Chapter 5: Until Further Notice

Ow. My head is throbbing. At least my ears have stopped ringing. I blink a few times to gather my bearings, looking around my house. I'm alone, finally. Oh ow, my side hurts too. Painfully, I move my right leg to straighten it out and then notice blood has soaked the bottom of my shirt. I lift up my shirt to see I've been grazed by a bullet. Unfortunately, the wound is serious enough that I'm still going to need stitches.

On my way to the bathroom, I grab a bottle of wine out of the refrigerator to sanitize the wound. I open the medicine cabinet, searching for gauze and some ointment I have that has a mild anesthetic in it so I don't have to feel all of the pain I know comes with stitching. One of the bathroom drawers has a sewing kit in it, which I know will have to do for now.

I am lucky because I am a surgeon, so when I saw that I had been shot, I was able to keep my calm. I braced myself, but still winced a little as I poured some wine on my wound. The anesthetic ointment served its purpose and I only felt a dull poking as I finished stitching myself up. I wrapped my side in gauze, took some aspirin to dull my headache and the pain in my side that I knew would come back when the anesthetic wore off. I splashed water on my face before leaving the bathroom to investigate what had happened.

As I turned off the faucet, I noticed a bottle of my wife's perfume on the bathroom counter. Suddenly I was in a panic as to if she was okay. I felt like an asshole for not thinking about her first, but then my logic kicked in and reminded me that had I not stitched myself up when I did, I might have lost more blood. As it was, I saw that I had left a blood pool next to the bookcase.

I ran as fast as my side would let me, up the stairs and into the hallway, where I stepped on something that tickled the bottom of my foot. I looked down and saw that it was my wife's nightgown. It had been ripped apart at the seams, and I felt my anger rising to the surface, trying to push out the thoughts of what I knew must have occurred in order for her nightgown to be in the state that it was.

At work, I had seen women come into the hospital who had been raped, and my heart always broke for them. They always had the most depressed look on their faces. Tears ran down my face as I pictured my wife with that same look on her face. I hated that I wasn't there to save her. I sniffled a little more, and looked around the house. Nothing else had been dropped. I looked at my wedding ring and felt a pang of hope. If she still had her ring on, maybe it would give her a sense of hope too, and help her think of me whenever she looked at it.

KNOCK-KNOCK.

The knock on the door made me jump. I held my gun up in front of me in a defensive stance, ready to face whoever was on the other side of the door. I didn't think looters would knock, but you never know, especially since the world had fallen into a state of despair the past couple of days. I stood by the wall, and opened the door, making sure I wasn't in front of it when it revealed who was on the other side. A soldier stood in the doorway with a gun, pointed downward. He was wearing a gas mask.

"Hello, sir. What can I do for you?"

"Good evening, I am going door to door handing out this notice. I'll be on my way now."

I shut the door and looked at the sheet of paper the soldier had handed to me. As I read the notice, I felt the walls closing in on me and I suddenly couldn't breathe. I sank down onto my couch, hanging my head and rubbing my neck for comfort. In the blink of an eye, my wife had gone missing, and my world had been turned upside down with the words martial law until further notice.