As they laid on the ground, Cas could feel the dust from the collapsed building settling in gritty layers over his clothes and hair. He was glad that Iris had had the sense to usher them out before the second bomb had struck. If they had stayed put, they would have been crushed. He shivered at the thought, clinging to her tightly in anticipation for the next explosion. He wasn’t ready to die, but he felt completely powerless to prevent it. When Regis had attacked him in the basement, he’d at least been able to defend himself. However, there was no way he could fight back against a bomb. If the aircrafts dropped one much closer, they had no chance of getting away with their lives.

Distantly, he could hear the whistle of the projectile falling through the air as the third bomb was released, and he held his breath anxiously. The missile hit the earth even nearer to them than the last two had been. He ground his teeth as a powerful gust of wind rushed over them followed by another jarring quake. What was left of the housing complex crumbled behind them, but none of the debris flew far enough to put them at risk of being hit. The worst of the blow was the trembling of the pavement beneath them and the deafening sound of the targeted district detonating.

Cas gasped for air, unable to hold his breath any longer, and coughed as he inhaled some of the chalky dust that was still swirling around them. His whole body trembled with a mixture of panic and adrenaline that had yet to fade. Until now, he hadn’t known just how traumatizing warfare really was, but now that he’d gotten a taste of what the destruction was like, he wanted nothing more than to make it stop for good. There were too many ruined buildings, too much violence, too many corpses. Trying to absorb it all left him feeling dizzy, and he wished he could go back to a time when he’d been blissfully ignorant of it all. But there was no going back. His eyes had been opened to the carnage in the nation he’d always thought of as a utopia, and he could never ignore it again.

As the aftershock from the bomb continued to resonate through the ground under their bodies, he cradled Iris against himself, feeling her shake uncontrollably while she whispered under her breath. She didn’t seem to be taking the experience any better than he had. Steeling himself mentally, he risked glancing up at the sky. The air was full of dust, so he couldn’t see clearly, but he could see the shadows of the bombers drifting further away. It looked like the worst of the attack was over. They were safe for now.

With a long exhale, he rested his head back down on the ground and closed his eyes, trying to recover from the shock of nearly dying. [color=#b97703]“It’s okay… we’re okay,”[/color] he murmured, partly to himself although the words were meant for Iris. He laid still for a few minutes longer before he shakily sat up. Letting his eyes rove over the buildings around them, his expression was dull. In the absence of fear, he was left feeling numb inside, too overwhelmed by everything that had happened that day to process it all.

[color=#b97703]“We should find someplace to take shelter,”[/color] he said quietly, turning back to Iris. While the bombs were falling, it had been safer to run outside, but now, they were back to the first danger they’d faced: being spotted by members of the rebellion. To prevent that from happening, they needed to find a place to hide out until she was well enough to keep moving.