It was awful.

The injury, the police sirens tearing through the building, the shouting…everything bleeding together into one sharp, unbearable noise. Red and blue lights flickering against concrete walls, turning the whole place into something unreal, like a nightmare that refused to end.

You remembered running toward the basement before anyone could stop you. The cold air. The smell of dust and metal and blood you didn’t want to recognize. And then seeing it… him… down there. Still… or almost still. You had been hoping and praying that it wouldn’t be him. It was cruel, you knew it was. He was in the wrong. A monster. Yet you had fought to try and get to him as the medics pushed you away.

The injuries were terrible. The fact he survived was a miracle. It was a damn severe injury… a damn traumatic amputation.

So there you sat… in the hospital chair waiting for the doctor to hopefully let you see him…