His mind blanked.. it was buzzing with a static noise.
He froze then and there for a few seconds, his brain couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
One second they were still joking around offhandedly disarming the bomb then the next second the world went gray. He even remembers Hagi jokingly asking if he would avenge him if he died.
It was no question. The answer was so strikingly obvious that neither of them needed verbal confirmation.
As if snapping out of it he started to frantically call his young tame's name over the phone clutching to the last chance that this is all a misunderstanding and he is alright. In the back of his mind a little voice kept saying: 'You know it's impossible. You heard it ..the explosion was impossibly close, possibly at point blank distance there's no way anyone could survive that.'
He knew oh, how he wished he didn't, but still he had to make sure.
He did not remember what happened after that.
The landscape kept flashing by in blurs. He kept running and running towards his destination, maybe driving?
He isn't too sure himself.
Like the world lost all its sound, despair gnawed at his very benign.
Finally he couldn't take it.
With a blank expression he crumbled to his knees in front of the devastated building.
He closed out all the cluster, his colleagues shouts and worried questions, they did not matter.
The street was filled with dust and soot, debris littered the whole place. The structure couldn't hold the place up and was still falling apart bit by bit.
You could see where the explosion started out from.
The upper floors were an utter mess.
A huge gaping hole left at its wake still dark smoke wafting out of it. He noticed a piece of fabric floating down from the direction of the building.
As if on instinct he grabbed onto it.
It was...a dark blue piece of cloth, the same as the uniform of the police, also the explosion squad.
He clung to it as if his life depended on it.
As if feeling something he looked up.
He saw Hagi's whole explosion squad talking to the rest of his colleagues in a flustered and sad mess. They were all there ..dirty, mangled but in one single piece ..except his own Hagi..he will never come back.
Not in one piece...