Chapter Text
Art by winter-iris13
Failure weighed heavy on Carlos’ shoulders.
Fighting fires was the one skill he could proudly claim. For almost a decade now he’d been involved in the trade, battling blazes across the country and taming infernal beasts. Years spent rising the ranks of the state fire department culminated in a life dedicated to his job and providing for his younger sister, Maria. And when she fell ill and the bills began piling up, his career pivoted into something more… lucrative.
The past two months had been spent in the middle of nowhere, Nevada. A group of various corporations with warehouses scattered across the Mojave desert contracted Carlos to act as a one man firefighting crew in case of emergency, giving him a modest house a least half an hour away from civilization and a firetruck for good measure. It was obvious no one expected him to actually be useful - a fact that led to days of boredom that only the extremely generous paycheque could soothe.
As cliche as it was, that day began the same as many days before it. Carlos woke up with the sun, went for a jog, then waited by his monitor for any alarm that may sound. Nothing came. He exercised, read books, and watched television in the meantime. Another boring day, another hard-earned dollar. It was only when he opened a window to let the cool dusk breeze in did he notice it: smoke. Acrid, burning smoke.
He was in the firetruck before he knew it.
Like a bloodhound with a scent, he followed the trail of black smoke in the air. At the end of the blackened rainbow was a warehouse nestled within a pseudo-valley, up in flames. Fire burned at the large, blocky structure; streams of faceless people rushed out of all exits.
Carlos’ body reacted before his mind processed the sight. He pressed down on the acceleration pedal as hard as he possibly could, only to break a second later as a car suddenly climbed up from the valley and swerved in his path. Men in suits got out and motioned for him to do the same. Only the threat of the guns visibly holstered at their waists made him comply. Confronting them was a whole other situation: no matter how much he begged, Carlos couldn’t get through to him that it was literally his job to put out fires. The men refused, going so far as to aim their guns at him when he tried to push past one of them. Only then did he take the hint and leave.
A failure, Carlos knew he was. He’d been turned away from fires before, been told to leave and never come back. Not once had that stopped him in the past. It didn’t matter where it was - an apartment, a school, an abandoned warehouse turned drug lab (which had thankfully only occurred once), he persevered and put out the flames to the best of his ability. But now…
Now, Carlos drove back to the house, shame pressing down on his shoulders. His mind was completely preoccupied with the odd turn of events. The trail of smoke in his rear-view mirror was a damning reminder. Strange, it all was.
While the drive back wasn’t too long, the sky quickly turned into dusky indigo hues as the sun languidly sunk beneath the rocky land. There was much to do once he arrived back, Carlos realised. He’d need to update his bosses on what had occurred, on why he wasn’t able to do his job, the very thing they had chosen him for. Anxiety gnawed at his stomach; he barely noticed arriving back at the house and parking the truck in its designated garage space. His legs felt like lead as he hopped out of the truck and closed up the garage.
What the hell just happened, was the question repeating over and over again in his mind. He’d been… threatened. Prevented from fighting a fire. None of it made sense. Carlos grabbed the handle to the front door, and stopped.
Something isn’t right.
Slowly, he turned around, only then paying attention to his surroundings. What greeted him was an endless expanse of desert, sand and dirt with the occasional scrub-land going as far as he could see. And then–
He saw them in the distance.
With the harsh Nevada sun bleeding slowly below the horizon, Carlos could’ve sworn they were a mirage. A trick of the light, maybe. It happened more often than one would think - the desolate landscape paired with a complete lack of human presence for miles on end made the mind wander, Carlos had learned over the past months. Normally he’d dismiss it, but…
Something gnawed at the back of his mind. Something dull and achy and longing for a feeling he couldn’t quite place. It was the same feeling deep inside that he got every time he entered a burning building. The shifting probabilities, a gut instinct; it all amounted to his body inexplicably moving towards the right path. Of course, the only other path was death.
In a split-second decision, Carlos ran. Was he going crazy, chasing a mirage? Maybe. But as he sprinted closer and closer, the blurry figures sharpened into something real.
Two people.
A boy… and a girl.
He’d hesitate to call them anything but; their faces, despite harrowed, grew youthful the closer he got. Even in the dusky light, Carlos could make out dirty, torn clothing hanging off their frames. Ash seemed to cake their skin. The boy, he thinks, hobbled only with the support of the girl. His left leg, Carlos noticed, was burnt raw from heel to knee.
Adrenaline shot through his veins. These people, whoever they were, needed help. His help. With renewed vigour, he ran faster.
