I Discovered Something Evil at the Bottom of the Grand Canyon | Part 2
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Only Mark and Sammy had thought to bring flashlights. Knowing that we would be crossing creeks and possibly getting soaked, most of us had opted to leave our phones back at the camp. They didn't work down in the canyon anyway. Sylvia had offered to take pictures and share them with everyone after the trip was over. So as we moved down the trail toward the cave, we only had two flashlights. Although it wasn't officially night yet, the heavy clouds and the rain and the sheer cliff walls made it plenty dark.

Getting to the cave meant walking up a steep hill on the diagonal from the trail. I hung onto tough little shrubs to keep from sliding backward on the increasingly slick sand and clay underfoot. Mark stopped outside the cave and ushered us in, telling us not to go too far back. Apparently, he explored only enough of the cave for shelter, nothing more. He handed his flashlight off to Neil, the unofficial alpha of the group, and one of the guys I had made friends with.

Neil was the first one in, and he shone the flashlight behind him so those of us between the two lights could see. The cave entrance was narrow, leaving only room enough for us to sit single file out of the rain. It was cool inside, although our soaking wet clothes certainly added to the chill. The craggy, rust-colored walls made a rough oval shape that prevented most of us from standing up straight.

As I settled in, sitting between Sylvia and Jerome, a putrid smell wafted past me on a sudden warm gust of wind. It was as if some massive, long-dead creature had suddenly awoken deeper in the cave and exhaled centuries worth of rot. Everyone remarked on the smell, including Mark, who picked his way past us to take his spot at the head of the line. "Damn, Neil," Jerome said. "Why couldn't you fart outside?"

I laughed nervously, along with the others. "Probably just some gas pocket escaping the earth," Mark said as he took his flashlight from Neil and moved deeper into the cave. He shone the light farther in, illuminating what looked like a wider cavern past a thin, inverted triangle gap. "Why don't we go in there?" Neil asked. "We could get a fire going and sit around in a circle." Mark shook his head. "There's nowhere for the smoke to go. We'd be coughing our lungs out in five minutes."

Still, it would be better to sit in there in a circle around the flashlights, Neil insisted. It would be more comfortable than sitting in this tiny space, Mark sighed. All right, let me check it out. Mark climbed through the inverted triangle gap, his light casting around the cavern. It did look roomier from what little I could see. Sylvia, who had taken my hand as soon as we went down, was now shivering.

I turned to her, about to ask if there was anything I could do, when Mark screamed. His cry ripped through the air, causing all heads to whip his way. The scream cut off suddenly, leaving a rushing silence in its wake. I peered through the triangle, but I couldn't see Mark. Only a distant backsplash from his flashlight. It only lit the cavern walls. Neil was the first one to make a sound. "Mark? You okay?" There was no answer. "Mark!

Neil called again. A waft of that wretched air passed me again, causing my stomach to somersault. I kept my eye on Mark's light, but when I blinked, I saw Angel Jenkins in the inverted triangle, bloody and dead, but somehow standing and staring at me. All eyes turned toward Sammy, who was at the end of the line, nearest the entrance. Behind her, sheets of rain came down in the canyon, but somewhere below, Avasu Creek continued to rise.

Sammy had the only other flashlight, which she had pointed down the line, toward the triangular gap in the rocks. But I could see her face. She looked just as lost as the rest of us. While I was busy studying Sammy, Mark's flashlight turned off with an audible click. Now, I saw nothing but darkness beyond the inverted triangle. The light from Sammy's flashlight couldn't reach that far. Mark? Neil tried again. This isn't funny! Amy called.

A deep grunt came from the cave's depths. "I should go check on him," Neil said, standing up. "He probably fell and knocked himself unconscious." I pulled my legs to my chest as he scooted past us. "I'll need that flashlight, Sammy." "Then we'll all be in the dark," Amy said. "He might be hurt," Neil retorted. "You just want me to leave him there?" Amy backed down, shaking her head. Sammy, wide-eyed and unusually quiet, handed her flashlight over.

