A single finger of sunlight shot a beam through the air, illuminating the small space enough enough for them to see that they were trapped on all sides and to see the dust floating still in the air. In the dim light, it could be seen that a concrete slab from the wall had fallen toward them but somehow been prevented from crushing them due to an unexpectedly robust office desk and some other debris with the steel from reinforced concrete sticking out, amongst some other crushed detritus.
Inside this pocket of triangular space, the man slowly sat up on the taller side of the triangle, while the woman struggled to crawl out from the small corner of the triangle. On the man's lap and around him were the big broken panels of the ceiling tiles.
Listening, it was strangely silent. Nothing could be heard but the sound of their own breathing.
"Hey," said the man in a low and tired sounding voice. "Meimo? Is that you? Are you ok?"
"I think so," Meimo carefully pushed bits of a crushed chair aside and wriggled out of a pile of plaster. "At least, all my limbs seem to be working. You weren't on my floor earlier, Libing. Did you fall from upstairs? Are you hurt? Can you move?"
"Yeah. I think I must have fallen at least one floor during the earthquake. I can move my arms. But my legs, I can't - can barely feel them."
There was a hint of terror in his voice.
"Hang on. I'm coming," Meimo said, carefully crawling over to him.
Sitting by his side, she patted his hand that was plucking futilely at the big broken plaster board tile covering his legs.
Meimo carefully pulled at a corner of it that crumbled away. She took another attempt to grit it and standing up, used her legs. With a grunt, she managed to lift it up and pull it over, off Libing's legs.
There was more rubble and debris underneath, but none as difficult or heavy to move as the big plasterboard had been. As his legs were uncovered bit by bit, Libing suddenly sucked in a breath of air and hissed.
"What? What's wrong?" Meimo paused and calmed to squat by his side.
"My legs. I can feel my legs," Libing said through gritted teeth, great rolling drops of sweat dripping down his neck and face.
"Does it hurt a lot?" Meimo asked.
"It's fine. Just a bit sore," Libing said, making Meimo shake her head.
It was obviously more than a bit sore, but there was nothing she could do to help him alleviate the pain.
"Can I touch your legs? See if they're broken? They might need to be set if we're trapped in here for a while."
"Go ahead. No worries," Libing leaned against the wall of stuff behind him, face twisted grotesquely, screwing his eyes shut.
Meimo touched his legs, starting from the foot and going up the leg, feeling the bone through trousers and muscle. One foot had ballooned up. Likely something broken in there. The hand clutching a thigh told her that there was a severe pain nearby there. Oh. The knee. Dislocated. Not severely, but definitely twisted out of shape.
"Hey, I'm going to have to pull it straight and back into place," Meimo said but received no answer. She prodded Libing and realised that he had fainted.
She had once interned in an emergency department and had been taught to deal with broken bones and joint dislocations. There had been a time where a bunch of students who had been up to no good had come in with multiple dislocations and injuries. She had been asked to help deal with them. That was back when she had still been a medical student. When her family had been able to afford sending her to university.
With the loss of the family business, Meimo had been forced to drop out, despite her professors' frowns. They had tried to find a way to help her stay but hadn't been able to find a fund that was willing to pay for the rest of her university tuition. As a result, with only one year left before graduation, Meimo had dropped out to find work wherever she could.
She had worked in a vet clinic for a while, but then the clinic had been closed down due to some health and safety matters. The boss had told her it would take a while to sort out and had let her go. That was when she found herself this office job as an ordinary office worker.
It was probably a good thing that Living had passed out. She could examine him better.
She took a good hold of his leg, sliding her hands slightly up the trousers leg and the other hand stabilising the femur. Then she gave a sharp tug.
With a slight grating sensation, Meimo felt the bone twist and then pop back into place. Palpating through the swelling and moving the leg, she felt the knee was back in place. It seemed to be moving properly.
As for his foot, that would be hard to deal with. She would leave it for now.
She palpated the rest of his leg bones, his pelvis and up his spine, even his ribcage. Although she wouldn't be able to feel any fractures in those areas, she might be able to find abnormalities in the soft tissue that would give her an indication.
His arms and shoulders seemed fine. Just a gash on one arm that had long since stopped bleeding. Meimo picked out a few big pieces of dirt, tried to make Libing comfortable and then decided to see if she could search for water. She remembered her desk should have a spare bottle of water and her emergency stash of food. That should be enough to last them a while. Living would likely be thirsty when he woke up.
While she was searching, she also kept a lookout for something long and thin that she could use to push up the hole where the shaft of sunlight was shining through. If she tied something bright to it, it might make a makeshift flag to bring the attention of rescuers to their location.
At the same time, she looked at the sturdy and robust desk that looked like it was leaning to one side more than it had before. If those desk legs collapsed, they would be in trouble. The triangular space would shrink drastically and they might even be squished beneatht he concrete slab.
