'This Fractured Night' by Debbi Voisey

This is not a dream. You are awake. The noises are still in your head and you have the blood on your shirt from when you helped the young girl. Some of this might even be your own. You go to the hospital where people are milling in their hundreds. Everything inside is in slow motion. You watch people make calls, some sitting on floors, some shirtless. Some swiping tears with grubby hands and saying "I don't know, I don't know" into their phones. Outside, this fractured night is limping towards morning. Everyone wants to give; to have their blood taken to try to put some of this back the right way up. You see people of all ages and you don't notice their race. Their blood is the same colour. You hand your form in as two more ashen faced parents are led behind a screen.