Jim was saddened by Emily’s tear-struck face and tried to push himself up so he could try to help her.  As he pushed up, he back let out a multitude of cracks and cracking noises.    It had gotten bent out of shape during the pulling of the sign, and the kinks were working themselves out right then and there.  As he finally stood up, he looked over towards Emily, trying to analyze her situation.

She looked about the same as before, savor the tears and the shaking.  As he studied her, he noticed that both of her arms were grasping her leg, the same leg that had the injury before.  Realizing that the pain she was experiencing must have had something to do with the injury from earlier, he looked directly in front of him, at her ankle.  There was a wound where the sign had stuck into her.  It had a faint red ring around it and there was a slow, steady stream of blood pouring out of it, creating a puddle on the ground.

“Oh!  That’s not good!”

Jim, tired as he may have been, hobbled over towards her ankle as quickly as he could.  The girl was screaming because she was losing blood, and quickly.  It needed to be stopped before she lost too much and fainted.  As he tried to run, his bad leg tripped on a small stone in the field, sending a piercing pain flying up through his leg and sending him face-down into the ground.    He grunted and let out as soft of a scream as he could as he felt the pain coming through his body.  His hands were slightly trembling from the shock of it.

As Jim pushed himself back up, Emily had been watching him the entire time.  Her eyes stared down at him, but they were no longer of fear.  They stared down at him with a saddened look of concern.  Jim was a little afraid at the glance she gave him.  He could almost tell what she was about to say.  ‘Oh, great…’ he thought.  ‘She’s probably noticed my injury by now.  Well, nothing I can do about that.  Just gotta…keep going and help her!’

“J-jim…” called down Emily, “You’re…are you hurt?”

Jim kept moving as he heard Emily’s call for his own concern, looking past the injury she’d been feeling pain from.  As he moved, he simply nodded and told her that he was fine.  He knew she wouldn’t believe him, but that didn’t matter.  All that was important, for the moment, was getting her blood to stay inside her body.  He hobbled further and further until, finally, he came back up to her ankle. 

Quickly pulling himself up onto her sneaker, Jim got on his knees in front of the wound.  To him, the stab wound from the sign was about as big as a fist, so covering it up and keeping the blood inside would be no easy task.  He very much doubted he could do it all on his own.  However, he couldn’t just let her suffer like this.  He had to do something, even if he wasn’t anywhere close to being a doctor.

Taking both of his palms, he pushed down, covering the wound with them.  The flow of blood put up a resistance, but he tried his best to keep pushing and pushing to keep it inside.  As he finally got his hands to make contact with her skin, small amounts of blood were squirting up between his fingers, showering his face with small red droplets.  He could also feel pressure slowly building up against him and more blood was trying to escape through the wound.  Nonetheless, he held his hands there, not willing to let Emily lose any more blood than she had to.

Emily had been concerned for Jim’s well-being when she saw him trip and stumble on his leg.  He was very small compared to her, but it looked like his leg had been somewhat disfigured.  She was, in no way, a person of the medical field, but it didn’t look healthy.  She believed Jim when he said he was alright, though.  She wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop him from helping her, whether she believed him or not.  The pain she was experiencing from her ankle was almost unbearable and both her hands were latched onto her leg, trying to reduce the pain she was experiencing.

She carefully watched as Jim came up onto her sneaker again and threw his palms down on her wound.  She grunted and whimpered from the pain the pressure he was putting on her was doing, but it was nothing compared to the pain she had experienced the moment the sign popped out.  She carefully tried to watch him, wiping her face on the shoulder of her uniform from time to time to clear up her own tears. 

Jim was struggling to keep his palms down against her skin.  The blood wasn’t slowing down from the pressure his hands were putting on the wound.  The pressure resistance was doing nothing but getting stronger.  For each moment that passed, a slight amount of force added to the strength of the pressure.  He was at a standstill.  He couldn’t keep the blood in forever.  He couldn’t stop the blood flow; he could only delay it.  There had to be some other way to fix this problem.  If only he were a little stronger or had something to wrap around the wound that would be strong enough to keep the blood from escaping.

As he tried to think, he looked up towards Emily, trying to keep the pressure down the best he could.  Surely she had to have something with her that could be used to patch up this wound.  He likely wasn’t strong enough to hold the blood back because of how much smaller he was compared to her.  Were she to get some sort of cloth or other sort of material that could be wrapped around the wound, they might be able to patch her up and stop this blood flow.  He called up to her and, between deep breaths, tried to explain the situation.

“Emily…I’m sorry…I’m not…strong enough…to hold…the blood…inside…Do you…have anything….we can use…as a bandage…to wrap around…this…?”

Emily was hesitant to answer Jim’s request.  She knew that he was asking her to help him patch her up, but she was scared when he told her he couldn’t do what he was trying to do.  Her mind immediately filled with a lot of negative and scary images.  She didn’t want to move at all, knowing that the pain would likely get worse as soon as her arms left her leg.  She soft whimpered “B-but..I…I…”

Jim heard Emily’s words and knew she was scared.  Despite this, he couldn’t do this without her.  He didn’t have anything on him that would be strong enough to hold this wound shut and the pressure was almost getting too much for him to handle.  As he thought about it, his broken leg twitched.  Weakened by the strength he’d used to hold back the blood, Jim let out a soft scream, pained from his own injury.  His hands then began to move slightly upward, more blood squirting up into his face.  He shook his head and tried to lean away from it, but he knew what was happening.  He was about to lose his hold on the situation.

He then called up to her, knowing he couldn’t hold onto the wound for very much longer.“Emily…I…I know you’re scared….but…I can’t do this…on my own…I need...I need...your help.”

Emily’s hesitation was being questioned as Jim let out his last statement.  She looked down at him and immediately saw the bigger picture.  She was in pain, but when she heard his scream and saw how much he was struggling against her wound, she realized that he was also in pain.  His leg had moved and he had screamed.  He was far from alright, and yet he ignored his own pain to help her with hers.  She knew she had to confront her fears and do what she did was right.

“Okay, Jim…I’ll…I’ll see what I can do…” said Emily, softly, as her right hand trembled, slowing letting go of her leg and reaching up towards her head…