The next Dante came to, he was aware of nothing but that pain for a while. He was laying on his back. He hurt everywhere, though his right side most of all.
He had been on a bus, there had been a crash, and right next to him was —
Sophia.
Dante’s eyes snapped open to reveal vision that was blurry and tinged red. His head throbbed and he raised an arm to wipe at his face. It came away wet, and he could now see that it was streaked with blood.
Past that, lay a bank of windows. The side of the bus he realized. It was framed by a row of seats to his left and right which stretched above him for about 5 feet.
The bus must have flipped.
He tried to rise but grimaced as there was a spike of pain on the right side of his chest.
Something feels broken.
He gritted his teeth and pushed past the discomfort, managing to flip onto his side. The movement caused the tinkling of glass and he noted duly that he had been lying on a broken window. There was scraped pavement beneath that.
Pain lanced up his back at the movement and he reached a trembling hand to feel it. Sharp nubs met his fingers.
Shit, I think some of that glass is in me.
He refused to think about that and, not wanting to lose his momentum, climbed to his feet and surveyed the bus interior, desperately searching for his sister. It was nearly unrecognizable.
Just a few feet away, where the bus driver had been sitting, there was an amalgamation of twisted metal where bus and truck had become one. The thick, acrid smell of fuel and chemicals burning wafted from that direction. Of the kindly bus driver, there was no sign.
It appeared that the entirety of the bus had been bent and twisted around to the point it resembled the letter ‘J’ more than anything else. Just about every window had shattered and many of the chair rows had been detached and lay strewn across the cabin.
It was then that he spotted his sister, bent over one of the loose seats.
“Sophia!” He yelled and staggered over to her. To his immense relief, she moved at the sound of his voice. She cracked open one eye and her unfocused gaze found his.
“Dante! What … what happened?” She shifted and a grimace flashed across her features, then clutched one arm to her chest.
“Shit, my arm. I … think it’s broken.”
Dante gave the offending arm a once over and saw a quickly growing quilt of blue and black.
That … and there was a definite bend.
He sucked in a breath, not quite sure what to do. It was probably not safe here, but he remembered hearing something about not moving someone if they are heavily injured.
There was a sudden flare of heat and the burning smell redoubled. Dante looked up to see that the fuzed section had caught fire. An unidentifiable liquid was leaking into the cabin in spurts. On its surface, a fire was catching that was quickly growing into an inferno.
Well that answers that question.
“Come on sis, we need to get out of here.” Dante took a hold of her uninjured arm and gently helped her to stand. Even with her participation, Dante was alarmed that he had to do most of the work and by the end of it she was panting heavily. Dante supported her and they shuffled away from the blaze towards the mid-section of the bus.
Dante scanned for an exit. The door at the front was no longer existent. The back window of the bus seemed to be pressed up against something, a building he thought, so that was a no go as well. Which left … He looked straight up to the series of shattered windows above.
Bingo.
“Hold on a second, I think see a way out.” he said and let go of her so that he could climb up. However, his sister did not relinquish her grip. He looked back to see that she was looking at him with a familiar stubborn expression.
“Hold on, we need to go help them” Sophia said, iron in her gaze and pointed towards the back.
Dante followed her finger to where the two school girls had been sitting. One appeared to be unconscious underneath a detached section of seating and the other was on the ground next to her yelling something into her phone. Then, he turned the other way to where the flames had begun to escape the cabin and were spreading along the ground rapidly.
The smart thing to do would be to get him and his sister out of here. Dante did not owe these people anything and he would be damned if anything happened to Soph. Resolving himself, he reached down and grabbed tightly onto her wrist. He hoped that she would be too weak to fight him.
“Dante, please.”
He looked back into her big eyes, so filled with trust and all of the expectations in the world. It was suddenly clear to him at that moment that if he made them leave now something in that gaze would die forever.
Dante made his decision.
“Go and see if you can find that boy, I’ll go help them.” At his words Sophia’s face lit up and his heart ached with how proud she looked in that moment.
Dante released his death grip on Sophia’s hand and paused for a moment when she wobbled and grabbed on to a nearby chair. Fortunately she stabilized and began gingerly making her way up the cabin towards the fire. His instincts were screaming at him to go with her, but he forced himself to turn and go to the school girls.
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On his way, he surveyed the situation. It appeared like the chairs in front of them had sheared themselves free and had pinned one of the girls to her seat. He could see a not insignificant amount of blood dripping from the seat beneath her. Fortunately she appeared to be conscious and was surprisingly rather calm. Her friend on the other hand …
“ — everything is on fire and she’s bleeding all over the place! We need help right now!” The girl spoke in a rapid staccato, hardly pausing for breath. “I think the driver’s dead and … and,” she paused as the operator on the end finally seemed to get a word in edgewise.
“Our location? Uh … we are … uh … on … on” she looked around wildly, trying to spot any landmarks through rents in the bus.
“128th street, near the Smartway” Dante said, before gripping the wreckage and giving it an experimental heave with all of his strength. It shifted slightly and the pinned girl let out a little gasp of pain.
“Shit” he muttered. He had been afraid of that, brute strength had never been his strong suit. He would need something more, like … leverage. He cast his gaze for anything that could work.
There.
