Gifts

I wake to the sound of yelling.

  “Anybody here? Hello?!”

  A woman's voice. I thought that it was Connie, but how could she ever find me, in this abandoned, blown down building? I wish to keep sleeping, but my eyes open themselves. I see the ceiling of the room, and a wave of relieve flushes over me as I realize that I am still and the same place I was went I had slept the night before.

  “Roman! Are you here?”

  Now I am sure that Connie is here. It is her voice and her tone. And she knows my name. Only a small amount of people know my name.

  I sit up from the concrete where I was sleeping and look at my hands. They are bleeding, but they look and feel better than I thought they would be, after what I've done to them. I don't even think about food and water, I just dash up the stairs and into the rooms on the floor above.

  “Connie?” I call, hoping for dear life for an answer.

  “Roman?! Where are you?” she says, after a pause of a matter of seconds.

  “Are you on the first story?”

  “No! I'm upstairs. Come find me!”she says, after another puzzling pause.

  “Okay!”

  I run up the stairs, two at a time, and upstairs I come to find rock bottom again. Only I have fallen deeper. Deeper than the world of possible.

  Connie is here, sitting in a chair, but someone else is too.

  Henry.

  He carries a knife, pressing it tight across Connie's throat. Connie had been calling for me, to lure me upstairs. My brain twists into two. Why is Henry here?

  “Roman! Help-”

  “Shut up!” Henry yells, pulling the knife closer against her delicate skin. My heart feels like it has stopped. I love Connie, she is pretty, kind, and caring. But also, I love Henry.

  “Henry! What are you doi-”

  “Listen, Roman, you don't understand!”

  “I perfectly understand everything, Henry! You're just going crazy! A helpless old man! That's what you are. Let her go!”

  I let out all my anger on Henry. How could he do this? My sight begins to bulge up red again.

  “Roman, trust me,” he takes a deep breath, the same kind of deep breath he took when he told me that Tedd was here to kill me. “Connie is working with Tedd.”

  At first, I have trouble understanding what came out of his mouth. I didn't know if I was hearing him right.

  “Roman. I know that this is a lot to take in, but Connie, is working with Tedd, the guy trying to take advantage of you.”

  I look at him straight in the eye. My mouth drops open as the words tab me in the chest, releasing all happiness and hope that I had ever wanted.

  I didn't want to believe what just came out of his mouth, but is Connie just an act? Is she trying to pretend like a good guy, just like Tedd is doing? It makes sense, but I still don't believe it. Henry has surprised me a lot in the past, but I still trust him. But did I trust Connie more?

  “Lets ask her,” I suggest.

  “Are you working with Tedd, Connie?” I ask, firmly, like Tedd did to me. My lip quivers, the thought of betrayal is taking over me.

  “No! Why would I ever betray you, Roman!?” she replies. I see the anger in her face, which makes a tear fall onto my cheek. Her large glasses fall onto the floor, shattering because of the impact.

  Henry pulls the knife closer to her very much delicate skin.

  “I'm not working with Tedd!” Her voice is more raspy and grim, now that she is in danger.

  Henry pulls another knife out from his pocket and stabs it into her left hand.

  Just like Tedd did to me.

  Connie screams in pain, as much as I want to take the knife out of her hand and stab it into Henry's face, I can't save someone who could be trying to kill me. Coincidences bounce all around my skull, mind-boggling.

  “One more time, please tell the truth Connie. Are you working with Tedd?”

  I stab my voice into her ears, just like the knife in her hand. My teeth clench, with anger, but I am more sad than I could ever be. Tears fall from my eyes consistently.

  Henry pulls the knife the closest it could ever be to her neck without her bleeding to death, her blood would spill out, down the wooden steps. She knows that this is her last chance.

  “Are you-

  “Yes. I am.”

  XXIII

  I feel pain in my stomach. Nausea creeps up on me, crawling over me, like a monster that I have always been scared of. One of the two people that I could ever trust, is a fraud. I puke in my mouth, then swallow it again, trying to gain the upper hand with myself.

  Henry lets go of the knife, dropping it on the ground. Henry looks at me with sympathy, the same look that Connie gave me. For the first time. I don't look back at him.

  She sits, tied to the chair, as I watch her in disgust.

  “I'm sorry, Roman, I really am,” she says.

  “Sorry doesn't make everything go back to the way it was!” I scream back, which in this situation, she has a lot more to say than sorry. I am crying, I wipe the tears away from my cheek.

  “No, I'm sorry about this. I truly am,” she says, reaching for a gun, a gun that she pulls out of her pocket. She holds it firmly at both of us.

  “Untie me. Now,” she commands, giving a jester to Henry to do so.

  He stands like a rock, hard and strong.

  “Doctor. I'll give you one last chance.”

  He doesn't take the chance. He doesn't move. Instead, he crouches down, reaching for the knife that he had dropped.

  The gun fires.

  “Henry!” I scream, as I see him falling to the ground in pain.

  I dive onto the ground, trying to help him, but I know that he needs real medical help to restore him. As I stand up with a knife to finish Connie, I notice that she is gone. Gone.

  It's like she was never here.