Meimo decided she needed to shore up the desk legs and prevent it from collapsing or leaning any further. Moving carefully, she dug about carefully excavating rubble in areas that looked structurally sound and would be useful, hopefully erecting a construction that would help to take the weight of the big concrete slab.
The ground shook with the aftershock tremors of the big earthquake and Meimo threw herself over Libing to protect him from falling debris. Structures around them groaned and shifted. Things fell from above. Meimo could only pray that this wasn't the moment of their death. The triangular ceiling made of the big cement block shifted and there was the splintering sound of breaking wood.
She heard a few distant screams. There were others in the rubble who were still alive as well. One of those screams was dreadfully cut short, replaced by a gurgling cough. Meimo gritted her teeth and shut her eyes hard. That person likely wasn't going to make it. Another scream went on and on and one and didn't stop, grating at her nerves.
The tremors finally stopped. Meimo shifted to try and get off Libing only to discover something sharp poking into her back. Sweat rolled down her face, quickly soaking her body while she tried to find an angle in which she could move in. Finally, she managed to squeeze to one side, and see what had been poking her back.
A huge steel spike, sticking out of some of the loose rubble to one side had fallen down. If it had fallen any further with any more force, it might have skewered her, pinning her between Libing's legs. How awkward that would have been.
Glancing and crawling around, Meimo looked at the changes to their small space. The space had indeed shrunk, but the pile of rubble she had built up to help support the now broken desk had done it's job. It was keeping them from getting squashed for now.
There were also more shafts of light shining through from above. That meant she and Living weren't too far from the surface. If she was very careful with how she dug and moved the loose debris, it might be possible for her to dig them out of here.
"Hey," said a heavy pained breath from under her.
Although Meimo had been able to move from where she was directly over Libing to move slightly to the side, she was still partly over him, having not found a way to retreat any further with one hand still between his legs.
"Hey, you're awake," Meimo carefully turned her head so as not to accidentally put her eyes out from any of the other sharp things sticking out of the loose debris. With a bit of difficulty, she managed to face Libing. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine. A bit better than before, I think," Libing said. "What happened? Everything looks different."
"An aftershock," Meimo said, still working on extricating herself from the position where she had almost been impaled above Libing. "We got lucky. There are other survivors nearby but some of them probably won't make it. We might have a chance to be able to dig ourselves free. If you can move, we might be able to dig ourselves out from that direction without making the space around us collapse."
"I see," Libing nodded and then glanced down. "Say, Meimo, could you please move your hand? You're pressing on my..."
Meimo lost her balance and fell on the man's lap.
"What?"
"Your hand. On my... that..."
Meimo reflexively felt around with her hand and touched something.
"Huh? Oh. This? Kinda squishy."
"No, Meimo, please," said Libing. "Let go. Don't," he gasped, "do that."
"This?" Meimo squeezed again and felt the thing beneath her hand seeming to inflate somewhat. Her brain finally clicked into gear. "Oh. Oh! Oh, I'm sorry!"
She moved her hand away and carefully moved away from the tighter space around Libing toward where her desk had been. Meimo wiped her hand on her clothes without thinking, feeling disgusted.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to - I mean, it's a pretty good - no, I mean, I was stuck and just trying to get myself out from where I was almost impaled, no., that came out wrong."
"Nevermind," Libing cut through her stuttering with a joking tone, looking down at the bulge in his crotch. "It's fine for now. Although, perhaps next time, you can take responsibility for what you start."
Meimo looked in the direction that he was gazing and then looked away.
"Of course, I mean, no way. Why would I?"
"Don't want to take responsibility for me? You were just all over me."
"Shut up. I wanted to get away in case there was a nother tremor and I was impaled on you. That would have been even more... awkward..."
Meimo covered her face, realising how suggestive her word just now might have sounded.
"Look. That big iron spike. Any further and I wouldn't be alive right now," she pointed.
"Oh," Libing nodded. "Oh! That thing is huge."
"Now you can imagine what would have happened if things had gone wrong, what you might have woken up to."
"Ugh. Don't put images in my head," Libing said.
"Can you move?" Meimo asked Libing. "The space just above your head is the most unstable area. If you can move your legs, come over here where it's safer. I'm worried there might still be more aftershocks. You might die if you stay there."
"I'll try," Living said, carefully using his arms and trying to move his legs. He grimaced, gritted his teeth and then began dragging himself toward Meimo while she encouraged him.
"Come on. You can do it. A bit more. Just a bit more. You're almost there. Come sit over here. You can put your back here and rest. That's it. I'll help you a little with your legs. You got it. You've done it. Good job."
Meimo rummaged in her desk drawer and pulled out the bottle of water and food she kept stashed in there. She also pulled out spare clothes and a jacket.