"Anyone wanna come with?" Neil asked, looking at me. Sylvia's grip on my hand tightened. As I looked at the triangle, I saw Angel's silhouette there. "I'll go with," Jerome said. My cheeks grew hot as I looked down at the cave floor. The two men, if 18-year-olds are really men, headed to the triangular cave entrance. Neil shone the light through. "You see anything?" Sylvia asked. "Not yet," Neil said, climbing through.

Jerome followed after. Everyone else, all six of us, watched them move into the cavern. Neil swept the flashlight around, looking for Mark. The darkness grew thicker with every step they took away from us. They called his name several times. I could still see both Neil and Jerome from the shoulders up, as they ventured toward where Mark's flashlight had been when it went off. When it was turned off.

on some unseen signal, a noise maybe. Both of them snapped their heads upward, Neil shining the flashlight straight at the ceiling. Even from afar, I saw their faces distorted in terror. It happened quickly, like someone singeing their bangs too close to a fire. Jerome was faster, and his face was lost to shadows from the light in Neil's hand behind him.

Neither man screamed, but I could see Neil's face as he ran back toward us. And the terror there brought me back to the night of the accident. The terror of not knowing what to do, of encountering something you are wholly unprepared for. Jerome dove through the inverted triangle, landing hard on his left shoulder before rolling sloppily and crashing into a craggy rock.

I was aware of this, but most of my attention was fixed on Neil and his face, and the thing that had dropped down behind him from the ceiling. The thing that looked like Mark, but that wasn't. The Mark thing's face was shockingly transformed. His head was puffy and misshapen, like he'd been beaten, and his face was swelling up. His eyes were completely gone, leaving only bloody, hollowed-out sockets. Yet he seemed to have no trouble seeing as he ran jerkily toward the inverted pyramid.

Just as Neil slowed to dive through the hole, the marked thing reached out and gripped his head. The two of them went down, dropping from sight as Neil screamed. The flashlight went out, and then the wet snap of bones issued from the cavern. "Run!" Jerome screamed, getting to his feet while gripping his limp left arm to his chest. I realized with some surprise I was already on my feet. Sammy shouted for us to leave the cave. By the sound of her voice, she was already outside.

Sylvia yanked me along, and I ran awkwardly through the narrow passageway, stepping out into the pouring rain to join our group already down at the trail, which was still a few feet above the rising creek. I spun around, slipping my hand from Sylvia's as I looked to where Jerome was. His dark figure approached the entrance, but something lurched along behind him. Come on! I shouted.

Reaching the entrance, Jerome jerked upright suddenly, stopping mere feet away from the pouring rain outside. With no flashlight around, I couldn't see behind him well or tell why he'd stopped. I opened my mouth to ask him when lightning flashed overhead. Enough pale light reached into the cave to illuminate the scene. Movement drew my eyes to Jerome's neck, icy terror slicing through me as I saw things wriggling under his skin.

Four finger-sized things moved under his skin, pushing toward his windpipe. And then I realized that's just what they were: fingers. The lightning blinked out, plunging us back into darkness. But my eyes were adjusting to the less intense low light outside. The shape of the marked thing stood behind Jerome, whose eyes were wide with pain and fear. "Help me!" Jerome said, reaching his hands out, even as those fingers undulated under his skin.

I stood frozen, unable to do anything but watch. "Please!" Jerome said. Then the fingers broke through his skin. The Mark Thing's now sharp nails curved and the claws pierced deep into Jerome's neck. The Mark Thing tore a fist-sized chunk out of the side of Jerome's neck. Blood spewed. Jerome, his eyes still fixed on me, fell to his knees. Behind him, the Mark Thing shoved the bloody flesh into its mouth and chewed sloppily with a grin.

