"Help me!"

Footsteps stopped outside the door you can't see. Crawling, even though the leg is certainly broken -- feeling like saltwater taffee must, all twisted around itself -- and crawling anyway because the footsteps stopped out there and that might mean help -- you reach the unseen door, knocking your wet nose against it hard enough that it makes a CLICK noise, tweaking a different signal to your brain.

"Please!"

"Where are you?! --Geddup here!" barks the man the other side of the door.

Your hands claw at the cold metal. Fire in your leg. Fire burning behind your eyes. Somehow you stand.

There's a square of light so bright you close your eyes.

"Please!"

"Help yerself! -- Terrorist!" -- and then a loud hard bang that knocks you back, falling, like maybe how it feels to be shot.

On the dirty floor, on your back, which feels like it has a hole in it now, the fire in your body tells you you are still alive -- and still here. Maybe it's better I can't see, you think.

Suddenly -- the square of bright light blazes up in the door -- a one-eyed monster.

"You want help d'ya?! -- Uh'll give ya help!" -- Keys rattle and the door swings away, like the door into a furnace -- "Get out here!"

RATE THIS BRANCH!