The Fourth Day

Mamoru clumsily stumbled off his bike, falling flat on his face.  He was still half asleep, even after accidentally sleeping two hours later than he was supposed to.  After not getting more than an hour of rest for two days, he had finally been able to pass out last night, primarily due to absolute physical and mental exhaustion.  However, he had slept through his alarm and was already two hours late to his hospital shift. After throwing on his clothes, he had quite literally jumped onto his bicycle and sped off toward the hospital ten minutes away, ignoring the dreary numbness that hung in the air like a haze for the fourth day in the row.  He didn’t stop until he pulled up at the bike rack outside, not even bothering to chain it up. Instead, he tripped on the right pedal and landed on his nose with a loud crunch. As he turned over and lay on his back, he tasted the blood trickling down his nose into his mouth. He didn’t feel the pain; as he stared at the grey overcast above him, numbness flooded his face.  He briefly closed his eyes as the faces flashed in his mind - faces covered in blisters and burns, half-melted faces of children, faces not even recognizable as human anymore. There are worse things than a broken nose, and Mamoru needed to face them. He slowly got to his feet, shook himself off sluggishly, and walked inside.

After signing in, Mamoru walked up the five flights of stairs to the emergency wing of the hospital.  He could hear the agonizing screams from the second floor, and the further he climbed, he more he felt he was descending into hell.  He finally reached the fifth floor, took a deep breath, and opened the doors as the souls of the damned greeted him with shrieks and blood-curdling cries for the end.  Hiroshima victims filled almost every square inch of the wing, giving nurses and doctors barely any room to run back and forth. Men, women, and children lay dying on beds and stretchers, burned and mutilated to the point where some looked more like reptiles than humans.  Many of them were screaming demonically, others were gasping for air like they were drowning. Most, however, were laying still and silent, too weak and broken to make a sound.

One of the nurses ran up to Mamoru and told him he was needed with a fairly-conscious patient.  She led him through the sea of dying victims, at one point almost knocking over a stretcher with a man whose skull was showing through his melted face.  He tried to reach out to Mamoru, but his hand fell limp off the stretcher. Mamoru looked towards his remaining eye, which stared lifelessly at nothing. Mamoru should have been used to this by now, but he still had to choke back a sob.  No matter how many hundreds of people he had watched die over the past three days, he could never get used to that. The effects of whatever bomb hit Hiroshima were beyond anything he was mentally prepared to endure in this profession, and over the course of only 72 hours, he felt as if he’d aged 30 years.

When they reached the patient Mamoru was supposed to operate on, a small group of doctors and nurses were gathered around him.  Mamoru squeezed through the crowd to get a look at the patient. He was less burned than others, and didn’t seem to be blind like a majority of other victims.  He was still in very bad shape - his face and arms were covered with blisters, and his breathing was shallow and raspy. Still, he was able to speak softly, and was whispering into the ear of another doctor, who’s face was as white as marble.  After a few moments, the doctor leaned up and managed to stutter out, “He says that the bomb began as a huge flash of light, followed by a giant fireball in the shape of a mushroom. Then, a loud explosion sound and a powerful hit his building, collapsing one side of it.  He doesn’t remember anything after that.” Mamoru’s attention to the doctor faded when thought he heard the sound of a plane outside. He briefly panicked and thought it was another bombing run, but quickly pulled himself together. He had work to do, and being paranoid wouldn’t help any of that.

Mamoru leaned in close to the patient.  “Sir, do you remember anything else about what happened?  Anything at all?” The patient looked at him, his eyes suddenly full of fear.  He tried to say something, but over the chaos throughout the rest of the floor, Mamoru couldn’t hear him.  “Sir, I can’t hear you, repeat that please,” he said, leaning in closer. He heard the plane again.

“The noise…” croaked the patient, now trembling.  He looked hysterical. “Not again…”

“What is he talking about?” Mamoru turned to the other doctors, but they all looked as confused as he was.  He turned back to the patient, who was now shaking violently and holding his hands to his ears. “Sir, please listen to me,” he said as gently but urgently as possible.  He reached for the man’s wrist to pull his hand away. “What noise? What do you mean-”

A light as bright as a thousand suns suddenly burst into the room, blinding all of them.  A few doctors and nurses screamed, a few fell to the ground. The patient whimpered weakly.  Mamoru looked toward the light, and he felt his retina’s instantly fry. He put his hands to his face and collapsed to the ground, screaming in pure agony.  The world around him seemed to be falling apart as he heard people running away and tripping over tables, stretchers, beds, and each other. As Mamoru tried to push himself up, a deafening blast shook the very core of his body.  Glass broke around him, and he felt the entire building tremble and crack. The hospital floor suddenly exploded, and Mamoru felt himself fly far from the floor before falling. He fell and fell, but the ground never came.

Written in during the autumn of 2017