The War Game by Crystal Black Page A

should run and take cover just in case. I tried lifting my legs but they wouldn’t move. Then the ground starting to bounce again and I felt the chair hit my head a couple of times, but it felt like a cement block was being thrown at me.
                  Then the bomb hit and I woke up for real.
                  I must have dreamed all of that within a span of a second. I jumped a bit and my anatomy book went flying off my chest. Lots of people were running back to the bed area to take cover but what was the point. A bomb a mile away could rattle that building and make it fall down like a pack of cards.
                  Some man’s tibia bone was sticking out of his skin. I didn’t know who the man was because he was no longer attached to it.
                  Then my thoughts immediately centered on John.
                  I ran to where the bomb hit, the marketplace. People were running out and it was nearly impossible to navigate my way through the flowing people. One man tried grabbing my hand, must have thought I was confused and lost my sense of direction. But I wouldn’t budge and he went on running.
                  There was a lot of death in there. And a brand new sun roof.
                  People were already dragging casualties from underneath stuff and to the side of the building. Not out of respect, of course. Mostly because they would eventually get in the way of things. I saw several searching the dead’s pockets for goodies. I should carry a bunch of razor blades or sewing needles in my pocket. Thieving bastards. There were legs, arms, and even a head scattered all about. I ran past them. I was too much in shock to barf, even though it was like a morbid jigsaw puzzle.
                  I saw Laura right away. Her hair was covered in blood and debris but her lip gloss was still intact and gleaming. She came up to me, screaming, “It’s so arbitrary! It makes no sense!”
                  “Where’s John?” I screamed back at her.
                  “I don’t know!”
                  I ran in the direction that she had come from but no John in sight.
                  I stopped running, turned around, and saw him embracing her. We made eye contact briefly but other than that, he didn’t seem too concerned about me at the moment.
                  Then jealously won out over rationality. I knew that a bomb just hit, that dozens of people just lost their lives, and I was probably just a few yards from meeting death myself. But he was in love with her.
                  How do I know this? Because he went to find her first and not me. That, and he kissed her. Where exactly his lips landed on her face, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell from where I was standing like a fool.
                  I started crying. Great big, fat tears. I couldn’t help it, I was hurt. Wounded. Injured. Emotionally damaged.
                  The mother and the little boy found me. I found out their names. Luann and Ricky. She was brushing the hair that had fallen in my face behind my ears with her fingers. She started telling me that I was safe, God was protecting us, and the usual stuff people said in a time like this.
                  She was mistaken though. I wasn’t crying about all of that.
                  Just because it was working still, pumping blood through my body, doesn’t mean my heart wasn’t broken.
                  I felt stupid, crying over him and at the same time, recalling random facts about the human heart that I read in my anatomy book. The heart produced enough energy over the course of a lifetime to drive a truck to the moon and back. I had no idea where it was at the moment. Shouldn’t leave it around so it doesn’t get traded. My heart or the anatomy book. Both were missing or stolen right now,