Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 10:41 AM
Countdown to Extraction: 64 Hours, 00 Minutes Remaining
Alyssa stared at the pathetic pile of supplies resting on the sticky linoleum.
A cracked bottle of peroxide. A bottle of rubbing alcohol. A massive bottle of 800mg Ibuprofen. Two crushed packets of generic Tylenol. And a plastic travel sewing kit with a silver needle so small it belonged in a dollhouse.
This wasn't medicine. This was butchery.
But as the heavy, hot smell of Caleb's dying arm filled the cramped space behind the pharmacy counter, Alyssa knew it was the only hand she had left to play. She couldn't freeze. If she froze, this man died on a filthy floor, and his blood would be on her hands forever.
"Okay," Alyssa breathed, her voice trembling but finally gaining traction. "Okay. We have to get the pills into him first. If I open that artery before his brain has a chemical buffer, the pain is going to throw him into a lethal cardiac rhythm."
She grabbed a heavy metal stapler Lila had salvaged from the floor. She took the two foil packets of Tylenol and two of the massive 800mg Ibuprofen pills, placed them on a torn piece of cardboard from a smashed display box, and brought the heavy metal base of the stapler down hard.
Crunch. She ground the metal into the pills, leaning her body weight into it until the white tablets were pulverized into a fine, chalky powder.
"Jade," Alyssa whispered without looking up. "I need water."
Jade, still shivering from her run to the front of the store, quickly unscrewed the cap of one of the plastic water bottles Lila had found earlier. Alyssa poured the crushed powder directly into the plastic bottle cap, then added just enough water to create a thick, gritty, bitter slurry.
"Lila, lift his head," Alyssa ordered.
Lila moved behind Caleb, sliding her hands under his neck, and gently tilted his head up. Caleb groaned, a low, wet sound that rattled deep in his chest. His eyelids fluttered, revealing the hazy, bloodshot whites of his eyes before his dark irises finally locked onto Alyssa. He looked completely hollowed out, his skin an ashen, waxy grey.
"Caleb," Alyssa whispered, leaning close so she wouldn't have to raise her voice. "Caleb, look at me. I have to fix your arm. But I have to give you something for the pain first. You need to swallow this. It's going to taste like battery acid, but you have to get it down."
Caleb blinked slowly, his chest heaving with a shallow, ragged breath. He gave a microscopic nod.
Alyssa pinched his jaw open gently and tipped the plastic cap into his mouth.
Caleb gagged instantly. The concentrated slurry of raw ibuprofen and acetaminophen was incredibly bitter, coating his dry tongue like chalk. He choked, a weak cough shuddering through his torso, but Lila quickly rubbed the front of his throat with her thumbs, physically forcing his swallow reflex to engage.
He got it down. He let his head fall back against Lila's hands, his chest rising and falling in erratic, panicked jerks.
"How long?" Lila asked, gently resting his head back onto the linoleum.
"Thirty minutes," Alyssa said, checking the cracked, dead screen of her smartwatch purely out of habit, then calculating the time in her head. "We have to wait at least thirty minutes for it to hit his stomach lining and enter his bloodstream. If I cut into him before it absorbs, we did it for nothing."
"Thirty minutes?" Jade repeated, her voice pitching up with absolute terror. She looked over her shoulder at the open, shattered storefront. "Alyssa, we can't sit here for thirty minutes. The smell... they're going to come right through that door. The blood is pooling."
Jade was right. The spilled cherry cough syrup on the floor was doing a decent job of making their boots stick, but it wasn't hiding the heavy, suffocating stench of human blood. It smelled like a slaughterhouse behind the counter.
"We mask it," Lila stated, her biochemical brain spinning. "Blood smells like iron and salt. We need a chemical override. Something overpowering."
Jade swallowed hard, her eyes darting around the ruined store. "The beauty aisle. When we were hiding earlier, I saw body spray. Cheap perfume. Deodorant."
"Go," Lila ordered quietly. "Grab anything aerosol. Anything with a heavy, synthetic scent. Spray the perimeter of the counter, the aisles leading up to it, and a barrier near the front door. Confuse their noses. But don't spray it near us, or we'll choke on it."
Jade nodded frantically. She scrambled up, staying low, and began her agonizing, sliding shuffle back into the dark aisles.
A soft rustle of fabric came from the other side of the counter.
Eleanor was moving.
The older woman had carefully arranged Frank against the wooden cabinets, placing a wadded-up sweater under his destroyed knee. She patted her husband's cheek, whispered something in his ear that made his jaw tighten with a nod, and then she crawled through the sticky syrup toward Alyssa.
