SCREEECH!!!
"AHHH!" "FUC-" "GOD H-" "Oh n-"
Siiik! Bang! Thud! Thud!
"What the fuck is wrong with the brakes?! How the fuck did it stop a bus in just a second?!"
"Maybe you should fucking help the people who are on the floor first before complaining?!"
"..... What a goddamned mess."
...
Saying that I merely regret regaining consciousness with the flood of white hot pain coursing through my head right now would be an understatement of how much agony I was going through.
The warm, viscous liquid seeping through a throbbing, tormenting wound just a bit beyond the hairline of my head much too visceral for my shell shocked senses. My minds eye failing to rectify the fault of conjuring an eerily accurate image of my injury.
Any ideas on pushing myself off the ground went right out of my head, opting to instead, clutch my head like I was a leaking gas tank near a burning match. White hot agony trailing waves of sharp stings from my head solely.
As lost as I was in the waving throbs of pain that elicited harsh whimpers to escape from my lips, I didn't fail to notice the multiple pairs of hands that had turned me over. Disoriented, a figment of my muddle headed consciousness urged me to resist the motions.
Though it never prevailed as I had opened my eyes the next second to find three people crouched near me, two women and a man. Of which, I recognized only two, they were the ones who sat behind me on the bus.
A middle aged man donning an impressively maintained short beard and immaculate mustache with not a single follicle out of line. And a stunningly impassive woman whose face was seemingly frozen in time, not a single twitch gained from even the most deliberate of movements.
The other just seemed to be a woman who was merely taking a look before walking towards the crowd to converse with her companions. At least she had the slightest of good intentions, though she was a good fit for a forgettable passerby, not that I am any different.
"Young man, are you alright? Goodness me, of course you aren't alright, but you didn't hit your head too hard against the floorboards, right? "
The man asked an obviously non-rhetorical question that served to at least numb the pain agonizing me through the way of distraction. Though the sensations never ebbed, merely sidelined in my focus, screaming wasn't an option as I presumed it would make things worse, and I am no masochist.
"I-i don't think I'm gonna survive this...."
Blinking slowly as I said my words, every single utterance that left my mouth exacerbated the torment experienced by my mortal shell, pain wracked my brain, nausea built at the base of my skull like a hindered hose.
"The wound itself is not that serious, what we should worry about is whether or not his brain is extensively affected by the impact trauma."
Not so shockingly, the professional looking woman adorned by a fancy business suit had spoken up. Clinical in manners and most probably an authority on the subject, perhaps a nurse or a doctor which bodes well for me in this instance.
"No speech problems so far, and he can move his arms steadily. Did you pass out earlier?"
A reassuring voice that failed to belie the years of experience she has ordained through echoed within my throbbingly agonizing head.
"Y-yes, f-for a few seconds...."
"So far, there aren't any telltale signs of brain damage, your personality hasn't shifted at all from the brief conversation we had earlier. Headaches, nausea and dizziness are confirmed, correct?"
Unable to muster the willpower to utter a word, I responded with a weak nod—akin to a twitch if anything considering how jerky and sudden it was, it seemed like my mind had limited my range of motion subconsciously in an attempt to diminish any torment being experienced.
"Alright, nothing life-threatening, the hospital eleven blocks away should be able to patch you up in no time. Though you'll have to remain in their care for an extended amount of time for proper examination and screening."
The few people who bothered to surround me let out shaky sighs of relief, their breaths fogging the cognitive ability of my brain ever so slightly with the sudden intake of carbon stained air.
"Are the other three individuals okay?"
Silence befell the bus, the air seemed to freeze on command for a dramatically overbearing effect, breaths suddenly scarce and scattered. Her very question seemed to have the effect of both relieving and stilling the atmosphere, or maybe the sharp look in her eyes had inflicted the majority of that effect.
Then, someone gathered the courage to dissipate the gut-wrenching atmosphere and spoke up, voice trembling, words shaky, yet still uttered with a natural cadence that betrayed his nervous composure.
"..... Th-the one who.... Banged his head against the steel pole seems unresponsive so far."
"Shit, should've known."
That was all I heard from the woman who flash diagnosed me on the spot before I felt the wind stir and her presence vacate itself. A part of me felt empty suddenly, an irrational, unnerving and ceaseless sensation that had burrowed itself uncomfortably deep into my chest. Where my very security was robbed from me, it doesn't make sense, but I do have brain damage, even if it's on the minor side.
Gathering my strength, I tilted my head to obtain a better view on the other victims from the sudden stop.
The one who was seated right beside me seemed fine, seated on the ground while clutching his bruised forearm, he seemed to be the least unharmed for now.
Similarly settled in the front row, a woman with a nearly gory, vomit inducing wound on her shoulder made my pupils dilate further, eliciting a primal shudder of discomfort from the mere sight.
An entire patch of her shoulder was flayed apart, loose pieces of brown skin clinging uselessly onto crimson stained flesh, revealing the outer lining of muscle tissue held apart by scraped, trained brawn.
Said spot of discarded skin remained bloody on the floorboard of the bus, a few steps away from the seat. Blood rivulets traced the defined muscles of her forearm and dripped below, an insignificantly small pool of blood staining the bus with a vermilion hue, a metallic scent that clung persistently in the air.
Remarkably though, the unnamed victim of a woman had merely closed her eyes and took deep breaths, and while the slight twitch of her body and tremble of her breaths were obvious, it was an undeniable show of immense pain tolerance.
Though whenever she opened them, her eyes' focus had not been her own plight, but somewhere unknown, in which I let out a slight wheeze of shock when I saw a man with blood flowing out like a river from his cracked, carmine hued head, resting limply, squarely against a randomly placed steel pole that seemed slightly bent at the point of impact.
Crouched next to him was the same stoic woman, face hued without a single color of emotion. Eyes opted only for the who I presume to be now dead man, if not expressing her condolences in her own, unique ways, then most probably deep in thought.
"Guys! I have a bunch of dressings over here!"
A sudden shout of positivity drew every eye, at least all of those which I could see currently. Relief marred with grim realization of a life lost so suddenly and unexpectedly had lightened a bit at the arrival of trivial, but most needed good news.
"I'm going to give this bus driver a piece of my mind."
Someone from the backseat crowd emerged, a tall, slightly well built young man clad in a student's uniform and wearing a furious expression that failed to fully belie the emotional turmoil, dominated by an unfulfilled sense of heroism hidden within, righteous indignation burning akin to fire fed with dry wood.
Storming into the front of the bus, the boy recoiled and stumbled backwards the exact moment he had peeked over. Fear and growing horror flashing through the reflective gleam of his eyes.
In that same exact moment, the bus driver had gotten off of his seat and came into view. And all of us had the same reaction as the student, my head craned to view the shocking encounter, blistering white hot pain fading into a dull throb as adrenaline surged through my veins at the sudden sight of a threat beyond what my instincts could fully trace back in my gene ancestry.
That is no human