Putting Humpty Together Again

#1

((Nathan Kirchhoff continued from The Edge of Hopelessness))

A reinvigorated will to live had, unfortunately, not helped ease Nathan’s fear of being ambushed while in his injured state. His eyes darted left and right as he followed the barricade all the way down to the seaside. The pain in his leg had only gotten worse from walking on it, and now the boy moved toward the shore with a pronounced limp.

As he reached the edge of the water, he needed to sit down, knowing that that the hardest shit wasn’t over yet. Nathan had done very little to deal with the wounds that he’d sustained in his fight with that Miguel kid, and despite his rather minimal medical knowledge, he knew that he couldn’t go on like that for much longer. Placing his assigned bag at his side, Nathan began to rummage through it to see if he could find anything useful. He knew that he’d have to clean and bandage the wounds somehow, and that salty seawater wouldn’t help much with that.

From the bag, he managed to produce an olive green box, which he gingerly placed on the ground beside him. It was just two cuts, it couldn’t be too hard to handle, could it?

Taking some antiseptic wipes and some bandages from the first-aid box, Nathan decided that it’d probably be a good idea to deal with the stab wound on his leg first, since it was deeper and far more painful. Nathan wasn’t exactly sure that this kind of treatment would do anything. Didn’t stabbing victims need, like, stitches or something? Oh shit, was he going to have to sew himself together or-

The thoughts of what the boy may or may not have to do abruptly left his mind as he touched the first wipe to his wound and felt just how much it stung.

“Fuck! Shit!” he shouted, both at the pain and his remembering that he should’ve taken his pants off in order to get a better view of the wound and to make sure shit didn’t heal wrong. This was going to take longer than he’d hoped.

~~~

He felt a fair bit of embarrassment, sitting on the beach in his underwear while soldiers sped around on boats within eyeshot. Of course he was just doing what he had to do, but still…

Looking over the bandages on his right forearm, Nathan was pretty impressed with himself. The bandages were clean and tightly wrapped, which made him think that the wound might just heal properly after all. The bandages on his thigh seemed less impressive, and he felt certain that he hadn’t done a proper job and that the wound would start bleeding again soon. The bandages also caused some issues with putting his jeans back on, and he realized that he might have messed up the bindings. He’d probably be best off just finding someone else who just knew how to handle this bandage shit better…

Before approaching that matter properly, however, Nathan had another job to do. Stepping knee-deep into the seawater, Nathan cupped his hands, took a scoop of the water and then poured it over his face. Better to make a first impression drenched in seawater than covered in some kid’s brains.

Oh yeah.

Nathan had almost forgotten that he was a killer now.

Hell of a thing to forget.

His stomach churned as he thought of the event, though he found himself more upset about his changing attitude toward what he had done rather than the event itself. It felt almost clinical now that the moment had passed, just doing what he needed to do. Wasn’t that a horrible fucking way of looking at shit. Put it out of your mind for now. You’ve got to get safe before you get to fucking soul searching.

As he splashed more water over his face, he decided that would have to do, just wait until he had some kind of protection. And where would he get that, huh?

He ran damp fingers through his hair, pulling out a couple pieces of Miguel along with them. That did manage to reawaken those old feelings of disgust. See, you haven’t gone crazy. Not yet, at least.

Staggering out of the water, Nathan picked up his jacket and put it back on. He’d managed to get the bandages on his arm a bit wet, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about that right now. First things first, Nathan needed a strategy going forward. Despite his good luck against Miguel, Nathan knew he wasn’t going to stand a chance against one of those jacked-up patriot kids wielding a shotgun or something.

As Nathan picked his knives and dipped them into the water, Nathan had decided: if he was going to survive, if he was going to win, he’d need some allies. Well, if he was being realistic, they’d end up being temporary allies at some point…

Oh, yeah. No. No no no. Do not think about that. Not right now.

Nathan slid on his sneakers and looked out over the soldiers and their boats. There was no way to fight a system like this and survive, and Nathan didn’t want to die. He definitely didn’t want to die. He packed up his first aid kit and tossed his backpack over his shoulder. Allies. That’s the next step.

Stepping away from the sea, it seemed like it was going to be time to turn on that patented Nathan Kirchhoff charm, though that’d take a bit of work in a situation like this.

((Nathan Kirchhoff continued in A Lo Hecho, Pecho))