Eleanor's sensible beige slacks were completely ruined, stained with dirt and cherry syrup, but her face was carved from absolute granite. The soft, grandmotherly demeanor was entirely gone, replaced by the hardened resilience of a woman who had survived decades of life's quiet tragedies.
She stopped beside Caleb, looking down at his mangled arm, then up at Alyssa.
"He took the glass for us," Eleanor whispered, her voice incredibly steady in the dark. "Frank and I would be dead on that sidewalk if he hadn't tackled that man. Put me to work, honey."
Alyssa looked at the older woman, a surge of profound, overwhelming gratitude loosening the tight knot in her chest.
"When I open this wound, the pain is going to be blinding," Alyssa explained softly, the clinical, detached voice she used in the hospital finally taking over. "The pills will take the edge off, but it won't stop the nerve response. He is going to thrash. He is going to fight us. If his arm jerks while I have the needle in his artery, I'll tear the vessel completely open and he will bleed out in sixty seconds. He has to be entirely immobilized."
"I have him," Eleanor said without a flinch. She positioned herself near Caleb's left side, her hands already resting firmly on his uninjured shoulder.
For the next twenty-five minutes, the pharmacy was agonizingly quiet.
The air grew thick and heavily perfumed. From the darkness of the aisles, Jade was working quickly. The suffocating, synthetic smells of cheap vanilla body spray, aerosol lavender deodorant, and men's cheap cologne began to waft over the counter. It was a vile, headache-inducing mixture, but it aggressively punched through the metallic tang of the blood.
Alyssa spent the time preparing her pathetic surgical field.
She poured a heavy splash of the rubbing alcohol over her own bloody hands, biting her lip so hard she tasted copper as the 70% isopropyl bit fiercely into the dozens of tiny micro-cuts on her fingers. She poured the rest of the cap over the tiny silver sewing needle, laying it carefully on a relatively clean piece of gauze. She unspooled a foot of the cheap cotton thread, soaking that in alcohol too.
It wasn't sterile. It wasn't even close. But it was the absolute best she could do.
"Alyssa," Lila whispered, looking down at Caleb. "Look at his eyes."
Caleb's eyes were half-open, staring blankly at the ceiling. The heavy dose of ibuprofen and acetaminophen had hit his system. He was highly sedated, floating in a hazy, lethargic state, his breathing slowing to a deep, rhythmic pull.
"It's time," Alyssa breathed. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Jade slid back behind the counter, clutching two empty cans of body spray, completely out of breath.
"Jade, pin his legs," Alyssa commanded. "Put your entire body weight over his shins. Do not let him kick."
Jade nodded, immediately dropping her knees over Caleb's legs and locking her arms around his calves.
"Eleanor, you have his left arm and his shoulder," Alyssa continued. "Pin him to the floor."
Eleanor leaned heavily over Caleb, pressing her forearms down against his collarbone, using every ounce of her body weight to anchor him.
"Lila, I need you on his head, and I need him gagged," Alyssa said. "If he screams, the things outside will hear it over the perfume. But you have to make sure his airway is completely clear. Do not block his nose. If he aspirates on his own saliva, he'll choke."
Lila pulled off the thick, dark grey scarf she was wearing around her neck. She folded it tightly into a thick, bite-proof pad. She moved behind Caleb, straddling his head. She gently pried his jaw open. Caleb moaned weakly, trying to turn his head, but Lila forced the thick pad of fabric between his teeth.
"Bite down, Caleb," Lila whispered fiercely, locking her hands on either side of his jaw, holding his head entirely rigid. "Bite down hard."
Alyssa positioned herself over Caleb's ruined right arm. She picked up the cracked brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide. She grabbed the tiny, threaded needle.
Eleanor leaned in closer, squinting at the horrifying mess of grey and red meat inside the deep laceration. "Can you see the bleeder? Why don't you just tie it now?"
"I can't see it," Alyssa whispered, her stomach violently turning. "When an artery is completely severed, it acts like a rubber band. It snaps back and retreats deep into the surrounding muscle. And because the shoelace is cutting off the pressure, the artery is completely empty. It's crushed flat."
Eleanor stared at her, horrified realization dawning. "Then how do you find it?"
"I have to make him bleed," Alyssa said, her voice shaking. "I have to loosen the tourniquet and let it spurt, so I can see exactly where the severed end is hiding."
It was a terrifying, horrific catch-22. To stop the bleeding, she had to intentionally cause it.
"Here we go," Alyssa whispered, mostly to herself.
She reached up with her left hand and gripped the knot of the bloody shoelace tied tightly above his elbow.