“Hey!” Carlos yelled, hoping to get their attention as he closed the distance between them. Scrambling up a sand dune put them at barely ten meters away. “Are you okay?! I’m here to help!”
They both freeze. The girl made an aborted motion to grab at her wrist where a bulky watch hung untouched, while the boy’s hands shoot to his throat. Now that Carlos was closer, he saw some sort of metallic… choker-thing around the boy’s neck.
For an agonizing moment, neither him nor the people move. Not until–
They bolt. But Carlos was faster.
Years of practice allow his body to move in the blink of an eye. Carlos took off into a sprint. “W-Wait! Hold up! I–”
Sand crunched beneath his feet as he quickly began narrowing the gap between them even despite their frantic escape. Ten meters. Seven. Five. And at three–
The girl’s legs crumpled beneath her, bringing the boy down with her. She hit the sandy ground with a heavy thump, her body still, unmoving. Daring to take another step forwards, Carlos watched as the boy scrambled to his knees in front of her, lips drawn in a snarl as if he were a rabid dog on its last legs. The sight was nothing short of pitiful. Carlos skidded to a halt, raising his palms in a (hopefully) placating manner.
“Hey, hey. There’s no need to worry. I’m a fireman. I was-”
“Stay away!” The boy growled, voice hoarse as if he’d spent the last day screaming - or in a fire. His eyes fluttered side-to-side, an action so cornered, so pathetic, that it made Carlos’ chest ache. Only then did he realise that the girl hadn’t moved since falling even though her face was pressed into the scorching Nevada sand.
An idea struck Carlos.
“You need medical attention - both of you! She isn’t going to last long in the night!”
Even with the last embers of sunlight clutching on by barely a thread, the desert remained impossibly dry. For the past six months Carlos saw the extremes that Nevada brought with it, namely the almost-instant switch from scorching to frigid the moment darkness fell.
The boy kept up his snarl, but said nothing. Carlos took that as a sign to continue, “I can help save her.”
With a leg half-burned and ribs visible from what a threadbare shirt exposed, only a burning loyalty could force someone to put aside their injuries and protect another. He knew that the way to get through to the boy was with his companion and yet, even as the boy wobbled, teetering dangerously close to falling over, he refused to stand down.
If it were any other circumstance, Carlos would’ve admired his persistence in the face of pain. Yet somehow he knew that the girl wouldn’t survive out in the desert for much longer. The boy, too.
A passing windchill sent Carlos shivering. “Please,” he begged. “Trust me. I mean no harm.”
A second passed. Then two. Then–
“Help… her…”
Carlos rushed forwards the moment the feeble croak left the boy’s lips, practically throwing himself down at her side. A quick check of her skinny wrists confirmed she had a pulse. Weak and slow, but there. Her chest rose and fell, if too alarmingly sluggish. Something… something was seriously wrong. Carlos wracked his brain for years of content he’d been forced to study in first aid courses.
Unconscious, he checked, not responsive to voice or pain. Haemorrhage. No sign of major bleeding. Aside from shallow cuts around her extremities, he couldn’t see anything of great concern. Airways, clear. Breathing, not so good. Luckily no cyanosis nor arrhythmic pulse from what he could tell, but the crackling of her breath was a sound Carlos knew all too well. Paired with the remnants of smoke around her lips, it was painfully obvious where she’d come from.
It still made no sense.
“Do you know where she’s been hurt?” Carlos asked as he maneuvered his legs on either side of the girl’s head. The last thing he wanted was to aggravate any neck injuries she may have. From the corner of his eyes, he watched the boy scratch at his head, messy tangles of purple-brown strands obscuring his eyes.
“I… we were injected… Soporil…” the boy rasped out. “Kanny… her stomach… hurt…”
The words kicked Carlos’ brain into overdrive. With methodical urgency he lifted her shirt, fingertips grazing flesh. Greeting him was black and blue. Burst capillaries bloomed a supernovae of bruises stretching across her abdomen, a sickening watercolour artwork of agony. In his entire career, Carlos had seldom witnessed such a level of bruising concentrated in such a small area. When he examined closer, he could’ve sworn that the bruises took on a familiar shape. A boot? Or a–
Focus. Now was not the time.
He pulled her shirt back down. “She’s, uh, Kanny, was it? She most likely has a broken rib. A couple, given the extent of the bruising.” Among other things, he purposefully omitted. “How about I get you two to a hospital and-”
The boy suddenly surged forwards. Carlos has no time to react before he was pushed away from the girl and sent sprawling into the sand, thoroughly stunned.
“No hospitals!” The boy shouted, his eyes wide in a panicked craze.
