The Bane of Our Existence [The Dark Knight Rises]

11: So Was I

Bría followed the sounds of men shouting, and instinctively she began to run towards the debris. A cloud of dust was slowly sinking, and there were groans of a few men. Others were rushing towards the scene, including Bane -though he walked at a slower speed, something dangerous in the way he was moving. Bría flew past all of them, navigating the crates and chucks of concrete that were askew. When she spotted a man crushed by one of those concrete slabs, she skidded to a kneel and assessed the situation.

She saw no blood around aside from superficial cuts and scrapes, but she knew that his spine or other bones could be damaged or broken. The slab was on his legs, and he was on his back. He groaned in agony and began begging for her help, and that was when Bría realized he was just a kid. Maybe eighteen years old, a skinny teenage boy. Sympathy struck her, and she turned to a few others who were just standing around.

"Help me lift this off of him," she commanded, and to her surprise, they listened. She turned back to the kid, "What's your name? Do you feel any pain other than in your legs?"

"I can't feel my legs," the kid cried.

Bría bit her tongue; this kid was paralyzed. She dropped her head, then pushed the kid's hair away from his eyes and his sweaty brow. She had to keep him calm, to prevent him from seizing up or going into shock. Maybe he was wrong about what he felt, and that he was in shock and could not feel because of that.

"Stop," Bane told his men who were beginning to remove the slab.

"He needs medical attention!" Bría told Bane.

"In many cultures, the weak are put out of their misery. The feeble, the cripples, the weak."

Bría realized what he meant now, about the weak. "He's just a kid..."

"So was I," Bane mumbled to himself, but Bría heard. She wondered what he meant; was he just a kid when he suffered such bodily harm that he ended up disfigured and needing a mask to survive?

"We cannot let him live. Basard," Bane lifted his hand and beckoned for his right hand man to approach. The man did so, walking over to the kid who began to beg for his life. Bría went to stand up, but the kid held her hand. Basard withdrew a pistol and shot the kid point blank; the hand in Bría's went limp and she jerked away from the still warm body.

All Bría had done was allow her instincts to kick in, and it had exposed her weakness. She couldn't stomach the horrors like she thought she could, but she was doing so now. Finally rising, she glared ever so slightly at Bane, who was challenging her with a piercing gaze. Half of her was angry, filled with rage that nothing more was done to save the kid's life. And then she was overpowered with the realization that it had been for the best; a swift death.

She dropped her gaze in defeat.

Sensing her withdrawal, Bane began to scour the wreckage. The others began to clean up the mess, trying to figure out what set off the explosion in the first place. Everyone of them took caution should something else blow up. Crates and pallets were strewn all over the place. After a moment, Bría was able to begin assessing the situation, trying to locate what was salvageable from the wreckage. She spotted a crushed box underneath a slab of concrete. When she moved the slab, there was the sound of glass tinkling to the ground. The box read, "morphine" on the front.

There had to be over twenty-thousand dollars worth of morphine, crushed and wasted.

"Bane!" She called out, "We have a problem."

He strode over and looked down, then crouched and rifled through the glass. Finding one bottle left unbroken in the heap, he lifted it. It was tiny in his hands and when he clutched it, it disappeared from sight. He stared at the wall ahead of them, then looked back down at his hand. When he opened it, the bottle was still there, as if mocking him.

"I need more," he told her, then glanced at her. "You and Basard will get me more."

"There's a search warrant out for my arrest," she explained.

"This," he shook the little bottle in his hand, "is not strong enough anymore. I need you."

She thought of the massive scars on his back, the small ones that were scattered over his scalp. The pain he must have endured, and what he still endured. The strength that he had despite all of that, it was commendable. And so that was what made her agree to finding him something stronger than morphine, but she made one ultimatum.

"Let me give you the first dose, too much of what I'm going to get you will kill you," she bartered.

He hesitated, unsure about it.

"You have twelve hours."

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