AN:/ It's short, it's long in coming, but it is here. I have not in fact abandon this thing. I'm just incredibly indecisive. I know a lot of you are most likely very upset with me. But I did warn you. you can't say i didn't warn you. Because i did in fact warn you. I'm still not sure what i'm gonna do with it, but i am pretty sure this is what i want to come next. Whatever dudes just read it.
Welcome to the Last Resort
Chapter 2
Shhrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-p.
I re-grabbed my t-shirt so that I could rip it again into a bandage I could use for Kwan.
Shhrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-p
This wasn't the first T-shirt I had used. Oh no, I think I was already on Fridays t-shirt. I was right now very greatful that I wore t-shirts that were twice my size. I really needed all the extra fabric right now.
Shhrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-p
I used the one off of my back a long time ago. I had taken off my coat and my t-shirt and had without hesitation started ripping it to shreads. I think Star was wearing that one around her ankle now. I caught some people looking at me. I don't know whether they were looking at my chest or wondering why I wasn't freezing to death. I was really hoping it was the former right now because I did not feel like explaining how I tolerated cold to people.
Shhrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-p.
I rolled up the "bandage" and went to roll up Kwan's football jersey. He hadn't been wearing a coat on the bus so he was currently in jeans, a jersey, and some converse. I was hoping that would change here pretty quick though. I would get out everyone's coats and stuff as soon as they had all stopped bleeding.
I wiggled my right hand underneath his broad upper back. And rolled up his shirt so that I had access to the gash in question on his abdomen. Blood was everywhere; on his stomach, in the snow, soaking his shirt, on his jeans, it was all over my arms…. It had made Tucker queasy when I tried to get him to help me, so I let him go give other people band-aids.
I had run out of cotton balls and alcohol a long time ago so I was currently cleaning people up with the cleanest snow in the vicinity. I scooped up a good handful of it, and packed it into a kind of hamburger kind of thing so I could half wipe half rinse all of the blood at least off of his stomach
"uuuggghhh" I heard a low moan come from the person in my care and I dropped the bloody snow in my hands and went up to his face to get his attention. His eyes were still closed and his head was lolling somewhat from right to left.
"Kwan." My voice was sharp and demanded his attention. I usually only talked like that to anybody during a ghost fight and I need them to move, but this was serious business.
He blinked fuzzily a couple of times before his head settled and his eyes cracked open looking to one side.
"Kwan look at me." He slowly moved his head to look at me. I couldn't; read the expression on his face beyond that he was in pain. I could sympathize with him though. Coming back to consciousness was not fun. It feels like you've got a ton of bricks rattling around in your head, and that's disregarding the fact that you might have any other injuries that might be causing you more pain.
"We fell off a cliff Kwan." I didn't; get much further in explaining anything after that because his eyes grew wide in realization and he tried to get up and look around. I had to keep my hand on his chest to keep him on the ground.
"Kwan listen to me for a second." I crammed as much authority into my voice as I could. It was easier to get the geeks and nerds to listen to me because they at least held some sort of respect for me. People like Star, Paulina, and now Kwan were a totally different story. They, most of the time, did not want to even listen to anyone who they thought was below them.
Kwan looked around a little more before deciding to give what I had to say a chance. I was secretly grateful. I did not want him making a fuss. That would not be good for the gaping cut in his stomach.
"Nobody is dead, everyone has a pulse and is breathing, though some of them are still out of it. Dash isn't up yet but I've already taken care of him. He should be coming-to here pretty quick. Mr. Lancer and The bus Driver are both still unconscious. They took some heavy hits to the head so I don't know how long they'll be out. We can't get a signal on any cell phone that we've tried and the radio in the bus isn't working. There isn't any internet connection and we basically can't get a hold of anyone." I paused to take a breath. "Okay anything else you want to know?"
Kwan looked at me skeptically before he nodded slightly. "yeah why does my stomach hurt so-"
He had tried to prop himself up to see what was wrong with his stomach. I put my hand on his forehead to keep his head behind his large chest where he couldn't see anything. He glared at me and I glared right back. He became very confused, though, when he couldn't remove my hand. If he asked latter, why I was so much stronger than him, I was chalking it up to the fact that he had lost a lot of blood.
"Kwan, are you squeamish?" Kwan just snorted a little but that was quickly followed by a hiss of pain. He responded anyway.
"No Fenton I'm not squeamish. I can handle a little blood." I raised an eyebrow at him.
"This isn't 'a little blood' Kwan. I want to keep you conscious." He glared at me.