Fuck. While the impact of the fall wasn’t anything harsh, the sheer desperation in his voice left Carlos breathless. The temperature around them seemed to drop, both from tension and the looming moon above.
Slowly, Carlos clambered back onto his knees and raised his palms up once more. “No hospitals,” he echoed. If hospitals were off the table, then that left… “Come back to my place. I know first aid and have medical supplies. I can treat both of you there.”
The boy hesitated. His bright brown eyes, almost crimson in the rays of the moon, flickered back and forth from Carlos to his fallen friend. Carlos couldn’t even begin to imagine what was going on through his head. Eventually, the boy’s shoulders slumped. “You… live alone?”
He nodded. “All alone. I know it may look like a big house but trust me - no one’s there. It’s… it’s just me.”
No parents. No Maria.
No one.
The boy turned away, gaze hidden once again by his bangs. For not a single second did he let down his guard; Carlos’ neck prickled at the feeling of being watched.
“Fine,” the boy said. “One… one night.”
Not likely, Carlos thought. “One night. Just, please, let me help you.”
Something in his words fully drained the boy of his strength. He sunk to the ground, body shaking. Sand and detritus coated the exposed flesh, digging into the fresh burn wounds. Now that he had the chance to really look, Carlos noticed blood matted in the boy’s hair; wet patches clung stubbornly together. It wasn’t the sunset making the boy’s eyes look red but a burst blood vessel.
Just what had he gotten himself into?
─ 𓍤 ─
Even though they were at most a quarter-mile from Carlos’ house, the trek back took the better part of an hour.
Concern for ‘Kanny’s’ neck overrode any need for speed - in both a metaphorical and literal way. Carlos carried her in the best way he knew how to - a classic fireman’s hold - while the boy practically hung off of his shoulder. He walked only as fast as the boy could limp, not wanting to further stress his injuries.
Despite his previous ferocity, the boy kept his mouth firmly shut the moment Carlos took his companion. His eyes never seemed to leave her throughout the entire journey. It would’ve been sweet, if the sheer intensity of his gaze made the boy look crazed. But Carlos had other, more pressing, things to worry about. Namely getting both of them back safely. By the time they eventually arrived at his front door, whatever remained of the sunlight had long-since faded, leaving them draped in an almost pitch-black.
Not wanting to jostle the girl (or make the boy walk up any stairs with his charred leg), Carlos carefully maneuvered her body through the entrance into the living room, laying her down on the couch with as much care as he could. Once her body was released from his grasp, he helped settle the boy down on an adjacent chair. With a muttered “Wait here,” he darted off to the bathroom, grabbed his first-aid kit, and hurried back as fast as he could. When he returned, Carlos was greeted with the sight of the boy slumped over the arm of the couch, almost completely still save for the rise and fall of his chest.
Well, that solves one thing. Carlos couldn’t help but be relieved - with the boy asleep, treating them would be a lot easier. Let’s do this, then.
As carefully as he could manage, he spent the next couple hours inspecting the two people. He started with the girl, slowly stripping the thin layer of fabric off of her so that he could properly assess the damage. Looking past the myriad of bruises he’d seen before, she had a decent number of patches of raw skin littering her legs and arms; not blistered in any significant way but obviously touched by fire. At that, Carlos winced; he had his fair share of burns over the years. What little skin that wasn’t mottled by bruises or scorched was covered in a thin layer of soot.
Carlos quickly left and returned with a bucket full of water and a tea towel. This is gonna be a long night, isn’t it?
Wetting the towel, he began the arduous process of cleaning her skin, being careful not to aggravate any wounds. After he’d finished each section, he applied a thin layer of burn ointment over the raw skin. Even while unconscious, her breaths came out in wheezes. Smoke inhalation, obviously, though if she survived thus far she most likely wasn’t in urgent need of oxygen. He’d have to keep an eye on her just in case her condition changed. The last thing he wanted was a hypoxic girl on his hands. It’d do more harm than good to bandage any of the burns, he thought, so left her mostly bare as he turned his attention to the boy.
He was a whole other hurdle, Carlos quickly realised. The boy had fallen asleep with his arms crossed over his torso, making any attempts at removing his shirt impossible. The real issue was his pants - upon closer inspection, the fabric had melted into the burns on his leg. Skin fused with burned polyester in a sickening amalgamation. Carlos scrunched up his nose. Removing his pants would be nigh impossible without aggravating the wound. But it was the only option.
Luckily, he was equipped for what was to come.
It wasn’t the first time he’d experienced a situation like this. As a firefighter, he’d seen some of the most gruesome scenes humanity had to offer. A pair of fabric scissors was stashed away in his first aid kit for precisely this reason.
