“MEDIC!”

The shouting barely reaches my ear over the moans and crying in the underground bunker.

“MEDIC!”

“Here!” I shout in the vague direction of the sound, and I squeeze through the sea of miserable faces in the makeshift sickbay, careful to weave my medical trolley between the writhing bodies of patients littered across the floor.

Eventually, I find a wildly gesticulating young woman kneeled beside an older, frail-looking woman lying on a makeshift bed made of layered blankets. As I approach the two, the young woman realises that she has been noticed and stops flailing her arms. Instead, she turns and clutches the older woman’s hand tightly with her own, tears streaming down her face.

“Please medic please help my mom I dunno what’s wrong but she’s been so weak for—”

“HAK HAK HAK” 

The young woman’s pleading was interrupted by her mother’s round of ear-piercing coughs.

“Don’t worry.” I said over the sound of the coughing, “I’ll take a look now.”

I kneel down to take a closer look at the sick woman, but I already know why she is sick: the same reason as everyone else here — dehydration.

So, as I pretend to examine the woman’s dry, flakey skin and feel her rapid pulse, I weigh up the choices I have in front of me: One, lie and tell the daughter that her mother will get better soon with time, or two, use the precious resources I have to treat her. I eventually reach a decision and stand up to get the bottles from my trolley, but a light tap on my ankle stops me. 

The old woman looks up at me with her black, sunken eyes, and I kneel back down to listen to her words.

“Leave it,” She whispers to me in a husky, almost ghostly voice, “Save it for the young ones.”

I grimace at her words but don’t object. I look back up to the daughter — who is now crying harder, indicating that she had heard her mother’s words — and attempt to give her a few words of comfort… 

…but the words don’t come out of my mouth.

“What am I supposed to say? ‘I can’t treat your mom because she’s not important enough?’”

I stand up and turn away, weaving my trolley through the crowded sickbay.

On my way back, I unconsciously walk to a young boy called Harry, one of the few patients here that aren’t suffering from dehydration. He is currently sitting on the floor, with his left leg wrapped with a splint. 

Harry had fallen from the ledge of a building ruin while he was playing with friends. Luckily, the soft, sandy ground had stopped him from getting any further injuries, save for a broken leg. He notices me as I walk to him.

“How’s your leg?” I ask.

“I said yesterday that I’m feeling fine,” he whines, “so can I please go out and play now?”

“No Harry. You might be feeling fine now, but that’s only because of the splint. Plus, nobody’s going to watch you when you are playing outside, and I don’t want you getting hurt again.”

Both of Harry’s parents died on a mission to steal water from a government convoy, and he’s been in the orphanage’s care ever since. The orphanage we have looks less like an orphanage and more like a cattle farm, with too many children for the adults working there to properly care for.

“But despite that, he’s still happy,” I think, finding some relief in seeing a ray of happiness in this miserable room.

I’m about to leave when I see that the water bottles I had left for him this morning are already empty, lined up by his bedside.

“Harry,” I ask while reaching over to swap the empty bottles with filled ones from my trolley, “What did I tell you? Drink the water slowly, hold it in your mouth for a bit before swallowing it, or else you’ll end up chugging a whole dam in a day.”

“…Sorry,” Harry grumbles, but I can tell from his uncomfortable shifting that he’s hiding something.

“He’s probably been sharing his water with others,” I think as I forgive him and walk away. I let out a sad laugh at the irony of the situation: The poor boy is just trying to save someone, but he has yet to realise just how many have died for him to live… 

My heavy thoughts are interrupted by a hand on my shoulder.

“I know how you feel, but there’s nothing you can do.” says Elaine, walking up beside me, “It’s for the better.”

“I know,” I sigh, utterly drained.

An uneasy silence fills the air as Elaine and I walk out of the underground sickbay and towards the aboveground tents. Only when the cool night air hit our faces did Elaine speak up:

“Myles,” she says, flicking her long hair, “I need to tell you something.” 

“What’s up?” I ask, trying to lighten the mood.

“I… have a mission tomorrow,” Elaine hesitantly says.

Elaine is a high ranking raider, even though she’s in her twenties like me, so going on missions is nothing out of the ordinary for her.

“Okay, and why are you telling me this?” I ask, confused at her sudden change in tone.

“We’re… we’re raiding a water reservoir.”

“Which reservoir?”

“The Corp one by the—”

“No,” I declare, gripping Elaine’s shoulder with my hand, “you’re not going, it’s too dangerous, those things are the most fiercely protected—”

“Do we have a choice?”

I know the statistics. I know we don’t.

Within our colony of more than seven hundred survivors, we only have a few thousand litres of drinkable water left. About two hundred are suffering from severe dehydration, and seventy have already died. 

At this rate, we’ll be gone by the end of the week.

“Fine then,” I say, “I’m coming with you.”

“Hah!” Elain lets out a laugh, “and what are you gonna do? Sit back and patch our wounds?”

