Upon Opening the door Mira nearly collided with a tall figure standing as rigid as a statue in the corridor.
It was a female lieutenant, her face a mask of disciplined exhaustion. Her olive-drab uniform was crisp, though a thick layer of medical gauze was wrapped around her left hand, stained with a faint, yellowish fluid. A standard-issue sidearm was holstered at her hip.
Mira was taken aback for a while as she stumbled back,she blankly stared at the woman who hadn't blinked all the while and then her eyes moved to the crested name on the uniform which read ' Lieutenant Ria' ,she had heard that name before,this lady was obviously under Alex's unit.
" W,where's Alex , where am I,and what's going on " Mira suddenly blurted out in one go in her tiny voice
" please come with me miss " she simply replied before she turned and began walking like a terminator.
Mira's mind at that time was filled with only thoughts of seeing Alex and so she simply followed behind in anticipation holding his jacket close to her chest not even minding the fact that she was barefooted and putting on only a long sleeve shirt that barely reached her knees.
As they walked through the dimly lit passage way,Mira's heart was pounding really fast,she knew something bad had happened,she was sure of it but at the same time,she knew Alex was safe,she could feel it and as long as Alex was fine, everything was gonna be okay.
After a minute of walking through the narrow passage way, Mira's eyes soon widened with hope as soon as she saw the bright light ahead of them alongside with fully armed soldiers who stood like machines, their eyes scanning the down area like CCTV cameras
' What!!!!!, could there be war? or did the military have an emergency? ' she wondered
As they approached,Mira had to dim her eyes a bit because the lights were so much and so bright too that it felt like it was gonna affect her eyes however,upon arriving there Mira's face carved into confusion as her brows creased.
' where on earth was this place'?
Mira however didn't have enough time to think more about the place because her half closed eyes were soon forced wide open as soon as she looked down and sighted the scene before her,they had surprisingly appeared at the uppermost floor of what looked like a military recruit center with a down hall as big as an airplane hangar,it's high ceilings vaulting over them looking like a menacing sky but that wasn't what shocked Mira at all!!!.
What appeared to have shocked her as she looked down into a wide atrium was the floor that had been carpeted with people—hundreds of them. They were huddled together in a terrifying, communal silence. Mira saw a woman clutching a child so tightly her knuckles were white. The child was bleeding from a jagged gash on his shoulder, his face twisted in a silent scream, but his mother held her hand firmly over his mouth.
Mira also saw a man lying nearby, his legs missing from the knee down, cauterized by something that had melted the flesh. He was biting down on a piece of leather, tears streaming silently down his face, his body shaking in rhythmic agony.
No one cried. No one spoke. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood and the sour stench of unwashed fear.was the dangerous and staggering amount of people huddled together on the floor like refugees,their faces wet with tears and majority of them smeared with blood as though they had been to war, women and children clutching at each other in fear,sobbing silently, while the men with haunted defeated expressions..
At this point, Mira stood dead, her eyes had gone all wide, almost popping out of their sockets as she watched the scene before her,it was like a petrifying dream that she needed to be woken up from,Mira could even swear that she saw a man's arm looking like what had been bitten off.
With the sight before her, the only thing Mira's numb brain could make out was that ' there was trouble ' because these people looked like they were over a thousand or so, majority of them covered in blood with solemn faces,most of them sitting whilst others squatting.
And also what looked like the entire country's Military force had surrounded everywhere,all floors and all corners like a fathom,their faces looking stern and harsh as they stood motionless holding their rifles tightly in their hands,eyes scanning everywhere for any sign of danger.
And what made it even more strange was that the entire hall despite full,rowdy and almost congested was surprisingly quiet,asides from quiet sobs and painful wimps, nothing else could be heard,it was as though they were all scared to make a sound, even crying out their pains seemed impossible
' What exactly was going on ' !!!!!!
Mira continued to stare at the scene before her,at the people as they exchanged worried glances and whispered fears,each one of them praying for their fate, bloodied bandages and makeshift adorning many of their bodies,a testament to the horrific events that had brought them here.
The jacket in Mira's hands had long fallen off in shock as she turned to look at the female soldier in question,in shock,in disbelief,her face contorting into a mask of horror as she struggled to process what exactly was going on.
Lieutenant Ria as well also had a solemn look on her face as she stared at her heavily bandaged left hand.
With the whole situation that had happened within the last 24hours,if anyone had told her she'd still be alive by now,she wouldn't have believed. it was a narrow death experience for them all,it was what they had watched In movies, what they couldn't believe could happen and now only a miracle could change their lives