North Korea and America are at war - Counter Factual Fiction

He leaves the emergency room with the stretcher following; he holds door after door open, his patient covered by a sheet which only hides a bit of the damage, his face completely charred to the bone, only the whites of his eyes visible. He could not do much else for him now.

He exits and goes to his reception room where a nurse waits for him; she gawps a little at the state of him, blood splattered on his surgical scrubs, he takes no mind but he checks the time.

11am, he has been here for 16 hours.

He scrubs his hands in the sink quickly as he says to his nurse, “I need to make a call, do you think I can take five minutes?”

She nods meekly, tiredness showing on her face. She has been here for a longer shift than he has.

“Take five minutes yourself, I need you at your best if we are going to ride this out.”

She blushes slightly, then with a tip of her head, she takes her leave.

He can hear the main reception before he sees it.

He can hear screaming, a child crying, sniffles and vomit, small reassurances and prayers being muttered.

He can also smell sweat, it is pungent in the air, along with heat.

There is also a queue to the receptionist’s desk, a small queue, but a queue nevertheless.

He stays leaning against the archway, just looking at the scene, 16 hours and they have barely made a dent.

The seats are all occupied with a variation of people, a variation of damages. A little girl sits on the floor crying for her mother, tears rolling down her face.  A man sits in the chair with a face so swollen his neck couldn’t carry it, and another man next to him with his face and neck so charred and burnt, blood-curling and pooling in his collar bone. Another was almost naked, his clothes burnt off him.

He made a note to ask to give him blankets.

He looks up at the television screen in the corner of the room, according to the presenter, Trump claims that North Korea will “face fire and fury, unlike the world, has ever seen.”

He did not mention Japan being in the crossfire or the fact that Japan was noble enough to shoot the H-bomb down before it even reached its target.

He was sitting eating dinner when it happened, when his phone began going erratic, vibrating enough to fall off the table, his wife turned on the television only to see a cloud of fire and smoke erupting into the sky, spreading like a ripple when you dropped a coin into water.

He couldn’t eat after that. He ran straight to the hospital, only stopping to kiss his wife on the cheek.

The receptionist has left her post and walked up to him. He looked down towards her, “Did you need something, Sensei Harada?”

He thought of the phone and felt choked. “No, I will be fine for now, just send in the next patient.”

*

Back in surgery, he ties an apron around his back tightly, the movements monotonous. The nurse is putting her mask over her face with her hair tied up and covered with a cap, when they send the patient in on a gurney.

It was a teenager, probably about 14. Half of his hair had been shorn off, his face terribly blank as he just stares at the ceiling.

It was his leg that was the problem.

He could see bone, it had snapped, poking directly out of the skin.

“What is your name?” He says to the boy, the boy finally turns his face towards him, his eyes are red with tears that threaten to fall.

“Kazuma, Sensei.” He gulps.

“Okay, Kazuma, are you here alone?”

He can see Kazuma’s Adam’s apple twitch, “They’re looking for my older sister still, in the rubble.”

Harada took a breath, “Let’s focus on you for now Kazuma, are you in pain?”

Kazuma shook his head, “I was in pain before, but my leg just feels numb now.”

“Right, I am going to need you to tell me exactly what happened.”

Kazuma nods slightly. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the nurse preparing a needle. His face goes blank.

“Kazuma, look at me and tell me what happened.”

“I thought it was just a plane flying over, that’s all we thought it was. And then we started getting really hot, I was sat by the window and my skin started burning, I thought it was just the heat, then I saw smoke and I was sent through the air into the kitchen against the cupboards, I blacked out after that, when I woke up the cupboard was crushing my leg.”

“Well, you have an open fracture and it has not been treated properly, so I am going to have to put you under Kazuma. Are you okay with that? You have not got a parent here to sign for you and you are still underage.”

Kazuma gulps, “Yes that’s fine.”

“Okay,” he snaps his gloves against his wrist and places his mask over his mouth, taking the needle from the nurse, Kazuma turns his head away from the table, his eyes flickering shut, his breathing evens out and they begin the procedure.

*

Harada goes into the waiting room again. It is now 4 o’clock; he needs to make the phone call.

He goes to the receptionist’s desk, and types in the number at the phone plugged into the wall.

“The radiation is still spreading,” he overhears the receptionist from before saying as he dials the number.

“The area is in the middle of being contained. If there were people still alive in there, they won’t be for long. Especially not with the gas inhalation.”

“Diplomacy never works out,” her partner says. She could not be more correct.

The ringing tone stops, “Papa?”

“Happy Birthday Yura.”

20th October 2017, his daughter's 7th birthday.

“Thank you, Papa. Are you coming home soon?”

“I hope so Yura, you are being very brave though, I look forward to seeing you soon. Are you looking after your mother for me?”

“You know mother looks after both of us.” She says, her voice chirpy. His heart twists.

He laughs softly, “Yes, she does, Yura”

“Papa?” she asks tentatively.

“Yes?”

“Why did they hurt Hiroshima?”

His face turned blank. Why did they hurt Hiroshima? Because diplomacy never works?

“Because they are bad people, Yura.”

“Are we bad people, Papa?”

“No, Yura we are not, you should not be worrying about that anyway, make sure you have fun-“

“Papa, I can’t hear you, I think there is a plane flying up ahead. It is really loud papa.”

Harada’s stomach drops, his breath stutters. No, no it can’t be.

“Yura-“

“Papa, it’s boiling in here-“

“Yura, get under the table!”

“Pa-“

The phone cuts off.

He can’t breathe, he dials again, “Yura? Yura?”

That’s when he hears it, a loud, ferocious bang, a burst of heat sending him flying into the wall, shelving falling onto of him. His ears are ringing, there is smoke everywhere, then it all goes black.

That’s when he wakes up.

He jumps out of his bed, yelling, only for men in white masks and shrouds to run into the room and push him back against the bed, he fights back, kicking and screaming, pain searing in his arms and legs, clawing at them until they push him down and a woman walks into the room.

It was the receptionist.

“You, what happened, where am I, where is my family?”

When she sits down, he realises he is in a hospital room; he goes limp, the men in the white masks leave, filing out of the door. He looks down at himself when he sees bandages all over his arms and legs.

“This is the second time you have done this Harada-San.”

“Done what? Where is my family?”

She pauses, adjusting the sleeve of her white jacket, “Harada-san, your nightmares are a symptom of your stress, caused by recent events in your life.”

“What events? Is my family safe?”

She frowns, “Your family perished in the bombing of Hiroshima. You were one of the few survivors. It has now been a month since the bombing, North Korea and America are at war.”