I rush over and press my hands to his wound. ‘We got you, Obi. You’re going to be just fine.’ He doesn’t look at all like he’s going to be fine. His eyes tell me that he knows I’m lying.

He coughs and struggles to breathe.

He’s been lying here, watching the whole drama unfold with my sister, and patiently waiting for us to find him while we carried the other wounded.

‘Help them,’ he says, staring into my eyes.

‘I’m doing my best, Obi.’ I can’t press hard enough to stop his bleeding.

‘You know the angels better than anyone.’ He takes a labored breath. ‘You know their strengths, their weaknesses. You know how to kill them.’

‘We’ll talk later.’ No matter how hard I press, the blood seeps between my fingers and out of the sides of my hands. ‘Rest now.’

‘Get your sister to help with her monsters.’ He closes his eyes and opens them again sluggishly. ‘She listens to you.’ Breath. ‘People will follow you.’ Breath. ‘Lead them.’

I shake my head. ‘I can’t. My family needs me—’

‘We’re your family too.’ His breathing slows. His eyelids droop. ‘We need you.’ He puffs out his words between breaths. ‘Humanity. Needs. You.’ His words are barely a whisper now. ‘Don’t let them die.’ Breath. ‘Please . . .’ Breath. ‘Please don’t let them die . . .’

He lies still and stares blankly into my eyes.

‘Obi?’

I listen and feel for another breath, but there’s no sign of life.

I pull back my trembling hands. They’re covered in blood.

He wasn’t even my friend, but my eyes sting with tears anyway.

It feels like the last linchpin of civilization just broke.

I look around, noticing for the first time that everyone around me has stopped to watch Obi. Everyone has tears shining in their eyes. Not everyone may have liked him, but everyone respected him.

No one had realized he was lying there among the other injured until we found him. Now the people carrying the injured, the ones giving water to the thirsty, the ones handing out armfuls of blankets – all are frozen and staring at Obi, who lies on the blood-stained grass with his empty eyes staring at the sky.

A woman drops her pile of blankets. She turns, her face crumpling, and walks away, stooped and shuffling like a broken person.

A man gently puts down an injured woman on the main building steps. He turns and walks dazedly away from the battle scene.

A boy my age pulls his water back from an injured man propped against a building wall. He screws on the top of his water bottle while looking thoughtfully at the next injured man beside the first. He walks away as the second man reaches out to him.