Mehmet opened his eyes but could not see anything. His body was heavy, he felt like he was under a ton of stones.
"What happened? Why is it so dark and small here?"
Mehmet was too dizzy to think straight, dark world was spinning and he could not move. After about an hour dizziness, He came to his senses when he heard a little boy crying. Voice was coming from far below. Mehmet could hardly understand what he is saying.
"Daddy ... wake up ... daddy *sobs*" (Boy)
Voice was slowly fading, boy was getting tired of crying out loud to wake his father up and continued more quietly, quiet enough to Mehmet could not hear it anymore. Mehmet recognized the crying voice. It was little son of his neighbor from same floor. Their apartment was not closest one but boy was quite loud almost everyday so Mehmet heard his voice often.
Mehmet focused and tried to hear him, he did not want to shout and make the boy hear him as well, he did not know what to say to boy crying. He did not understand the situation at all. When he focused, he noticed something very strange. The voice was coming from below.
Mehmet lives ground floor of the building, there is no place under his apartment that a toddler allowed to go. There was only boiler room down there. While he was thinking that shaking start with huge booming sounds. He could not move anyway so he prayed nothing above crushes on him, while thinking about what the hell is happening.
"What the hell ? Is someone bombing my house or something?"
The boy below scared and started crying loudly again. 45 seconds later shaking has stopped. Mehmet's mind got clearer with shaking and he tried to remember what happened before he woke up. He felt pain back of his head and his memories started to come back in bits and pieces.
"Now I remember... Everywhere started shaking, everything started to collapse like whole world was going upside down with huge noises around just like the one from just now."
When He felt first shakes of Earthquake that continued more than a minute, He throw his steel reinforced table to sturdy looking column and tried to make a makeshift life triangle, caught half a bottle of water previously on the table while it is still flying to a wall. Ceiling was already started to cracking even though It was less than 10 seconds since the first shake yet. He hurriedly tumble under table and applied drop-cover-hold on procedure he learned during military training. He was an experienced soldier and a sergeant in Special forces, this kind of split second decisions was something he excelled at.
While he were doing all of that all windows of apartment broke with huge noise and some of broken glass stabbed back of his hand covering his head with.
"I am not even close to windows damn it!.."
Mehmet was waiting for The Earthquake to subside for 30 seconds already but there was no sign for that yet. Ceiling could not endure and collapsed after 10 more seconds. The table helped quite a bit but after whole ceiling went down table could not endure and crooked under weight more and more.
Mehmet thanked himself of past that bought this steel table. But still table skewed a lot and made opening to a stone to strike back of the head of Mehmet. It was uneven stone could come in halfway to life triangle Mehmet made but could not crush him. Mehmet fainted just like that and his uninjured hand broken.
"Even though the table did not hold out as well as I expected I am still alive... It is hard to say I am lucky under this rubble."
He checked his body for injuries and what he had on him. Skewed table crushing his legs and his phone in his pocket, he could not move his legs at all and it hurt a lot. One of his hand is broken other stabbed by glass and blood stopped while glass was still stabbed. He could move them If he really wanted to and willing to bear huge amount of pain. His head injury seemed The lightest thanks to him covering his head with his hands.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
"Drop-cover-hold on is not something to scoff at it seems..."
He felt around and found his keys and half a bottle of water safe, his gun was on his belt and the ring with wolf figure on it his grandfather gifted him.
"I wonder How many hours passed since I fainted I can not feel or hear any kind of heavy machine , drills, pickaxe etc. working around to save survivors in this building, and there was even bigger earthquake happened just now."
There was only weak voices of survivors above and below could be heard if he focus enough. Mehmet made SOS signals with his keys while enduring to pain of his hand but after 3 minutes of SOS signaling he decided to not waste his limited energy and wait more before try again.
Mehmet was losing feeling of pain in his legs and he despaired when he thought of gangrene. He never feared death but he feared thinking living but could not move. He could not work with mutilated legs. He felt pride doing his job, he had no family, no lover, no friends other than his comrades in arms.
" I wonder how are they ? they should know about such a big earthquake and they know I live here they would be already here normally. Maybe scale of disaster was way bigger than I originally thought or maybe they are in bad situation as well... I hope not."
He lived, trained and fought together with them for more than 20 years already. They were his family at this point. He was minimalist, stoic, disciplined soldier and drill sergeant from hell when he trained newbies. His stoic nature made him live alone after he lost his grandfather who is his last relative.
"If I get out here alive, I will strangle that cheeky piece of shit that said this building was Earthquake resistant, I will strangle him If I see even one building still standing safe outside."
"Why did I used my day off today and came back to home out of so many days ."
Time was passing but there was no change in situation at all, he made SOS signals 3 minutes every 4 hours and already a day passed since he woke up but there was sign of any rescue. He could not hear the boy at all anymore and other survivors got quiet as well, rarely he heard some clumsy SOS signals from above to no avail.
He was in dark, Could not move and despaired about his legs and his cpmrades did not come help which probably means they were in bad situation as well or they do not care. Both were beating hope out of his head and pushing him to despair.
"I went through way worse before, this is nothing."
He said himself while remembering that one time he was in another collapsed building with his 2 comrades. One was dead with a bullet in his head, other was dying while screaming with a bullet in his leg. There was a time a spy gave information about their operation and they got trapped under bombed building after fierce gunfight with enemy. He was in dark one of his comrades was dead, other was dying while screaming in agony. He had cried to see his child and wife for hours and died there just like that. Mehmet was about to go crazy how powerless he felt there could not help his comrade and spent 30 more hours in that tomb of his comrades until the time rescue come and save him and dig out remains of his comrades.
Every minute he stayed under remains of that building he remembered that time and continued to try and survive, he was the one sending money to his dead comrade's child and wife after all. He did not met his wife again because of he felt guilty about her husbands death but always sent money more than enough them to live for 4 years already, he even wrote in his will, in military every soldier writes his will and he wrote this in it "Everything I own belongs wife and child of Ferdi after I died."
"If I survive, I can earn money even If I could not move at all, because I am a veteran. I can still look after them and atone my weakness."
Ferdi's Wife never said anything bad to him but he still could not forgive himself and tried to atone his sins. Ferdi's wife lied to their child using that money and said his father still lives but he is in a foreign country working for them. She planned to tell him truth after he become more 13 years old.
48 hours after he woke up but nothing changed. He already drank half of water he has and after shocks of Earthquakes coming one after another, sometimes even with magnitude felt like 6 at least.
"No wonder help is so late, maybe not just here even surrounding cities razed to ground."
After 80 hours of waiting he started to hear sounds and feel vibrations of heavy machines trying to save people. He made SOS signals more often and hoped some one to hear it. He had no water anymore. From the start half of a bottle was just 250 ml of water and meant almost nothing but psychological support.