“Elaine, I’m not just a medic, I’m a combat medic. This is a difficult raid, we’re going to need all the firepower we have.”

“No Myles. It’s not safe.”

“Nor is it safe for you. Tell me when we meet.”

After a long pause, Elaine sighs.

“Five a.m. sharp, at the barracks.”

***

Myles gives me a quick “goodnight,” before walking briskly to his quarters, and I don’t blame him. Spending a day inside the sickbay is equivalent to surviving hell itself. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him about the news… 

I walk towards the armoury to prepare for the raid, and I spot a burly man with a bald head and thick moustache sifting through the guns hung up against the metal wall.

“Gunther?” I call to him, “Why are you here?”

“Tomorrow’s a big day,” Gunther booms in his deep voice, “I shall prepare well.”

“Well that’s a first,” I chide at him and haul my backpack onto a metal table, packing in my provisions. As I do so, my mind wanders:

“Three decades years ago, humanity caused a massive climate disaster which turned our Earth from a natural marvel to an inhospitable wasteland. When people saw this, the privileged few flew to other planets, and others monopolised the essential resources. Finally, there are those who didn’t manage to do any of those things. That’s us, scouring the desert for the ever-dwindling resources left for us to take.”

“Well that’s awfully depressing,” says Gunther. 

I hadn’t realised that I had said the last sentence out loud.

“Yeah, it is,” I admit, “but there is a more optimistic theory: The smarter ones in our camp have said that since we still have air to breathe, there must still be trees somewhere. They say that there should still be a narrow strip of land around the Earth where there is enough water to sustain forests.”

“That would be nice,” says Gunther, “but I doubt any of us will be able to see it.”

Gunther’s words reminded me.

“Gunther, can you do me a favour?”

“Yes?”

“Can you go around and tell everyone that we’ll be leaving an hour before schedule? There was something in the plan I overlooked.”

Gunther pauses for a moment, about to object, but thinks better of it.

“Okay, I will go around after I am finished here.”

“Myles,” I whisper under my breath,

“I’m sorry.”

***

I wake up half an hour before the time Elaine told me, but as soon as I reach the barracks, I realise that something is wrong.

The beds inside were empty, and the rovers parked to the side all gone, leaving… 

My breath catches.

…tracks that go out of the campsite.

“Dammit!” I slam my fist on the support pole of the barrack tent, and I sprint back towards my tent, preparing to give chase with my bike.

I’m about halfway when I stop myself, feeling out of breath.

“Ah, what’s the point.” I think to myself, “by the time I catch up, they’ll already be done, done or—”

No. Never. That won’t happen.

I push the speculation out of my head and rush to the sickbay.

I also have lives to fight for.

***

Two, excruciating hours pass, four more casualties confirmed. I walk out of the sickbay into the searing heat of the midday sun, which still gives me respite from the constant crying and moaning.

I hear engines.

I whip my head around to the sight of a small convoy of rovers moving towards us, magnified by the mirage, and I rush towards the edge of the camp.

By the time they arrive, a large crowd has already gathered, waiting to welcome the raiders back, and as the convoy crests the dune closest to us, I see that there are some more cars than usual: tankers. 

The raiders finally arrive, five tankers in tow. The crowd is speechless, and the silence is only broken when one of the raiders leans out of their car and shouts:

“WE HAVE WATER!!!”

The crowd goes wild, and the infectious celebration pierces its way through my gloom.

“Finally!” I think, “people won’t have to die in vain anymore.”

But my happiness is cut short.

“Wait,” I realise, scanning the people in the convoy of cars, “Where’s Elaine?”

No.

Nononononono.

I viciously spear through the crowd and reach a rover with a burly man in it — Gunther, I think his name was — and shout at him over the noise of the crowd:

“WHERE’S ELAINE!”

The man notices me and opens the door of his rover to let me in.

I’m about to get in when I see what is lying on the backseat.

My mind stops. 

The roaring of the crowd melting into a dull thud in the background.

I refuse to believe it. 

I refuse to believe that on the backseat of the rover lies Elaine, her abdomen constricted in gauze that has turned from white to bright ruby.

I refuse to believe that she’s been shot three times in the chest, even though I clearly hear Gunther saying it.

I refuse to believe that —

Elaine’s hand reaches out and gingerly touches me. I rush to grab it, seizing it as if it was my lifeline.

“I messed up,” Elaine croaks and I laugh.

“Don’t you worry, I’ll fix you right up,” I say, motioning to go and get medical supplies.

Elaine’s hand squeezes mine and she says, “Stop, I won’t make it.”

Now the floodgates open, and I sob into Elaine’s cold hand.

“Why,” I wail between sobs “Why does it have to be you?”

“Be happy,” Elaine breaths, “We did it.”

“No, we didn’t! We were supposed to save everyone, not everyone but you!” I say, blinking tears aside.

Elaine looks at me with watery eyes and utters one last word:

“Live”

If blood is thicker than water. 

Then this time is an exception.