"Fenton let me get up." I sighed and obeyed. Kwan shook his head before he slowly propped himself up on his arms. I was waiting for one the one moment in particular when he would realize I wasn't kidding, and I was not disappointed.
Kwan's face abruptly got green and I shoved his chin to the side just in time so that he didn't; end up puking all over his open wound. I wouldn't be able to do anything about that. He lowered himself to the ground staggeringly. He was starting to hyperventilate and talk in a language that I didn't understand. I think it might have been Chinese, or Korean, whatever that wasn't really important.
"Kwan calm down. Common Kwan deep breaths, I need you to stay with me buddy." I shook and squeezed his shoulder. His eyes darted around frantically. His stopped talking in a high pitched voice and switched back to English.
"My guts are spilling out! I'm not going to survive! Wolves are going to come and eat me! I'm going to bleed to death!" I sighed and let my shoulders slump. Before i made my expression sharp and serious, and my voice low and calm.
"Kwan." Upon hearing me Kwan abruptly stopped his rambling, "I'm not going to let any of that happen to you. Your guts are not spilling out, it is a deep cut that I need to bandage so that you do not bleed to death. Now can you prop yourself up again? It would be a world of help to me if you could hold yourself up. You don't have to look at anything. You can close your eyes the entire time." Now that Kwan was scared out of his mind, he was much more compliant. He nodded his head tentatively before he closed his eyes as tight as he could and he slowly propped himself up again.
From there it was easy, well at least for me. I tied the end of the strip around his middle above his gash in a sort of tunicate. And then tightly wound the strip of shirt around and around. A few whimpers escaped Kwan during the whole thing but otherwise he was quite and focused on not looking at his stomach. I tucked the end of the strip of t-shirt expertly back into the bandaging and gave it a small pat.
"Alright Kwan that's it. Just don't move too much or lift anything heavy and you'll be fine until you can get some proper medical attention." Kwan sighed obviously and let himself lay back down. Only this time he seemed to notice he was only wearing a football jersey, and shivered violently.
"Hey Fenton, get my suitcase would ya! I'm freezing!" I shook my head. I knew better than to expect a 'thank you' anyway.
"Sure Kwan, I'll be back in a sec." I lightly jogged over to the pile of suitcases I had Tucker unload from the wreckage and found a big black one with his name on it. I carried the thing over my head and lightly jogged back over to where I had all of the people who couldn't or shouldn't walk all together in a group. I set it down next to him so that when he sat up he would e able to reach it comfortably and without straining his stomach. I unzipped it for him, and when I looked up at him he was giving me a weird look.
"Since when did you get some muscle Fenton?" I froze for a millisecond before I was rushing out a response.
"Um never really, you know just adrenaline and stuff?" It came out as more of a question than anything. My hand snuck up to rub the back of my neck only for me to quickly bring it back down when I saw Kwan staring at my arms.
"Yeah I gotta go now, bye!" I ran away from where Kwan was laying before he could ask anything. I was quickly back over where Tucker had put all of our stuff. I dug through my suitcase and found one of the long sleeve shirts my Mom had made me pack. It made me feel a little hot but it was better than having people wondering.
"So you done being the one man ER?" I jumped slightly and turned to face whoever had startled me. Tucker was sitting on top of his suitcase and looking up from fiddling from his PDA with a smirk on his face. Sam was still layed out on her suit case huddled up and asleep. She had broken her arm in the fall. I sent Tucker a small smirk back before I sat on my own suitcase.
"Yeah, Kwan was the last person that needed help. Now it's just going to be a matter of keeping them all cleaned and taken care of until we can call for help. How are you coming on that anyway Tuck?" Upon the topic change to whether we could contact anyone yet, we seemed to gather a large audience. Mainly anyone who could walk and was within earshot had just scotched closer to hear Tucker's response. I rolled my eyes while Tucker failed to notice having already been engrossed in his PDA.
"Still nothing dude. Were at the very edge of every kind of signal known to man but not close enough to any so that I could connect with one. Our best chance would be some sort of flare or something. Or if we could get back up to the road." Tucker gave me a pointed look at the word 'flare'. I know what he was trying to say, but I was not revealing my secret to get us out of here. Not just yet. There were still a lot of other options. I was going to wait until things were desperate. I sighed and dropped my head.
"We'll just have to see what happens. As far as I know there wasn't a flare in the first aid kit on the bus, and I don't think half of us are even able to stand up at the moment." There was a pause as I took a moment to think and formulate a plan. We were going to be needing food, and blankets. A pair of teeth chattered as someone walked behind me. Possibly a fire to keep people warm too. I hated not being able to tell how cold it was for a normal person outside. The sun was already setting and I had heard more than a few stomachs growl when I was making my rounds. Why some people insisted on skipping breakfast was beyond me. I was in the middle of planning how to get a fire started without giving myself away when I heard a nasally cough. I looked up to find Mikey looking at me.
