Power or Curse?

    “A bomb had gone off…”      “Huh?”     Colette’s mouth fell open. Her face felt longer than normal, with her eyes wide open as she became aware of the horrors around her. She appeared down in the dumps.     The wailing sirens around her felt silent, the snow falling around her felt like it was coming down in slow motion as she came to the realism that her parents had been in the crowd. She slowly but shakily got to her feet, as her left leg felt numb. She had probably fallen on it as an after-effect of the shockwave of the bomb, and she felt something warm trickle down her left temple. She touched it and realized she was bleeding from there, but didn’t feel any pain, she just rubbed her blood-stained hand on her blue jeans. She then started moving forward towards the inferno at a tardy pace.     “Hey, we’re you going? Hey, can you hear me? HEY!!”     Colette turned her head up slowly to see the person who had stopped her, and stared at the policeman in front of her.     “Hey, you’re hurt, you should go see the medics there…can you hear me at all?”     The policeman turned Colette, still in her crestfallen face away from the inferno and attempted leading her towards the ambulance nearby, but she didn’t budge.     “My parents were there.. “ she whispered, pointing back towards the fire.     “Look kid, let’s first get you patched up, a lot’s just happened,” the policeman said with a pained face.     “My brother was in front of me too,” Colette said, “he was supposed to be…”     The policeman nudged her forward and held her hands so he’d make some progress in the way of movement, but as tears started pouring down Colette’s face, she shouted – “muuummm, daaadddd…”     Her sobs were now getting louder. The policeman held her shoulders and said – “it’s okay, it’s okay, calm down, nothing’s confirmed yet, calm down.    She buried her head into his chest as she continued crying, and the police kept patting her back with a face full of grief, telling her “it’s okay.”     They walked through the blood-spotted floor of the square to the ambulance. There were different parts of the human body littering the floor. The man moved aside a human hand from their way with his leg. He set Colette on the entrance floor of the ambulance, which already had an unconscious patient strapped to the stretcher inside. A medic came to attend to her and cleaned the cut on her head with a cotton swab. She felt the pain first time as she yelped, and almost touched it. The medic was a woman.     “Sorry, looks like you’re in shock, buy still have to fix you up before moving to the next patient. How old are you?”     Colette didn’t respond.     “Ok then. Open your eyes wide and try not to blink,” she said as she pointed a touch in her eye to see how fast her pupil constricted. She then raised both hands of the girl, and then her legs, and Colette yelped again when her left leg was raised. The medic pulled her jeans up to see how hurt she was and uncovered a nasty bruise.     “Oooh gosh, that’s a nasty one there.”     She dressed the wound and applied bandage on the injury, much to Colette’s discomfort.     “Come on now, be a good girl and tell me your name,” she said as she picked up the clipboard that was beside Colette.     Colette had stopped crying, and the path of dried tears were visible on her face. She looked up at the medic’s face and replied – “Colette.”     “That’s a start. So Colette, how old are you?”     “Seventeen”     The medic recorded all that Colette had said.     “What is your surname Colette?”     “Nundo, Colette Nundo.”     “And did you come with someone else?” The medic asked.     “Someone…else?” Colette stammered. She sat still for a moment, and tears were about to flow out of her eyes again, but she snuffed and rubbed her eyes with her palm, and looked up at the medic again.     “Yes, my…my parents arrived earlier, and my brother was in my front before the explosion, I haven’t seen any of them since.”     The medic sighed and sat beside Colette, placed an arm around her and drew her close to herself.     “It’s gonna be a long night won’t it, and there’s still to be a full year to negotiate, yet it’s already begun in tragic fashion. Their journeys already ended with the new year,” she said as she pointed to a section of the square that had dead bodies wrapped in canvas arranged in rows – “and we can only wonder what fate has for us this year, we can only wonder…” she said, as she looked up at the still snowing sky. “Even with this much snow falling, I’m barely feeling any cold. Well, it’s about time we get the vehicle to the hospital, the patient’s condition in there has been stable, but he’s still unconscious. Well, do you have anyone to call to come pick you up?     Colette nodded no.     “Well then, you will have to stay in care for the time being, I’ll take you to the hospital to get that and more sorted.”     Colette closed her eyes to try remembering the moments before she fell unconscious. All she could recall was her brother been thrown to her, and then blackness. She opened her eyes and looked ahead as she saw ambulances exit the square from the out-entrance and more getting in from the in-entrance.     The medic entered the back compartment of the ambulance and told Colette to come in. As she approached the patient in the stretcher, who had a ventilator on, he started to look familiar. She stood over the patient’s face, staring down at it in pure disbelief. She was stunned, and her face was filled with such horror, and she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Tears then started to roll down her face again, and the intensity of her sobs increased as she held the patient’s hand.     “Chris? Clement? Clement…can you hear me? Clement…”    “Hey, hey calm down, you know him?” The paramedic asked.     “He...he’s my brother,” Colette said while sobbing, making her stammer.     “Oh…gosh…”     The medic herself was taken aback, as Colette kept sobbing over her unconscious brother.     The ambulance was now moving on the road, and Colette was still holding her unconscious brother’s hand, while the medic looked through the van’s window into the now empty streets that seemed to have been taken aback by the explosion which had happened at the square. Sirens from ambulances and police cars were wailing all over the streets trying to get survivors and critically injured to hospitals. Dark clouds formed by the inferno’s smoke was visible despite the dark of night, and the snow fall was still relentless. The medic then looked at Colette and asked her – “do you believe in miracles?”     “Huh?” Colette replied.     “What wish would you make now if given the chance?”     Colette looked at the medic with her tearful face and said – “well, not like wishes work – wishes, dreams and all, they’re all just stuff of the fancy world.”     “Hmm, sometimes I have to look at the philosophical aspects of things, it unnecessarily complicates a yes or no answer. But sometimes still, I do believe wishes, and dreams do come through, although situations like this make one lose faith.” She then looked back through the van’s window to keep observing the empty road.     “Well then, perhaps if I were to make a wish…” Colette said.     “Well?” asked the medic.     “I’ll wish that I could save everyone involved in the explosion,” Colette said.     The medic turned to face her and smiled. “Well, that’s a good wish, that’s a good wish.”     Suddenly, Colette started to feel strange. The medic asked what was going on with her when she noticed the strange faces Colette was making. Colette kept on feeling strange, and she suddenly started feeling dizzy, and felt herself loose consciousness.     The next time Colette regained consciousness, she was in bed. She turned her head to understand what was going on and where she was. She realized she was in her room, in her house, in pyjamas, she looked at her alarm clock to check the time and saw that it was 5:30am, and then the alarm rang – that was the normal time the Nundo household woke up. Still confused, she left her room and walked to the front of her parents' room and knocked. Her mother opened the door, she was wearing her pyjamas as well, and on peering inside, she saw her father sitting on the bed, also in his pyjamas. Looking stunned at her mother’s face, she reached for it and said – “mum? Is that you?”     “What dyu mean silly?” her mother replied.     “Dad?” Colette called to her dad.     “What’s up?” He responded.     “This can’t be, it really can’t be, can it??” Colette whispered to herself.     “You sure you okay darling?” her mother asked, now looking concerned. Just then, Clement passed the corridor of his parents’ room while brushing.     “Goo mouwine moom,” he said, as he greeted his mother while passing with the toothbrush in his mouth.     Colette’s shock had seemingly reached its limit when she saw her brother, she held her head and turned away from her mum, and headed for her room.     “You sure you okay there, Colette?” Her mother asked as she disappeared.