“Where’s Donatella?” He asked, looking around. I could have told him it was useless. I didn’t know where she was. She was buried under all this rubble. I had no idea where to look.
“I don’t know,” I lowly said, looking around me. She was next to me when the world opened up and swallowed us. Now, I didn’t know where she was.
“Jesus Christ Marine. What the fuck did you get us involved with,” a man said, looking around at the destruction. “Everyone spread out and start digging.”
Helping as best I could, I stopped when I heard someone yell, “I’ve got one!”
Rushing over to him, I knelt beside a man I didn’t know and grabbed Nico’s hand.
“I’m here Nico. See, I told you I would find you. Come on man. Wake up.”
“It’s bad, Merc.”
“Do what you can for him.” A tall, bearded man said, then shouted. “We leave no one behind. We rendezvous at the helicopter in five. Get it done and fast. Company is coming!”
“Lorenzo,” Bullseye said, touching my shoulder. “Where is Donatella?”
Shaking my head, I didn’t know how to answer him. So, I said what I knew. “She was right next to me. We were fighting one minute. The next I woke to this. Please Bullseye. I can’t lose Nico too. I can’t.”
“Fuck,” Bullseye sighed. “He’s in shock.”
“I’ve got movement to the west. Fuck they have a woman with them. There’s a bird incoming, too!”
And just like that, I was on my feet and running. I didn’t care who got in my way. The only woman in Sanctuary was Donatella. It had to be her. Ignoring the pain in my legs, I ran as if my life depended on it. My lungs burned while I raced to the landing helicopter. Four men moved quickly to board the aircraft. Seeing me run towards them, they began to open fire on me but I didn’t care. I refused to believe what she said. She was wrong. She had to be.
She was my woman.
Mine to protect.
They had her.
My Donatella.
“Fuck!” Bullseye shouted, as he and one other tackled me to the ground, prohibiting me from reaching her.
“INCOMING!”
Seconds later another large explosion rocked the ground.
Fighting my way free, I stood just as the helicopter disappeared into the dark night. The sounds of the blades just a whisper in the wind. Racing towards her last location, I never felt their arms around me as I screamed into the darkness, “DONATELLA!”
Thirty
Donatella
Tolerance of pain is subjective to the receiver.
I thought I knew pain.
I knew the clinical meaning. That was easy.
Pain. An unpleasant feeling that is conveyed to the brain by a sensory of neurons. When a body was exposed to pain, the brain signaled the body with discomfort signals to actual or potential injury to the body. Yet, pain was more than a sensation or the physical awareness of pain. It also included perception, the subjective interpretation of the discomfort.
“What the fuck is she talking about?”
Now perception gives the pain’s location, intensity and its nature. The various conscious and unconscious responded to both sensations and perceptions, with the included emotional response to add further definition to the overall concept of pain.
“Shut her up, Julio. She’s driving me crazy with all that medical talk!”