that we were on our own, food was whatever our caretakers could get their hands on, and not all of it was as easy for me to swallow.

I try to grab the used fork to feed myself, but my hands are still too shaky. Shaky, but finally moving.

It had been nearly two full days since we received our death sentence, and my body seemed determined to fight against it, while my mind was barely hanging on. Samantha has been helping me with a makeshift physical therapy routine, expediting the timeline tenfold from what any human should experience. It is excruciating. Not that I can complain. She has more time for me now since the critical patients were gone… Nobody is talking about that.

Like they expected, after the initial group had left, we were down to five patients and our three remaining staff members. Those who, for whatever reason, refused to let us go.

Josh, the man who had asked all the questions the first night, had thanked them profusely, but still questioned their motivation.

“Just wouldn’t feel right to leave people. Call it an oath, call it whatever, we just couldn’t leave you after caring for you already.” Marcos had told him.

He and Jasper were rarely seen since that first day, only occasionally coming inside to sleep in one of the vacant beds or drop off supplies. They used the whiteboards as a makeshift map of the area, putting little symbols all over to indicate what they had already searched or could go back to.

Samantha lets me continue trying to eat with the fork even as I drop one of the beans on myself. She simply picks it back up and places it on the fork, dirty. We can’t afford to be picky, and most definitely aren’t allowed to waste food.

“It’s getting better. Way better than I expected for just a couple of days. I thought you…” But she doesn’t finish her sentence. Whatever she was going to say, it would just be a reminder of our unfortunate situation that neither of us needed.

Be grateful you can move at all.

Was I grateful? For the food at least, yes, I didn’t want to starve to death. To be able to move, sure. To have people sacrifice themselves for me, forcing me to struggle on? I couldn’t say anymore.

“How’s supplies looking?” I choke out, using another of my newly reacquired functions. Talking felt like rubbing gravel inside my throat, but Samantha insists I keep trying. Who was I to argue with the girl with two black eyes and a broken nose who was still here helping me?

“Not bad, more stuff than we expected. Cans held up pretty well, it’s just finding safe places to look,” she responds with her now more nasally voice.

There were still occasional aftershocks shaking the town, and while the tent was safe, not everywhere was. Especially not places where food was still available. With the help of the others two days ago, they had removed the bodies from the tent and collected a small cache of supplies that now lives in the tent with us. A good visual reminder of the dwindling time we had left every time we ate.

“Good water is still scarce. Shelves were low to begin with, and the bottles broke or melted in a lot of cases,” Samantha adds.

Most of our water was sourced from the dirty pond in the park where we were situated. I’d not seen it myself, but they described it as ‘grim’. One of them had been able to start a small fire and boil the water in cans, collecting the steam and giving it to us. It did make me wonder what all they had done before the end of the world to have all these skills, but outside of Samantha, they never had time to chat.

I learned that she had been a nurse practitioner, which meant she was above Jasper in the nurse hierarchy. This was obvious by how she interacted with us, but still relieving to know. Even if she hadn’t broken her glasses, she would have run the tent since she is the most medically knowledgeable of the group.

“Many other people?” I ask, finishing the one forkful of food I have managed to get to my mouth so far.

“Decent amount. We give them any supplies we don’t need, and we haven’t had any bad interactions so far. The East side fared even worse with the flooding, so it seems most of them didn’t even hear the announcement until the helicopter.”

“Do they know the world is ending?”

“Some, most just are looking to survive the day. Little food and encouragement, and they are nice enough.”

I had heard some of the interactions outside the tent when the occasional band of survivors made their way through the park. It was one of the least difficult spots to navigate, given that the roads were clogged with cars and building debris, which meant we were sitting ducks unless we played nice.

It still feels to me that we are being too nice given our circumstances, but Marcos had shut down that same complaint when Josh had brought it up as well.

“We help you, we help them. End of discussion.”

Even after saying that, I hadn’t seen any of them walking around without a gun on their shoulder, pulled from the trunk of a couple of cop cars they had broken into with the others before they left. First time I had ever been thankful for police owning assault rifles. It made the message they were sending to others outside very clear.

You play nice, or we won’t.

So far, it seemed to be working, with the only cost of our kindness being losing some food.

“Can you help me up?” Uma, the other talking member of our group, calls over to Samantha. It looks like she was struggling to sit before eating.

“Sure, one sec. Lance, you good like this for a minute, or want to take a break?” she asked. She has been insistent on using our names as much as possible. Maybe it made her feel more normal. It might have been for us.

I nod as I chew and let her go to Uma, looking around the rest of the tent as she walks away. I’d gotten a little more information about everyone in the tent. Josh was sitting up and reading a heavily damaged book. His legs were bandaged, apparently covering burns, and he was already missing one of his arms, a remnant of a previous earthquake a few years ago.

Uma looked the best out of us, with only a heavily damaged foot that had kept her behind from the first group. I often couldn’t hear when she talked because she was so quiet, unless she was yelling in pain or from fear. She and Josh seemed to talk to each other a little, but otherwise, we hadn’t really interacted except through Samantha.

Coma girl, my personal name for the other woman who lay motionless at all times, other than eating. Then she would perk up a little with her eyes only focusing on the food and not the people around her.

Lan was our last companion; he was frail and mumbled in some language we didn’t know. Vietnamese, I think. All Jasper had gotten from him was his name, nothing else. He seemed the worst of us physically, but I hadn’t gotten any details.

I ate the rest of my beans in silence, getting around a fourth of them into my mouth and the rest on my shirt for Samantha to feed me later.

Another layer of hell.