Please don’t wake up, Carlos prayed, and then began cutting away at the boy’s pants.
He first severed the pant’s leg just beneath the hip, then cut away some scraps hanging on by the foot. Under the artificial light, the boy’s leg gleamed red and angry. From the looks of it, the boy’s leg had gotten caught in the blaze. The sheer surface area affected but lack of depth to the wounds seemed to indicate it was in some sort of short-lasting, one-and-done event. A blast, maybe? Or even a flash fire? None of which made any sense, but Carlos kept theorising as he cut off more and more fabric. He used the towel to dampen off any bits of stubborn fabric, and picked out the melted parts with some tweezers. At first he was terrified that the boy would wake up, though the boy did not so much as to stir. Only the occasional moan and involuntary twitch interrupted his otherwise peaceful slumber.
Time passed like molasses. The only time Carlos stepped away from his patients was to replace the dirty water in the bucket with something fresh. The sheer amount of soot caked onto these people’s bodies was staggering; it took what he thought was an hour to simply work out the clumps of congealed blood and miscellaneous grime from the girl’s hair. He switched back and forth every so often, making sure not to turn his attention away from one person for too long.
Once all visible burns had been sufficiently oiled up (and a whole bottle of burn cream finished), Carlos took a step back from his work. What greeted him was two sleeping people - kids? - no longer covered head-to-toe with ash. He couldn’t make out the fine lines of their features underneath the dim lighting, though they seemed to be younger than him. A fair deal younger.
God, they looked like Maria. So young, so tired. Carlos aborted that line of thinking before the echoes of loneliness could overtake him. How long had it been since he’d seen Maria smile? How long since she’d been able to walk around, to play and be free and–
Enough. Now wasn’t the time to think about that. Carlos shook his head and took a seat on the remaining lounge chair. For now, his guests were stable. They both slept like rocks, never waking up during his treatment. Now even when he’d popped upstairs to grab some spare clothes and redressed them. Whatever had happened before he found them, it was enough to make them sleep through pain.
A sigh left Carlos’ lips. His body sunk deeper into the cushions, weighed down by a disrupted circadian rhythm. Maybe if he closed his eyes, just for one second, then everything would be alright. He needed to stay awake just in case, but…
But…
Carlos let sleep overtake him.
[You] never remember your dreams.
They’re always action-packed and thrilling - that much you can recall as you wake up with eyes wide and heart thumping. You’re sweaty, too, but the other kids in school say that’s normal. Your parents ignore your questions so you take their word for it. They also claim to have awesome dreams, but you can’t relate. By the time your mind is fully awake, the finer details slip through your fingers like sand in an hourglass.
Tonight is different.
Tonight, you dream of a scary explosion and a sinking ship. There’s flashes of scenes, tiny snapshots tinged red with fear, unfamiliar kids, and confusing puzzles. It doesn’t make much sense to you - not that dreams normally do. The images grow clearer as the night goes on. You start seeing individual numbers painted on doors and feel the air around you grow impossibly hot. You’re scared. Both of you.
And then your world explodes into colour. There’s a scream of your name, a familiar, terrified Jumpy! Help me! Please!
You scramble from your bed as fast as possible. A page is ripped from the closest book you can find, and a crayon swiped from your bedside table. Your hand flies across the page as you recreate the grid burned behind your eyes.
I’m here, Kanny! You scream. You don’t question how she hears you. It’s a dream, after all.
Kanny’s scared and panicking and you feel all of her emotions as if they were your own. She’s crying, her tears blurring the screen, but it doesn’t matter,
You're not the smartest, nor the sharpest tool in the shed according to the school report your parents accidentally left out last year, but you’re fast with numbers. Really fast. Fast enough to solve the easy sudoku puzzle that's invading your vision and guide Kanny through the steps in solving it herself.
As the last number is inputted, you feel her collapse to her knees. She sobs louder than ever. Thank you, Jumpy, she cries, you saved me, you–
The connection abruptly ends. You jolt awake.
You’re sprawled across the floor, dazed and confused and groggy from memories that don’t make sense. For the first time you remember everything that happened. Even though there’s a sheet of paper gripped in your hands, you think it’s another dream. A scary one. As you climb back into bed, you try your hardest to not forget it so that you can tell Kanny all about it in school tomorrow. Maybe she’ll find it interesting - she loves puzzles.
What you don’t know then is that you’ll never get to tell her. Not at school. She doesn’t show up the next day. Or the next. And then you wake up to white smoke filling your room and a gas mask looming overhead and–
It wasn’t a dream.