I'm alone. I'm all alone.
His eyes shot open to nothing. Panic rose to his throat. Where was he? (Where was he supposed to be?) He squeezed them shut again (maybe then it would be his) tried to stand but invisible walls pressed in on all sides. He felt a scream clawing to push itself from his mouth, but he knew to hold it back, the immediate reaction not to panic, don't panic and instead he pounded at the barrier with his fists. He couldn't stand up straight and his foot touched the other end when he kicked out, but this half-crouching high-shouldered lean was better than curling up at the bottom.
Beating the walls of this box wasn't working and the more frightened he became, the weaker he felt, so his resistance fell at last to shouting. Words came out, words he knew but it was still too dark to see them to care what they meant and the outpouring didn't end until long after raindrops burst on his cheeks and his fists returned to him numb, and then one swiped through nothing, support disappeared beneath his other hand, he stumbled, fell forward into waiting arms.
"It's a little kid," he heard over his head. A murmur of voices moved all around them, men and women whose busy communication ran too narrowly together to make out.
He opened his eyes. Bright, white all over, sunlight, reflection off metal everywhere – he blinked hard, squinted, couldn't keep them completely open yet.
"Hello? Young man, are you alright?" The uniform who had hold of him looked to a slighter man in a smudged lab coat at this.
He stood up, or tried to, but he found himself stumbling on legs unable to support him quite yet and fell back into the grasp of the…soldier? Cop?
A gloved hand hovered just beyond his nose. "How many fingers am I holding up?" the other man asked.
"Uh…three," he croaked, still hoarse. He shivered at the sight of more men circling, saw two other strongboxes cracked and open, computer discs and Plexiglas containers spilled across the scorched floor. "Can I- can I go home now?" Please.
"I'm afraid that's not possible."
"There's been an accident, son, and we found you right in the middle of it." Another man, thin graying hair combed over his temple and uniform a crisp sort of smoky blue-grey, stepped up. He shifted as the man supporting his arm saluted with a free hand.
"Accident?" For the first time, he saw the wreckage sprawling out from just about where they stood. The skeleton of a building rose around them like a conquered medieval stronghold, wide, blasted gaps dominating what was left of its stone walls. More uniformed figures were scrambling over downed support beams and ruined machinery, and giant airships and carriers perched sporadically wherever they could find clear patches on the trashed landscape. There's sky everywhere. There should be buildings. Trees.
There should be trees.
"You're the only survivor we've found in this building," the third man continued. "If there's anything you can tell us about what happened here, anything at all, we need to know now."
"Uh." He searched his brain.
