I sat and pressed my forehead tightly to the icy crate that kept me hidden, my left eye was just able to see some of the supermarket aisle, one soldier appeared sporting his blood splattered combat uniform, then another. My stomach churned as I watched the murdering militants waltz passed my concealment. I realised, these were the same soldiers that had passed earlier in the day. This was evident due to the first man’s missing belt. He’d used this part of his uniform to thrash a middle aged man, who was trying to run for his freedom, to the ground, where he strangled him and left him pushed up against the crate that wedged me inside the vast, dusty shelving unit.
The soldiers passed, chortling mockingly at the deceased man that lay a foot in front of me. I lent my head to the right and peered out through the gap and watched as the soldiers turned and kept surveillance in the next aisle. I shoved my shoulder into the crate beside me, knocking it outwards, inevitably nudging the solid corpse forward a few inches. This wasn’t my intention. I watched as the bruised neck of the carcass buckled and the head rolled over the left shoulder in a circular motion, which would have left the man’s chin resting nicely on his chest, if it hadn’t been for the thick green belt enveloping his throat tightly. This ment his head was forced to limply hang over the rim of the belt buckle, cutting into his skin.
I had decided to by pass looking at Ross again. Horribly, I was sandwiched between two dead men and either way I darted my eyes, one of them was always in view. I tried to keep my eyes locked elsewhere; I peered out through the gap again. With an enormous burning hate, I was overly bitter but still awfully terrified about the war our country was fighting, and surely, losing. If I tipped my skull back, as if I was trying to make it touch my spine, while still making use of the gap alongside the crate, my eyes were met with the gaping hole left in the sky high roof of the supermarket. I stared in awe at the peaceful mix of an orangey red and light blue sky. The night was arriving quickly again; I watched the light disappear from the clouds. I knew if I was going to escape, it was at night that I had to do it. The dense shadows created an extra niche around every corner. For this I was grateful.
The only light my eyes could hunt out was the glow from the moon bouncing in through the blimp sized tear in the roof. In a traumatically frightened state, I pushed the crate out of the shelving unit. In a heart beat, I’d shifted my legs from under Ross and swung them out into the open air, letting them regain a healthy amount of bloody-flow. Not only had I done this, but in the same second, the crate had toppled out of the shelf. I’d forgotten about the middle aged dead man propped against the crate. Time definitely slowed. I heard every bone in that man’s body crunch under the burly weight of the canned goods container. Tins of food poured out like a wild river, swamping and battering the outstretched hands of what remained of him.
What else did I have left to lose? I edged around the mound of tins I had just created, and propelled myself to the end of the aisle, I grabbed what was left of a small shelf and swung myself around the corner and into the central aisle. Luck, for once, was on my side. Like Tarzan, I grabbed hanging debris and lunged myself through the severely damaged supermarket. I felt a heavy pressure weighing against my right rib cage, I needed to look at it, I needed to feel it to decipher what had happened to me. I couldn’t stop. I had to run. My legs were beginning to stagger and slow. My head grew heavy, it was so difficult to hold it up to see where to run to next.
I stopped dead in my tracks, as if my feet had been suddenly glued to the shattered tiles. In my mouth, I had detected a distinct metallic dampness rising from my throat. My ribs ached. Then they began to sting. My knees gave in. I collapsed helplessly to the ground in a heap. I felt my eyes rolling in their sockets. I couldn’t prevent my whole body shaking vigorously. I tried to breathe smoothly, but each time I exhaled I groaned and snorted like some sort of animal. I allowed my head to touch the ground; I let my mind assess my situation before I acted upon it. My thoughts weren’t flowing; it was as if my brain had already given up on me. My arms refused to lift to the injured area, my back was hot, my ribs were hot, I craned my head round to my wound as much as I could. Shot. I’d been shot. The pain wasn’t as overwhelmingly powerful as one would expect. I was now completely numb. My head lolled back and smashed off the tiled floor. I stared down the central aisle at the two soldiers I had seen earlier. As soon as they’d made sure I’d caught them clocking me. They walked in the opposite direction, and left me trembling in a large pool of my own blood. Like the sand emptying from an hour glass, I felt my blood escape my veins at a frighteningly rapid pace. I was surely going to die.