She pulled it loose.
The release of pressure was instantaneous.
A horrifying, dark red surge of arterial blood pulsed rapidly out of the deep, jagged wedge in his forearm. It wasn't a slow leak; it was a rhythmic, terrifying spurt that perfectly matched the frantic beating of his heart.
One, two, three. The blood spilled over his skin, pooling rapidly on the linoleum.
"There it is!" Alyssa gasped, the sheer volume of blood threatening to send her back into a panic.
She unscrewed the cap of the peroxide and dumped a massive, splashing wave of the chemical directly into the open, bone-deep wound.
Caleb's entire body violently erupted off the floor.
The pain was beyond human comprehension. The peroxide hit the dying tissue and the raw, exposed nerves, instantly foaming up in a horrific, sizzling white froth. The chemical burn was astronomical.
Caleb let out a muffled, agonizing shriek into the scarf. His spine arched so hard his back lifted completely off the linoleum. Jade was nearly thrown off his legs, her boots slipping in the syrup as he violently kicked against her grip. Eleanor gritted her teeth, tears springing to her eyes as she threw her entire upper body over his left arm, desperately holding him down. Lila clamped her hands brutally over his jaw, burying his face against her own knees to completely muffle the sound.
"Hold him!" Alyssa yelled in a harsh, panicked whisper.
The foaming peroxide had done its job. It had bubbled the dirt, the debris, and the excess blood out of the wound cavity.
Alyssa grabbed a wad of gauze and aggressively wiped the bubbling froth away, exposing the raw, pink muscle underneath.
There it was.
The severed end of the radial artery was retreating into the muscle, pulsing frantically, dumping blood into the cavity.
Alyssa didn't have forceps. She didn't have surgical clamps. She had to use her fingers.
She jammed her bare, bloody thumb and forefinger directly into the open wound, digging deep into the slick, wet muscle tissue of Caleb's arm.
Caleb convulsed again, a strangled, animalistic sound vibrating through Lila's hands. His eyes rolled wildly in the dark, the sheer, blinding agony threatening to push him right back into unconsciousness.
Alyssa pinched the slippery, rubbery tube of the artery between her fingers, pulling it up slightly from the muscle bed.
"Got it," she breathed, her hands shaking so violently she could barely hold the tiny needle.
She drove the silver needle directly into the raw tissue right beside the artery, pulling the cheap cotton thread through. The blood was making everything impossible. The needle slipped against her fingers. The thread soaked through, becoming heavy and wet.
Think of Marisol, a dark voice whispered in her head. Don't let him bleed.
Alyssa gritted her teeth, ignoring the horrific texture of the human meat beneath her hands. She looped the thread around the severed artery, pulling it tight.
She tied the first knot.
She tied a second.
She tied a third, pulling the thread so brutally tight she felt it bite into her own skin.
She grabbed the tiny plastic scissors and snipped the excess thread.
"I'm releasing the pinch," Alyssa warned, her voice breathless.
She slowly opened her thumb and forefinger, letting go of the artery.
The three women pinning Caleb to the floor stopped breathing.
The tied-off artery sat in the wound bed. It pulsed once. Twice.
It didn't leak. The knot held.
A massive, staggering wave of relief crashed over Alyssa, so heavy she physically slumped forward. She didn't have time to stitch the skin, so she packed the remaining clean gauze tightly into the massive wound cavity. She grabbed a roll of the useless paper tape, wrapping it over and over the arm, pulling it as brutally tight as she could to create a crude pressure dressing and force the jagged edges of the skin together.
Caleb went completely limp against the floor, finally surrendering to the dark, passing out from the blinding, overwhelming pain.
Alyssa dropped the bloody travel kit into the dirt. She sat back on her heels, staring at her blood-soaked hands. She was trembling uncontrollably, her chest heaving as she pulled ragged, desperate pulls of the heavily perfumed air into her burning lungs.
Lila slowly released Caleb's head, pulling the soaked scarf from between his teeth. She gently rested his head back onto the linoleum, her own hands shaking now that the adrenaline was fading.
Eleanor let out a long, shaky sigh, pushing herself up off Caleb's arm. She reached over and gently patted Alyssa's knee, her hands completely covered in the young man's blood.
"You did good, honey," Eleanor whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "You did so good."
Alyssa couldn't speak. She just pulled her knees to her chest, burying her bloody face in her arms, and wept silently in the dark.
She hadn't saved Marisol. But today, on a filthy floor in a dead city, she had finally stopped the bleeding.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 11:47 AM
Countdown to Extraction: 62 Hours, 54 Minutes Remaining