It was one of the vertical metal poles that passengers could grab onto if all of the seats were full. Fortunately, it was already nearly detached and when he pulled on it with all of his body weight it came free. Dante took it back and kneeled to be on the same level as the pinned girl.
“Hi there, what’s your name?” The school girl looked at him uncomprehendingly, his casual manner seemingly taking her off guard. She started to say something, coughed, swallowed, and managed to get it out the second time.
“It’s … Emily.”
He noted that Emily was deathly pale.
“Glad to meet you, Emily!” he said and placed the pole underneath the bench before looking back at her.
“Look, we don’t have much time. I know you are hurting right now, but we have to get you out of here.” He laid a hand on the obstructing seating. “I am going to have to move this ok?”
Emily nodded, and he attempted to smile reassuringly. It didn’t seem to work.
“But I am going to need your help, ok? When I say ‘Go’ I am going to need you to push up.” She nodded again and Dante turned to glare at the phone girl, who was still babbling away.
“You!” he barked at her, causing to jump in surprise before turning a wide eyed gaze back at him.
“Give me a hand with this.”
Her gaze was blank, then comprehension dawned on her face as she saw the improvised lever. She hurried over to take a place on the other side of the pole.
“Ready?”
“Alright, let's go on push. 3 … 2 … 1 … PUSH!”
Dante pushed down with all of his weight and the phone girl did the same while Emily pushed upwards feebly. The cabin filled with the sound of groaning metal and the pole flexed to the point that he was afraid that it would bend. However, the chair did not budge.
What is it going to take to get his damn thing to move!
Dante let go of the pole, took a couple steps back, and then dived into it. He screamed as something tore loose inside of him, but the pole gave with a shriek of tearing metal and the bench shifted off of Emily.
A new wave of pain hit him a moment later, causing him to stagger and nearly fall before he caught himself. He watched as phone girl rushed to Emily and hugged her, which seemed like a monumentally bad idea to him but it was over before he could stop it. He noticed that Emily still seemed to have a fragment of the chair in her gut, which he was certain was very not good.
Dante tried to rise but was forced to rest against the wall again as dizziness hit him. That maneuver had really taken a lot out of Dante and he found was having difficulty forming coherent thoughts past the pain and the heat. Especially the heat …
Thats right, the fire!
He turned and, thankfully, saw Sophie and the teenaged boy with the hoodie — who seemed relatively unharmed all though a little singed. He was also glad to see that some color had returned to Sophie and that she was looking more stable. Close behind them, lay a thick sheet of flame that was ever approaching closer.
Where is all of this coming from? Just what was the truck hauling? Whatever the answer may be, it was clear that they were out of time.
Dante pointed at the teenage boy and said, “You, go up first. We need someone to pull up the injured.”
The boy started, looked like he was going to object, met Dante’s glare, and then began climbing. Once he reached the windows above, he paused to eye the jagged glass shards. He bunched his hoodie up at his hand and began pushing the shards out of the way while the rest of them watched the flames approach.
“Now you!” he said to phone girl the instant the boy climbed through. “We need you to help pull Emily up!” She nodded and made her own way up, thankfully much faster when the boy offered a hand.
Now for the hard part.
“C’mon Sis, let’s get Emily out of here.” They hurried over to where she had been laying and found that she was limp. Fortunately she still appeared to be breathing.
Well, that’s going to make this harder.
He took one of Emily’s arms and Sophia followed his lead. They dragged her beneath the window, though he was doing most of the work.
“I’ll lift her the best I can Sophia, you just make sure that her arms are straight so that they can grab on.” Dante waited for a nod before shifting his grip to under her armpits. Then he began to lift.
Chest screaming with pain, he strained to get Emily past waist level. His sister helped the best she could, but she only had one arm after all.
Then, Dante could feel the heat intensify. He risked a brief glance down and saw that the flames were quite literally licking at their heels. Ice plunged through his veins and he tapped into a reserve of energy he didn’t know that he had and lifted Emily higher with primal roar. Suddenly, the weight disappeared and he looked up to see that the pair above had finally grabbed onto her hands and was pulling her up.
There was no time to waste and Dante began climbing after her. He paused midway and extended a hand down to Sophia, which she took. He helped her keep her balance as she climbed up to where he was. The seats that they were standing on groaned ominously as it bore both of their weights.
“You first!” he shouted over the low roar of the flames.
Something of his unwillingness to yield on this matter must have bled through because she complied after only a short glance at his face. As soon the pair helped her through, he went to follow.
As he pushed off the chair there was the shriek of tearing metal and its support disappeared from beneath him. Dante flailed about for something, anything that could arrest his fall.
Finding nothing, he was engulfed in the torrential flames beneath. The pain was instantaneous and overwhelming and he screamed out.
“Brother!”
Through the surrounding flames, he saw Sophia above being held back, though she was fighting hard. She had tears and snot running down her face and her yells had quickly devolved from anything sensible.
He locked eyes with the teenage boy and tried to say, Get her out of here! But there was no air in his lungs. Something of his message seemed to get through as the boy nodded and then pulled Sophia out of sight.
Dante tried to crawl through the flames and reach upwards but his muscles refused to listen to him. Instead they contorted then contracted, and he curled into the fetal position as all moisture began to be cooked out of them. It was a small mercy then when there was earth shattering BOOM as something detonated. All pain was replaced with oblivion.
But it was not the end.