bending_sickle | Is it really necessary to do the voice?*

Nano: Ladies and gentlemen, we have achieved angel!

“It happened about a week ago. There was this great storm ripping through – you could hear the wind just waltzing away with anything not bolted down, lighting flashing everywhere, think we even got some hail on top of the whole contents of the Great Lakes we got doused with. Agatha and I were just about to sit down for dinner when we heard this great crash from upstairs.

“Turns out the roof caved in, just plumb imploded. And under all the rubble there’s this man in a suit – a suit, I tell you – and a trench coat, soaked to the bone and all but flattened. I guess he must have fallen when the roof caved, though what he was doing outside in the storm is beyond me. “

They’d reached the landing and Saunders pointed down the hall. “He’s over at that end. We could only move him a little ways – no way I could get him down stairs – and we can only pray the roof stays up on that side.” Saunders took in a shaky breath. “Come on then.”

“How is he?” whispered Chip, mind flickering through a number of scenarios where a man would rather be on the roof of a building out in a storm that anywhere else, although if Saunders ever asked, he’d rather feign indifference. He felt it was alright for Saunders to not know these things.

“He’s actually in pretty good shape, considering. Nothing broken but skin, mostly, although some of that is cut up something awful. He’s pulling through on most of those – I even tried my hand at stitches, although I’m sure my wife Pamela is just chuckling her head off from on high. He’s all manner of colours, though, bruised up everywhere. But that’s all to be expected. The weirdest thing, though,” and here Saunders stopped at the door – apartment 404, mirror image of the apartment downstairs, straight diagonal away, which meant that the broken roof was just over 302, or maybe 301, and that thought made Chip’s skin crawl. “The weirdest thing is that he’s got these – ” Saunders motioned towards his back, drawing an imaginary line up and down between his shoulders, “these great whooping gashes. They’re about this long,” he spread his thumb and forefinger as far apart as they would go, “wide as my hand.”

Chip shrugged. “He did fall through a roof, Saunders.”

“Kid, that’s not from the fall. I pulled him out of the rubble myself and there weren’t a tear on his coat anywhere near those wounds.”

10131 / 50000 words. 20% done!

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