Simon didn't realize how badly he was hurt until he tried to sit down.
His legs folded without warning, strength draining out of them like something unplugged. He caught himself on one hand, then lost that too, the pavement scraping against his palm as he went down. The pain arrived late, sharp and focused now that it had his attention.
Someone shouted his way.
"Hey—don't move."
Hands appeared, hovering at first, unsure. A man crouched in front of him, talking quickly, words blurring together. Simon nodded because it seemed expected of him, though he wasn't sure what he was agreeing to.
"I'm fine," he tried to say.
It came out wrong.
Someone pressed a jacket against his leg. Another voice told him to stay awake. He focused on that instruction because it was simple and immediate. Stay awake. He could do that.
Sirens grew louder. Close enough now to feel, not just hear. A fire truck pulled up, followed by an ambulance. The scene tightened around him—people stepping back, uniforms moving in, questions being asked in a practiced order.
They cut away part of his pant leg. He looked down and felt nothing for a moment. Then too much. Someone cursed softly. Someone else told him not to look.
He lay back on the stretcher when they told him to. The sky above was painfully blue, empty in a way that felt almost mocking. As they lifted him, the motion sent a wave of dizziness through him, and the edges of his vision dimmed.
"Stay with me," a woman said, close to his ear.
"I am," Simon answered, though it felt like a guess.
The ambulance doors closed with a solid, final sound. Inside, everything was white and loud and too bright. His name was asked for. His age. Allergies. He answered slowly, each response dragged up from somewhere deeper than it should have been.
As the vehicle moved, the pain shifted, spreading outward in dull pulses. He clenched his jaw and stared at the ceiling, counting breaths because it gave his mind something neutral to hold onto.
A small screen near the front flickered on.
Breaking news.
Footage already looping—streets torn open, buildings damaged, people running with their phones held up instead of out of the way. A banner scrolled across the bottom of the screen, words moving faster than he could comfortably read.
Major earthquake strikes the city.
Emergency services overwhelmed.
Casualties unconfirmed.
Simon watched without much reaction. The images felt distant, unreal in the way reflections did. He wondered briefly if he was watching the same street he'd just been lying on, or if they all looked the same now.
The paramedic noticed his gaze and adjusted something, blocking part of the screen.
"Don't worry about that," she said. "Just rest."
He closed his eyes.
Darkness didn't come all at once. It crept in around the edges, softening sound, loosening time. He drifted in and out—voices overlapping, hands lifting him again, wheels rattling beneath him.
At some point, the smell changed. Sterile. Clean. Too clean.
Hospital lights slid past overhead, one after another, like slow-moving stars. Someone counted aloud. Someone else gave a report using numbers instead of adjectives. His name was repeated, anchored to him like a tag.
They moved him onto another bed. Cold sheets. A blanket pulled up to his chest. A needle slid into his arm, sharp and precise.
"Simon," a voice said, closer now. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes," he said. Or maybe he thought it.
"Good. Stay with us."
He wanted to laugh at that. Not because it was funny—because it felt strangely negotiable.
As they worked, fragments of sound slipped through: another earthquake warning. Structural damage. Transit shutdowns. Something about aftershocks.
The world, it seemed, was still moving.
His body finally gave up the argument.
The last thing Simon noticed before losing consciousness was the television across the room, volume turned low, showing the same broken streets again and again from slightly different angles.
The story had already started telling itself.
He just hadn't caught up yet.