"Excuse me but I couldn't help overhearing your previous conversation. Why don't we just go look for a way up to the road and send help back for the others?" I let my mouth fall open at the suggestion. He wanted to leave the people who couldn't fend for themselves behind? Tucker mumbled a 'wrong suggestion dude' under his breath before he made himself a smaller target. I stuttered back to life with defiance.
"No, absolutely not, why would you even suggest something like that?" I stood up off of my suitcase and looked aghast at Mikey and the small group who had now formed behind him in support of his plan. Mikey backed up a little bit before he replied clearly annoyed.
"Oh common, they can take care of themselves. They're more than capable of shoving us into a locker every day; they can handle fending for themselves. I don't know about you but I don't necessarily want to stick around to wait for help, while I become some jerks bedside nurse." There were murmurs of agreement from behind Mikey when he finished. Almost all of the nerds were behind him in support. Ironically everyone who had sustained a debilitating injury in the fall were people who tormented me on a regular basis or could have been of some substantial help in this situation. Meaning the injured; consisting of Dash, Kwan, Paulina, Star, Valarie, Mr. Lancer, the Bus Driver, and Sam ; would all be left behind if they decided to go up to the road.
"Mikey, No. You can decide to go if you want. But I'm not leaving these people with no one to make sure they're okay. Yeah they may shove me into a locker every day, but I'm not going to be a coward and leave them to die. I don't want to look back and think that I could have done something more! I don't want to have their blood on my hands when I know there was more I could have done. That is the stupidest most selfish plan I have ever heard in my life. You all should be ashamed! I never thought I would see you all stoop that low!" Mikey seemed to shrink away for a moment before he decided on something and took a step forward.
"You can back off! I don't have to do what you say; you aren't the boss of me." I only scoffed and sat back down on my suitcase, done with arguing.
"No Mikey, I'm not the boss of you. Or any of you. But you know what, good luck surviving out there. Because I sure as hell would rather stay here right now than go out into the wilderness and face whatever is out there and get lost. The people who have a clue about what to do in this situation are the ones you plan of leaving behind. So if you want to go fend for yourself, be my guest." I cut off the conversation and made it clear I was done talking. Mikey stood there for a minute before he finally walked away. I watched out of the corner of my eye and it didn't look like he was getting ready to go anywhere. I was secretly relived. I would've had to have sent a duplicate to follow them if they decided to forge out on their own and I didn't want to operate with a duplicate out for a long period of time, especially in this situation. Tucker patted me on the back in reassurance.
"Dude, they wouldn't go anywhere without you. They know that you're the only one who knows how to patch up their injuries. They can't risk it." I let my head sink between my shoulders.
"I know Tuck. I know. I just don't know what I'm gonna do. Just keep working on making contact with someone. I've gotta come up with a plan." Tucker nodded understandingly, knowing that right now I just needed time to think. I settled down in the snow. It was more comfortable than my suitcase.
Food and water were my first two priorities, and then I had heat to worry about. I had to get that taken care of before it got dark. I was pretty sure that the temperature was not going to get warmer when the sun went down. Heat and water I could take care of with a fire. It would just be a matter of making it look like I didn't start it with my powers. Food however was a different story. The first thing I thought of was all the snacks everyone had packed in their suitcases. We could probably last for a day, maybe two, off of that if we split it up evenly. It wasn't the best though. Most of it was candy and that wouldn't hold out very long.
The next most important thing was keeping everyone healthy. I would have to go around and change bandages before long. I was running out of shirts and I would need to borrow someone else's before long. I was hopping Tucker and Sam were willing to sacrifice a few, after that I didn't know what I was going to do.
Then I had to think about how we were all going to get out of this mess. Before the bus flipped Sam had let us all know multiple times that we were in a national forest. They had to do patrols and stuff for hikers. Tucker was trying to get a signal but I doubted that if he didn't get one by now he wasn't going to. If I got a fire going I could do smoke signals. The only problem was that we were at the bottom of a valley, and I didn't know if the smoke would make it high enough so that someone would notice. It was my plan as of now though, if Tucker couldn't get anywhere with his PDA.
"ugghhghgh." I heard a moan come from across the area I had set up for injured persons. With a sigh I heaved myself up and grabbed my last t-shirt out of my suitcase. This really sucked.