I could smell the back pack burning, and I rolled off the child and tore out of the straps. The bag was full of our precious food supplies, and I frantically rolled the bag on the ground to put out the flames while behind me the wrecked husk of the helicopters burned.

Around us the shocked survivors of the crowd who had been standing on the margins looked on in horror at the nightmare scene of those not yet dead, who screamed, and cried, and suffered with horrific burns. All of us were coated in a black smear of smoke and soot. I looked from the bag to the child and Mina. She had wrapped her arms around the child who had turned his head away from the devastation.

The heat from the flames was intense, and I felt my breathing laboured both from the initial searing blast, and now from the roiling waves of flames so close by. I stepped further away from the flames pulling Mina with me afraid of further explosions.

We had gone no more than ten feet when some incendiary device aboard one of the helicopters did explode. The concussion blast from this explosion knocked all three of us to the ground. I heard Mina scream, and when I looked across I saw that the child lay on his back with a length of shrapnel penetrating from his forehead. I checked the child’s pulse. He was dead.

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I got to my feet and saw that everyone else who had survived the initial helicopter crash had been blown to the ground too. Some rose on unsteady legs, but others had clearly suffered mortal wounds.

I looked back at the helicopter crash and saw no more signs of life within. I extended a hand down to Mina who stood with an expression of absolute misery on her face. I am sure my expression matched hers too as this was truly hell on earth.

I looked around for my back pack and saw that it had been blown another twenty feet away. I retrieved it and put it back on. The straps still held, and the bag was still intact despite the obvious burn damage. I walked back to Mina and we looked down at the child.

“What should we do for him?” Mina asked quietly.

“There is nothing we can do” I said. “He had said his parents were dead. Let’s just hope he is at peace.”

As we walked away I felt a morbid sense of selfish relief that the child had not turned.

There was still a constant flight of helicopters into and away from the Park and we walked disconcertingly around part of the perimeter as I still wanted to travel east. We could still see the occasional soldier within the perimeter but both of us felt betrayed at how an unarmed civilian crowd had been left to fend for themselves.