thearena | That split the night

Who| Aang, Mindy, and Zuko
What| The car crashed, and now Aang searches the wreckage.
Where| Third floor, near the Marve store
When| Immediately after the car crash.
Warnings/Notes| Lots of descriptions of bleeding children. Also, everyone's deaf.

When Aang wakes up, he already knows his hearing is done for. The alarm, so shrill in the split second it takes to snap his eyes open and jump to his feet in a confused, yelling ball of tension, is already muffled and his ears have exploded in pain.

He can only hear tinny. The world spins and he leans against a wall, blinking blearily and gritting his teeth against the pain and the blood filling up his newly useless ears. Even through the dizziness, he can see the car lodged into one of the stores. He can see the falling concrete and crumpled metal.

Breathe. Balance.

He's disoriented, but a minute could mean life or death. His brain feels like it's been wrapped in cotton, but he has his eyes. He has the air and the ground under his feet. He can do this. He can do this, then worry about the consequences of his lost hearing later.

He pushes himself forward, towards the debris. Lightly on his feet, ignoring the distant squealing and the tinny and the blood dribbling from his nose and ears.

He cries out for anyone who might be trapped under the rocks, but he can't hear himself speak.

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This was some bullshit.

It had been so rare that Mindy would get sleep between the bleeding facial wound and the sights of the past few days, but finally FINALLY she had managed to put herself down, having a nasty bit of nightmare but at least it was SOMETHING.

Granted, this was only for a few hours before the blaring alarm suddenly jolter her to life and immediately she had her hands at her ears, screaming internally. This caught her off guard and already she was handicapped. She was moving quickly, coughing and breathing shallowly, just trying to get away from the damn sound.

There was a car. Of course. Was this one of Harley's fucked up rides? She didn't know, but she was moving aimlessly, looking for somewhere to go.

Aang felt nauseous. His head was pounding. His ears would not be ignored.

He just kept breathing. He'd be okay. He wasn't sure how, but he'd be okay. He needed to find survivors. He needed to find Zuko.

Then he noticed her. The girl with the yellow hair and the affinity for weapons.

He called out. He couldn't hear himself. He started to wave his arms.

She looked hurt. Maybe he could help.

Mindy didn't hear him at first, but then she looked up and, lo and behold, there was baldy the pacifist.

Didn't look too good either. Shit.

"Aang? What the hell happened to you?"

She wondered if he even heard her. Hopefully he read lips.

He didn't read lips. He'd never had to do it before. He just saw a question in her eyes.

Not that that narrowed down what she could be saying at all.

He waved her closer. Away from the car and the debris. He could function; he was just off balance and disoriented from losing a sense. "Over here!" He couldn't hear himself, but maybe she could hear him.

She could hear him-barely. Still, that was enough for her to not want to stay where they could get killed, and she definitely wanted to go where she could actually hear her own thoughts again.

Mindy ran over to him, her hands planted firmly against her ears, and gestured that they should start moving right now.

"Let's get out of here! You have a place?"

He couldn't hear her, but there was no misinterpreting her gesture. They had to move.

There was no safe place like this, with all these people stumbling around, but the mall was big and he'd explored it all.

He turned around and started darting away, leading her to far-away reaches of the floor, further and further from the alarm until the dull roar in his useless ears receded.

She was half blind, tired and certainly starving by now, but no one could say that Mindy Macready still didn't have the agility and speed in a bad situation. She kept up with Aang, quietly admiring how quick he was on his feet, so stealth he could probably have been a ninja if he wanted to.

Happily, she was at least starting to regain her hearing again, and, climbing over some annoying store debris, she turned to him.

"So who got to you?"

Aang wasn't regaining his hearing. He could still hear the loud tinny in his ears. As they stopped walking, he touched his ear, and his palm came back streaked with blood.

He saw her lips move. He cocked his head, taking a deep, steadying breath.

"I can't hear you." His voice was a little louder than it had to be, but he couldn't tell. He couldn't hear himself.

Damn. He was bleeding. She really hope this bullshit hadn't ruptured his ear drums, but that he was bleeding was not a good sign.

Now she was slightly worried.

"All right," she mouthed as well as she could. "Let's find your friends."

He had to have had some by now, right?

He could read that. He nodded, biting the inside of his cheek. Zuko was going to be angry at him for running into the wreckage.

"Zuko. We need to find Zuko."

Again, his voice was too loud, but maybe she would be able to call for him if she could hear. Aang gestures to his face, around where Zuko's scar would be. "You can't miss him. He has a big scar on his face."

Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

"All right. Scar, likely grouchy looking. Got it."

She took his hand, moving quickly. "Zuko! Hey! ZUKO!"

She felt stupid, calling for somebody she never even met, but what else was she going to do? She couldn't leave Aang, and even she was starting to feel a bit weak.

Yeah, that wasn't going to do anything. The yelling. He was mostly deaf, too. So he spotted them before he heard them and Aang's description was spot on. Pretty obvious scar and even more obvious crankiness. The scowl got crankier as he saw Mindy.

Since he knew Aang couldn't hear him, he kept what he said limited and between his shrugging, pointing gesture and the way he over-pronounced the word, Aang would probably be able to figure out that his question was "Who?"

Leave it to Aang to be bringing back stray humans.

Who?

It was then that Aang realized that he had no idea what the girl's name was. He just knew her as the girl who explained all this craziness to him on the rink.

So instead of giving a name, he just mouthed, very clearly, She's okay. Hopefully that would be enough.

"That's Zuko there," is what he ends up saying to her.

Mindy did not miss this exchange and was actually pretty amused by it taking place right around them not knowing her name. Granted, she thought she HAD given Aang her name, but with all that happened, even if she had she couldn't blame him for forgetting it already.

"Mindy," she mouthed, still weaving her way through debris.

Zuko just pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment and then sighed and lowered his hand.

"I have no idea who you are." Another random friend or something? Aang seemed to pick them up like spare copper pieces. "But long as you don't try to kill us you can stay with us."

It was just a little too loud, making it clear that he'd lost his hearing, too.

That split the night

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I type this as I hear Stage 2 of the old Contra game

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Aww, that face!

He has the cutest faces

Re: He has the cutest faces

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Stray humans?? Is Zuko an alien?!

He's an alien from the planet "Why are you dragging people along that we have to feed?"