"Here. Have a little drink. This is all we have for the moment. Don't drink too much. Just a sip to wet the mouth."
"Thanks."
Libing opened the bottle of water and took a sip. And then another. Then he put the lid back on.
"Here."
Meimo put the drink bottle and spare food in the inside pockets of Libing's suit jacket.
"You stay here and rest," she told Libing. "You're injured."
"You are too," Living said, catching a glimpse of her bloody back the massive clot of blood in her hair on the back of her head. He reached out and arm to try and stop her.
"No I'm not," Meimo shook her head at him with a frown and shook his arm off. "What are you talking about? Be good. Stay here. I'm going to dig us out of here."
Meimo crawled away to begin examining and tugging at bits of loose debris and rubble, pulling them out of the hole and causing some to come cascading down to the ground in front of them.
"Be careful," he told Meimo.
"Of course," Meimo said and waved a hand at him. "Don't distract me. Let me concentrate."
While she was busy digging, Libing looked around himself and paused when from beneath some of the rubble by the desk, he saw a hand and wrist with the same colourful woven rope bracelet that Meimo was wearing. The hand looked very much like Meimo's hand. Had the same dark skin.
With some digging and clearing of rubble, he managed to free a body. The face, he brushed the dirt away and glanced at the muttering Meimo in the distance, was the same. There was a big bloody wound clotting up the back of her head. Thankfully it had already stopped bleeding.
Libing looked at the Meimo in the distance and at the body of Meimo in front of him and swallowed hard, tears blurring his vision. His chest suddenly felt tight and he had a sinking feeling in his stomach. It was suddenly hard to breathe and he put his hand over his mouth to stop himself from crying out loud. With trembling hands, he checked her for any signs of life. It took a while, but finally, he managed to see a very faint movement of her chest. The piece of paper he was holding in front of her nostrils fluttered briefly. Or so he thought. Perhaps he was imagining that as well.
Alive. She was still alive. Thank God.
Libing leaned back to pat his chest and glanced at the Meimo in the distance. He didn't know how this was happening. Perhaps he was hallucinating. Maybe he was just having a nightmare and the earthquake had never happened.
There was a cheer and Meimo's voice in the distance shouted that they were free. They could now escape from this dangerous space. She crawled over to where Libing was and glanced briefly at the body that he had rolled into the recovery position.
"Hey, you found somebody! Is she still alive?"
"Yes. Barely," Libing said with a tight throat, feeling complicated emotions swirling in his chest. Meimo didn't seem to be able to recognise her own body.
"God. Great job. Then let's see if I can carry her out."
"I'll carry her," Libing said. "You find a way to tie her body to mine and I'll follow you to crawl out of here."
"No, no. The hole isn't big enough and I'm scared to make it any bigger," Meimo said. "Let's make some sort of sling first. I'll use it to pull you out and then we can can pull her out."
"No. I'll crawl out first and then use the sling to pull her out. You wrap it around her first. I should be alright."
"Are you sure?" Meimo asked, looking sceptical.
"Watch me," Libing told her, helping to put the sling made of clothes around Meimo's body. He crawled out of the hole bit by bit, mostly using his arms and with a lot of effort. At the top, he looked around at the devastation all around him, took a breath in the bright sunlight and then turned around to lie on his tummy, reaching his upper body back down the hole.
"Pass me the sling," he said, but couldn't find the waking version of Meimo that had been there moments earlier. He swallowed and held back his tears. Crawling further in, he took a hold of the clothes that made the sling and then began to pull. He carefully crawled backwards while he pulled Meimo's body up toward the sunshine.
Bit by bit, they inched up through the rubble. Libing felt his sweat dripping and did his best to continue protecting Meimo's head through the uneven and bumpy journey. Every now and then, he had to stop to rest his arms to unsnag the clothes from where they had gotten caught on something sharp.
Finally, finally, after what had felt like many years, he managed to pull Meimo's body out from the rubble. He pulled the drink bottle of water out from where he had tucked it inside his clothes and took a shaky sip. Then with trembling hands, he poured a little water into the bottle cap and brought it to Meimo's lips. She didn't respond. He used his finger to dab into the water and drip a few drops on Meimo's lips.
Nothing.
"No, no, no, no," he muttered under his breath.
After a while of trying, he looked for signs of life but he wasn't sure anymore. He couldn't feel a pulse, couldn't find her breath, but then he wasn't medically trained. There was no stable surface to perform CPR. Perhaps she was still alive but he just couldn't tell. Libing hugged her body to him and looked around for help, but there was none.
All he could do was pray.
It was a fine sunny day with white fluffy clouds drifting across the blue sky. A warm breeze blew at his hair with a gentle breath and a hollow tune. Perfect weather on a day so wrong.
Hugging Meimo's body, he felt so alone.
