Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : YoungAdult

Zara Kamp was a totally normal girl. She did her homework, didn't get in the popular group's way and basically kept to herself. I wish that she was here now. She would have thought of a logical, schoolgirl answer. Unfortunately, Zara Kamp died the same night as the rest of her family. The moment she died, I replaced her. From the flames and burning corpses, I rose. The rescued called me the Riser but inside I was descending, down into the depths of the burning goals and gnashing teeth of death itself. 

I opened my eyes to find the blinding light of dawn in my face. Carefully, I examined my leg: the flesh was healing, but the bruising had stayed around it. The sickly yellow made my skin look rotten. The fresh shorts I was wearing looked like I'd painted them red. My thigh had bled in the night.
I was in a small building with the glass smashed in the windows and the beds wet and stinky in the bunks. My head hurt and the pain in my left thigh was excruciating. I didn't want to even look at my thigh sometimes, because all I could think of was the painful disaster that gave me the burnt flesh and the crispy blood. 
Slowly, I turned myself over and swung my good leg out of bed. Even that keg was cakes in dried blood and blue with bruises. I hadn't looked at it in proper light before; I kind of wished that I hadn't looked at it at all, if I'm honest. 
There was food in the cupboards that ran along side every bunk bed, so I hobbled to the nearest one and pulled out some mushy, white baked beans. Holding my nose, I put them back again and hobbled back into bed. The welcoming of sleep did not come at a great price.
I woke up again to find my little sister staring at me. Her nightie was burnt and her hair was smoking. She was asking me where mum was. I told her that mum had died and she said it was all my fault. She litnuo in flames and I was left alone, reliving the horrible night that had taken her and my mum.

I stared out of the window. I had been asleep for at least three days. The rubble was being cleared up and my leg was slightly better. I decided after a long few hours of withing it all up that I might as well go and help, so I pulled on some clean jeans and a blue jumper. 
The whole area was rubble and mess. Barely any adults were helping out and the kids that were helping soon began to cry or lose interest. I struggled to find my place amongst the eerily quiet chaos, until the trainee nurse spotted me and, before I could even speak, I was being taught how to do CPR all over again and wrapping a bandage properly...
"Here is your patient, Carlo."
I smiled at Carlo, but he just looked at me with pain. The poor boy was covered in muck and all of his clothes were ripped up. I found a soft sponge and soapy water and began to Dan at teh mucky wounds. Carlo winced in pain, but kept a strong, firm look as I cleansed his bleeding cuts and washed his blackened body. The nurse came back over with another patient. This sickened me: a small girl with her arm hanging off her shoulder was curled up at teh bottom of the wheelie bed. Slowly, the nurse lifted the little girl off the bed and set her down on the hard floor. I gave the woman a look, but the reply was that beds were needed all over and a small little thing was too much of a waste of a good bed. I didnt answer, but I did put my blankets around the girl and snuggled her up in the corner of my room.
The boy gradually became cleaner and the more that I scrubbers the more recognisable he was. I couldn't put my finger on how, but I knew him. He seemed to know me, too, but he still could barely speak. When I finally turned his face so that I could see him, my whole body froze. Gary Dylans stared right back at me with a less angry glare than back when the buildings weren't graveyards covered in brick. He tried to speak but I zipped my lips and gathered up his weakened body in his quilts and set him down on teh floor, next to the little girl.
I picked the bundle of blankets up and lay them down on teh bed, before peeling away one layer to find the arm that hung off teh shoulder like a rag doll did a toddler's arm.
"Mummy?" the girl whispered.
I smiled sadly, "Not Mummy, but I'm going to look after you a bit like a mummy."
"Big sister," the girl insisted, and she pulled back teh blankets with her good arm, "My other arm really hurts. I don't want to look at it because it feels like it is falling off and..."
I pressed my hand to my lips and she lay back on the pillow. When the arm was cleansed, I stitched the arm to the shoulder and tied a bandage around the mess. After I had dabbed at teh minor cuts and cleaned up the little girl, I set about finding some clothes for the little pile of rags and, eventually, I found some 'boy's' clothing that made the girl smile and continuously cry 'These are nice clothes'.
The nurse came back with a whole team of doctors and nurses. They assigned me to looking after the two patients until they could both walk, talk and possibly fight in the war that had been declared on Ennida. I nodded and carried both patients back to my 'place'.
Gary lay on his bed and made no effort to speak, he just groaned and squeaked when he needed something. Life was nice for all three of us- well, it wasn't hunger struck or restricted, just tainted by grief. But little did we know that wey would soon end up with empty stomachs and lessening freedom.