2 The Race Against the Clock
When I heard these words, I was immediately reassured.
"So? Admit you were afraid Yùichi?" Questioned the silhouette with his hoarse and dry voice.
"AH, AH, AH, it was super funny" I answered ironically.
This huge figure that had just spoken to me was none other than my father: Angelo.
| Angelo - Presentation |
- Sex: Male.
- Name : MATO Angelo.
- Age: 42 years, born on (Unknown).
- Height : 1,94 mètre.
- Weight : 95 Kg.
- Hair / Colours / Hair cut short on the sides and a little longer in front, white colour.
- Eyes colour : Amber.
- Physical Characteristics : Muscular and robust (a lumberjack physique).
- Clothes: A red half-open shirt with three buttons from the top, black construction trousers that are damaged all over around the knees.
- Strength: Able to lift trees weighing just over 150kg.
- Abilities: (Unknown).
"It's no use pretending, I've seen you get scared.
I hate it when he is right:
"Well yes, okay, it's true that you surprised me a little bit".
"Just a little?" he asks again.
"Well, do you need help or not? I answered, to change the subject.
After my question, he immediately changed the subject and asked me to go and help my brother who had gone to cut wood in the forest.
I answered him very surprised:
"He still hasn't finished? He left this morning at 9 o'clock, he has been cutting wood for more than two hours?
"Yes, but he's probably struggling to move them in the woods. He answered me instantly.
With my axe in hand, I walked into the woods for a few yards before I realized that I had no idea where he was.
I glanced behind me to see if my father was still there, but all I saw were trees.
So I decided to continue to go deeper into the dark and gloomy forest while looking for my brother, I looked for him for a few minutes, but there was no trace of him.
So I had the idea to call him to see if he could hear me and he answered me:
"NATH!!! NATH!!! WHERE ARE YOU? I'M COMING TO HELP YOU!
But I didn't hear any answer.
So I head to my right, because that's where he goes most of the time.
I kept calling him while walking for about ten minutes, but without any success.
I decided to turn back while continuing to call him, as he must have taken another route home.
It was after about five minutes that I finally heard an answer, it was my brother calling me, I recognized his voice, but I was unable to understand what he was saying.
"YELL LOUDER!!!" I asked him.
As I continued to get closer to the sounds, I finally managed to understand what he was saying.
"QUICKLY... I, ... I," he tried to tell me.
Having roughly understood what he meant, I moved as fast as I could towards him.
I had to run for almost 200 meters to finally find him, both legs fallen in a hole.
| Nath - Presentation |
- Sex: Male.
- Name : MATO Nath.
- Age: 12 years, born on (Unknown).
- Height : 1,58 meter.
- Weight : 47 Kg.
- Hair / Colours / Medium-length white hair, going down to his shoulders, tied with an elastic forming a bun above his head.
- Eye Colour : Amber.
- Physique : Rather muscular for a boy of his age.
- Clothes: A dark blue t-shirt, black shorts with a damaged thigh and brown shoes full of dirt.
- Strength: (Unknown).
- Abilities: (Unknown).
I then asked him ironically:
"What are you doing in there? Are you burrowing?"
But he replied in a panic and writhing in pain:
"Please help me quickly, I'm stuck under the branch, my knee will break!
I looked at him a second time and saw what he really had, his leg fell into a hole and was held by the corner of a rock, on the back of his thigh, on the other side of the kneecap. And at the same time, a tree trunk was pressing on the leg exactly opposite the rock.
So his leg gets crushed by the rock and the tree. But that's not all, the tree was putting weight on the knee and the corner of the rock was sharp, so the rock was piercing his leg, and at a glance I would say that six or seven centimetres had already gone into his thigh.
But in my opinion, what was worse was the pain and fear my brother must have felt at that moment: he was alone, unable to lift the piece of wood, and he couldn't move. And I don't even know how long he was stuck in that position, probably for several minutes.
After thinking very quickly about how to remove all this, with as little pain as possible, I began my work.
"Don't move, I'm going to remove the trunk above your leg, you'll be in pain, but don't move at all. This is what I had just explained to him.
He nodded as best he could.
I moved closer to the log and lifted it and noticed that it was not as heavy as it looked. I took him in my arms and pulled him away from my brother, at the same time he writhed in pain, for a branch I had not seen had cut open the right side of his thigh.
A spurt of blood came out of his leg at the same time and sprayed down my body, from my legs to my torso.
Instantly, I tore off part of my shirt and wrapped it around his leg and the wound to prevent as much blood as possible from flowing out.
He screamed in pain as I began to press the cloth against his wound.
I then described to him what I was going to do to get him to our house:
"Well, all that's left is for your leg to be removed from the stone. To do this, I'm going to lift your leg with a sharp blow and I'll try to make a tourniquet with the rest of my shirt. Then I'll carry you on my back to the house so you can be treated. Are you ready? Because this is going to hurt!
He answered me as best he could:
"Yes... As you wish... Hurry up..."
After hearing this, I grabbed his leg and lifted it off the stone with one blow.
A rush of blood, came out of his leg as he screamed in pain, the accumulation of blood, smell and noise almost made me wince, but I managed to pull myself together thinking of my brother's endless pain.
I used the rest of my shirt to make something that looked like a tourniquet. What I had made seemed to hold, held his leg in place and just about stopped the blood that was still flowing. I put it on my back and set off for our house.
From the time it had taken me to walk the distance to find him, I deduced that we had a little over ten minutes to walk, but with a wounded man on my back, it would be a good twenty minutes.
But considering the speed at which he is losing blood, it will be a miracle if he doesn't lose consciousness because of his blood loss, especially in the conditions in which I bandaged him, as proof, the T-shirt I lent him, less than a minute ago, was already bloody red.
To get home as quickly as possible and avoid him losing too much blood, I decided to speed up the pace.
Almost ten minutes have passed and his condition is starting to deteriorate, so much so that he has already lost consciousness and the blood is starting to be sponged by the shirt and is starting to slide against my clothes. And considering where we are, I'm sure we have about ten minutes before we finally get there.
The last ten minutes had only made Nath's condition worse, her breath was starting to become ragged, her wound didn't seem to want to cauterize, so the blood continued to flow so much that her skin around her tourniquet was starting to turn purple.
I was finally beginning to see the way out of the woods when suddenly a familiar voice startled me and I stumbled to the ground. To catch myself, I unconsciously let go of Nath as we fell. I managed to catch myself on my hands, I barely had time to turn my head in her direction when I heard her body hit the ground. Luckily his back hit the ground first and cushioned the shock as his leg landed.
I got up almost as fast as I had fallen and put my brother back on my back, realizing at the same time that he was still passed out even after falling to the ground.
So I started walking again after putting him on my back.
At the same time the voice started to call me again, I thought I recognised Nomiko's voice, but I couldn't tell what it was saying.
I continued to move forward, I only had a hundred meters to go before I reached the end of the forest and there I heard clearly what Nomiko was saying to me:
"YUICHI! HURRY UP!!!"
