Rings echoed through her head as Claire regained her consciousness. Upon opening her eyes, everything seemed blurry. But within seconds, her sight cleared up.
It took her a moment to realise where she was, and when she did, a sudden throb of pain hit her head.
It was the fact that the hitting of her head had caught up with her, but to this she was oblivious.
Looking up, she gazed through a hole in one of the walls. The hole led her sight up to the clouds. 'Since when... since where could the clouds be seen from here?'.
She remained on the floor for a little bit longer, regaining her strength.
She was confused as to how she ended up where she was. On her back. So, she looked around her.
The 'white box' had toppled onto one side, as she noted, with her laying on one of the walls.
Then, the scent of burning hit her. Burning of flesh. A fire.
'What happened??' she asked herself. She felt a lump grow in her throat, as fear accumulated in the pit of her stomach.
This situation felt familiar, and she hated that it did. "W-we couldn't have been..." she whispered as she looked back up. 'We couldn't have been bombed, could we?'. But her thoughts lost their sense of hope as she heard the echoes of the loud explosions whenever she closed her eyes.
The way she saw the sky. The smell, smoke. The explosions... Slowly, things began to add up, and it only caused the lump in her throat to develop more.
Her eyes swelled with tears, as she couldn't help but let her lower lip quiver.
'Not again...' she thought. 'Not again...' she repeated, letting a single tear roll down her cheek. "Danielle... I need to find her..." she muttered weakly under her breath as she tried to turn herself over onto her hands and knees.
But just as she did so, she let out a loud shriek.
Lifting her hands, she briefly examined them at them, only to see them bloodied with bits of glass stuck in both palms of her hands.
Brushing them gently off one another, she managed to get rid of some speckles of glass as she cried in pain, while other speckles she only drove deeper into her hands. Looking back at her hands, there was less glass present, but there was more blood now.
And some began to drip from her hands to the ground
Deciding it had to be adequate enough, she, wearily, stood up onto her feet. From there, slowly, she managed to make her way out of the wreckage.
And when she did, she looked around her. Her heart dropped at the sight.
All the tents were destroyed, while all there was blood everywhere. The blood on the snow seemed to have turned into slush from the cold. Bodies were scattered, some moving, trying to get off the ground, while others not responding in the slightest.
She was glad that the nylon from the tents managed to cover most of the view from her eyes. She assumed that, with such an attack, barely anyone survived. If she was to have seen that number of dead bodies, she knew all too well she wouldn't have been able to handle it.
She looked around once more, trying to see if she could eye Danielle anywhere. When she didn't, she began walking around the bombed site.
Her eyes scanned the gruesome scene. She saw bodies, but none were Danielle.
On her way to finding Danielle, she helped as much as she could.
The sounds of gunshots and bombs echoed in the background, with odd intervals of silence occurring at times.
In what seemed like hours have passed, when in reality it was minutes. The snow began again, and that was when she eyed a body in the snow.
Farthest away from the tents.
It seemed to be stabbed by a pole in its back, and when Claire approached it, she was proven correct. It did have a pole, from the tent, stabbed in its body, blood surrounding the foreign object.
And only when she further approached the body did she realise it was Danielle.
Her eyes widened as her heart dropped.
"D-D... Danielle?" she called out before rushing to her body.
Kneeling beside her, she noticed how Danielle responded. She turned her head and looked at Claire.
She was alive.
"You are alive..." Claire quietly spoke as her voice quivered.
"Claire?..." Danielle spoke. Claire saw the joy in her eyes. Then, that joy quickly changed to the sight of her lips, chin quivering. "I-I I thought y-you-".
She didn't have to finish for Claire to know what she was about to say. "I am here. Alive..." she whispered under her breath as her eyes swelled with tears.
Then, Danielle caught a gaze of Claire's hands. Immediately, her eyes widened. "What happened?" she spoke out, noticeably a bit weaker.
"The glass room... but I'll be fine..." Claire replied before she looked at the object stuck in Danielle's body. "Danielle... I am going to try to do anything I could to... to-".
"Don't..." she replied, looking at the pole. "If you take it out, I'll die. I-I'll lose too much blood.". A moment of silence descended upon them both.
Claire looked at Danielle as Danielle looked back at Claire.
"Claire?" Danielle spoke up once more. "Can you do me a huge favour?".
Claire nodded. "Yes. Anything. What do you want me to do?".
"Remember that letter you saw me w-write last night?...".
Claire nodded.
"It's in my bag..." she began, but then let out a loud groan from the pain she felt. "Can... can you send it off to my parents? Please..." she added before a short pause followed, as she took in a deep breath. "I-I don't want it to stay sitting in that bag... unopened. You know?". By the end of her sentence, Danielle had even more tears in her eyes, as her voice let out a quiver against her will. "Please... please, can you do that for me?".
Such a request sent a rush of pain through Claire's chest. It wasn't what she expected, and it broke her heart into pieces. "Yes..." was all she managed to whisper, as tears began rushing down her face.
They both looked at each other, crying.
Then, seconds later, Danielle couldn't help but chuckle at them both ever so slightly. "Remember all that time back when we were sitting by that table? When you got to know me?...".
Claire nodded as she felt a lump grow in her throat, it made it harder to speak.
"W-we were both crying... we were both crying then, and l-look at us now. We are both crying now...". A truck sounded from the distance. "C-c-crying right before we say our goodbyes.".
It was these words of Danielle's that made, not only Claire cry, but Danielle too began sobbing.
"D-don't say that!" Claire retorted, shaking her head through her sobs.