  The chair that she sat in is the only thing left of her presence.

  I start to cry again. It is all way too much to bare.

  My life is now worthless. All I have is the adrenalin. I couldn't care less about it, anyway. I don't want it anymore. I want things to go back to the way they were, in the Destitute zone, my home.

  “Roman,” he says, in a raspy voice. I can tell he is in a lot of pain.

  “What?” I reply back, sniffing because of the sadness.

  “I need you to save me. You can get the bullet out of my leg.”

  “I don't think I can.”

  “You have to try. I know you can. I'll help you.”

  I think for a second, then I make my decision.

  “What do you need me to do?” I ask, hoping that he knows. After all, he is a doctor.

  “Downstairs, my big white coat is down there along with a first aid kit. Bring that up here,” he says.

  I nod as I leap down the stairs, scurrying for the first aid kit. They are both sitting by the front door, or where a front door used to be.

  I grab the first aid kit, and trample up the stairs. I put it down next to Henry.

  “Okay, good. Now get the skinny metal tool and tweezers.”

  I open the first aid kit and see that there are lots of tools, all which are metal. The tweezers were easy to find due to their distinctive properties.

  “Skinny metal tool,” I repeat in my head.

  I eventually found it. I had to move fast. Henry was bleeding out quickly. I hold up the two tools that I found and he nodded.

  “Okay, Roman, here's the tricky part. I need you to use the tweezers to grab the bullet.”

  It freaked me out to even think about performing surgery. If he dies, I will never forgive myself.

  Overall, after what I have done, I will never forgive myself anyway.

  “Are you sure I can do this?” I ask, knowing what the answer will be, at least coming from the man that I am performing the surgery on.

  “You can only try,” he says with a smile on his f
ace. He seems so laid back considering he could die in a matter of minutes. If I was in his shoes, I would be panicking the life out of myself.

  I focus on his leg. I put the skinny metal tool which I think was called a precision knife down. I stuck the tweezers into his thigh.

  He groans, which frightens me because I am scared that I did something wrong.

  I continue to work though, regardless of the sounds that he makes, even though the fear grows larger. I search around for the bullet, until I see a little bit of it launched in between a large piece of tissue. I can't tell if it is the bullet or not, because most of what I can see is red. Blood red. Pure, blood, red.

  I stick the tweezers softly into the tissue and try to grab the bullet with the tweezers. As the puddle of blood on the floor gets bigger and bigger, the more scared I get.

  I am still crying, which does not help my confidence. I think with every tear, I see a glimpse of Henry's corpse, lying on the ground in front of me. I will not let him die. I have known him since the beginning of this 'adventure', and I want him to live till the end. I snag the bullet with the tweezers but it is stuck in the tissue.

  “You can do it, Roman,” Henry croaks. “I'll be okay.”

  I pull harder and harder but it is no use. Then I have an idea. I grab the precision knife and use it to cut the tissue so the bullet is loose. Using the tweezers, I snag the bullet out of the limb, and toss it on the ground.

  I did it. I saved him. I wipe the sweat off of my forehead and let out air. Lots of air.

  “Roman, your almost done,” he starts, in between breaths, “there is bandage in the first aid kit. Wrap it around the wound. There is no time for stitches.”

  I take a deep breath(mostly in relief, because I did not want to give stitches to Henry.)

  “I'm almost done, almost done, almost done, I can do this,” I think.

  I scavenge for the bandage. I notice the puddle of blood has turned into a lake. It spills down the wooden staircase, staining the hard, ashy material.

  I find the bandage at the bottom of the kit. There is also some tape.

  I wrap the bandage around Henrys' leg two or three times, then I rip a piece of tape and secure it tightly.

  I take a deep breath. I start to laugh, oddly enough.

  “You did it, Roman. Thank you,” he says.

  “Can you walk?” I ask, hoping he says yes, even though I know that is unreasonable.

  “Walk? I got shot in the leg! Not for awhile,” he replies with a small chuckle.

  I laugh again, breaking my promise, again.

  My mind goes back to Tedd. And Connie. I will kill both of them. The thought of them makes me clench my fists. But, where are they?

  “I think I know where Tedd is going,” Henry says, sitting up with both of his legs plopped out in front of him.

  “Where?” I ask anxiously.

  “Main Street.”

  It makes sense that he would go to Main Street. He is going to the house labeled FOUR, in the story below the first one. The one that he would not let me go down. Something is down there, but I am not sure what. Or why.

  I look down at Henry.

  “Do know where Main Street is?” I ask.

  He doesn't say anything, just pulls a piece of paper that is rolled up out of his pocket and tosses it onto the ground.

  I kneel down and pick it up, and it is a map of where everything in the world was.

  In the top left section, it was the Authorities zone, much bigger than the other zones. In the bottom left section was the Corrupt. In the top right section lay the Prevalent zone and Opulent zone. And then there is one left. My hometown. The Destitute zone.

  Along with all of the zones, it shows most of the tracks and speedtracks. I search for Main Street in all of the zones, until I found it in the Prevalent zone. It was straight smack in the center. I looked at the other streets until I found Elm Avenue, where I was right now.

  It is just down the street from here.