Soldiers came out before they picked Danielle up.
Claire too rose to her feet, following the soldiers to their truck.
"Claire! T-the letter, p-please!".
Before anything else could have been communicated across, Danielle was set into the truck before it drove off.
Claire collapsed onto her knees as more tears flowed down her eyes.
She kept her gaze on the truck that drove farther away from her, but the tears that accumulated in her eyes made her sight blurrier.
Looking down at her hands, she noticed the way that her blood had hardened, clotted, with bits of glass still perforating the surfaces of her palms.
"Claire!? Claire!?!" A worrisome voice boomed behind her. Immediately, she recognized it.
She turned her head around to see Gabriel sprinting towards her. "Claire!? Claire?".
He knelt beside her, immediately, he took her hand into his. "S-shit... shit..." he paused. "Claire? Are you okay?".
Claire's brows and lips quivered as she looked up at Gabriel. "Does it look like I am okay?".
It was these words of hers that made Gabriel stop for a second as his gaze remained on Claire.
She noticed the way his look upon her softened.
Claire's eyes filled with tears, her gaze remaining on Gabriel. "I am so glad that you are still alive.".
---
Gabriel was sitting in front of Claire, her hands in his as he picked the remaining shards of glass out of the palms of her hands, while Claire tried not to jump.
At times, silence ruled them both as Gabriel, carefully, picked the rest of the shards of glass.
"You know, I am very glad you survived too, Claire," Gabriel spoke as his eyes were set down on the palms of her hands.
Looking up at her, he saw that his words left no effect on her.
"So..." Gabriel broke the silence once more. "Do you wish to return home soon?".
Claire looked at Gabriel, into his eyes, before adverting her eyes down to her hands. A small frown appeared on her lips. "I... No.". A brief break. "No, because I want to find my brother. Only then would I like to go back home. With him, to our parents. That was my promise to them.".
He wanted to reply but instead remained quiet. In the end, all he did was nod.
Then a small smile appeared on his lips. "Is there a lucky guy in your life? Someone you are looking forward to seeing when you go back home?".
Once more, her eyes rose and met his. "If you are asking if I have a boyfriend, no I don't.".
"Don't get it the wrong way..." he defended himself, before pausing for a moment. "Have you ever had a boyfriend before?".
Her reaction was delayed, due to her being in her thoughts. But in the end, she nodded. "It was more so a summer fling... I thought it would be something more, but he made it obvious that it won't be...".
"What happened?" Gabriel asked.
"He left town... went to the capital...". A break. "Last I heard of his was weeks after we went our ways. Apparently, he is studying now...".
Muteness ruled their conversation for a second right before Gabriel broke it. "I'm sorry to hear that.".
But when he expected her to reply, Claire remained quiet.
He noticed the way that she furrowed her brows before she bit her lower lip.
"Hey, hey, is everything okay?" Gabriel kept his voice low.
Bashfully, she rose her gaze back to Gabriel. "Why is it that everyone I care about is simply going away?". Claire paused for another moment as she took a deep breath. "I can't help but think that there is a fault in something that I am doing...". Another pause followed, as, once again, Claire's eyes swelled with tears. "I can't help but think that it's all my fault, Gabriel...".
"No, don't say that..." Gabriel spoke as he took a gentle grip of Claire's forearms, pulling her towards him, just slightly.
In turn, she looked his way, looked into his eyes.
"Remember what I told you when you held Trina in your hands," he revised the memory. He, too, felt his eyes beginning to tear up. "Do you remember?" he asked again. Her words held a heaviness that he wasn't expecting. "This is a war. Nothing can ever be your fault, Claire. Never forget that. You are here, saving damn lives. You are going through all sorts of shit.". He paused only to allow a tear to roll down his cheek. "You have never been in situations like this before and I look up to you for that.".
Just like Claire's words left an effect on Gabriel, caused him to tear up, his words had the same effect on her. They caused Claire to let a tear or two as she bit her lip in a desperate attempt to stop crying.
"I can't stand hearing you put yourself down because you don't deserve that in the slightest," he spoke, his tone retrieving its softness.
He kept his eyes on Claire as he saw her lower her head ever so slightly, tears still streaming down her face.
From there, he returned back to tending after her hands. He wrapped them in gauze before securing the ends in place.
With that, a small, sheepish smile managed to surface through all the sadness as he muttered under his breath, "there we go...".
Claire, too, let a small smile appear on her lips as she looked back into Gabriel's orbs. "Thank you..." she managed to say just above a whisper.
And just as the swirls in her stomach grew stronger from his gaze, did she break their eye contact and look down his face, to his chest and then to his hands. Bloodied hands.
She saw all the small wounds on his hands, the small cuts.
But before she even got a chance to make a sound, Gabriel spoke up. "Don't worry about these... I'll be fine.".
Claire couldn't help herself but ask, "Are you sure?".
Gabriel smiled again, but this time, it was a genuine smile, as he nodded. "Yes. Yes, I am sure. Thank you, Claire.". He paused for a brief second. "Being as considerate as always.".
But then the smile on his lips slowly faded away.
Just as Claire was about to stand up, Gabriel called out her name. "Claire?".
"Hm?". She looked at him, into his eyes, but upon feeling the same sensation that she felt only minutes ago, she lowered her gaze to his nose, lips, chin. Chest.
"Are you sure you can continue fighting?".
Subconsciously, her eyes once again met his. "Yes..." along with her words, she nodded. With her gaze lowering to the ground, she continued, "Yes, I am sure. I want to continue fighting...".
'For my brother, I will do anything.'.