I could see its swollen face better now, and I realized the swelling was for more things under his skin. Little gashes had formed on the swollen areas, and what could only be tightly packed insect legs protruded from the skin. These black, hairy legs twitched and undulated, like the swarm was trying to escape. Sure enough, insect-shaped bulges rippled under the mark-thing's face as it stepped over Jerome.

I was next. My paralysis finally broke, but I couldn't lift a finger to help someone else. Angel, Mark, Neil, or Jerome. But I could move when my ass was on the line. I ran down toward the trail, and the group stood there, watching. They hadn't bolted, like I would've. They had stayed. Not that it was going to matter. We were all going to die. The only ones left were Sammy, Sylvia, Amy, me, and a boyfriend-girlfriend couple.

As I ran toward them, the only other guy left aside for me, Sean, stepped forward with a big branch in one hand. They all had some kind of improvised weapon. Most had rocks, but a couple had branches, like Sean. I knew by the way they stated that the Mark thing was coming. Are they nuts? I thought. Do they think it's just Mark? Did they not see what I saw? That Mark is gone? When I got to the group, I moved behind Sean and turned to look back.

The Mark Thing stood halfway up the slope between us and the cave. Was it gathering its bearings? It extended its arms, rain pelting its skin. Blood streaked down its face from the eye holes and all the strange gashes from which insectile legs protruded. Finally, it looked up into the sky with its eyeless sockets. It stayed like that for a long time. When it brought its face back down to look at us, bloody water poured out of the sockets.

The Mark Thing came for us, but it didn't run. It wasn't in a hurry at all. Sean moved to meet it, with his girlfriend Bonnie at his side. The Mark Thing didn't even put up an arm to block Sean's blow. It simply took it and went down to its knees. But as Bonnie approached with her baseball-sized rock, it whipped one fist out and struck her in the stomach. The rest of the group, Sammy, Amy, and Sylvia, all darted forward, shouting out war cries.

Sean hit the Mark thing again, furious at it striking his girlfriend. Then the rest of them were there, bashing the thing with their rocks or branches. Bonnie recovered and attacked. Lightning lit up the sky as they beat the thing to death. This went on for a few minutes. Then, as though they'd all planned it, they froze. They were all still looking down at Mark's body, holding their weapons. But it was like someone had hit the pause button. I blinked, a blade of fear cutting through my guts.

Lightning spiderwebbed across the sky. Thunder roared a moment later, and then they were moving again. Moving away from Mark's body, dropping their gory instruments and letting the rain wash away the blood splashed onto them. As they came back to me on the trail, I couldn't meet their eyes. I didn't want to. And it was clear they didn't want to look at me either. The useless one. The spineless one. The coward. We stuck together as a group for the rest of the night.

But no one spoke, and we never went back to the cave. We found some high ground under some trees and sat, soaking and shivering, until morning. The storm had passed by the time the sun came up. By afternoon, the creek was down enough to cross again. We made our way back to camp and toward the shitshow that awaited us.

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The next two days passed in a blur of frantic activity.

A helicopter ride out of the canyon. Police questioning, lawyer questioning, parents hovering, and school officials trying to keep a lid on the whole thing. I told the police something attacked Mark. Something out of this world. But they thought I was just hysterical. Your son has a vivid imagination, Detective Ratliff said to my parents after the first interview. I hear he's been through a lot lately. You may want to get him professional help. He said all this in front of me.

I pointed out that Mark's eyes were missing, but his head had been so messed up by the others that they assumed it was from the heat of the moment. When I mentioned the insects under his skin, they insisted it had happened after he'd been killed. They had an explanation for everything because what I said wasn't believable.

I don't know what the others told the police, but when I read about the story in the Arizona Republic and later on Reuters, there was no mention of anything supernatural. The story that the media ran with was that a Grand Canyon guide hired by Northern Arizona University had snapped and murdered two students before he was killed in self-defense. According to these news reports, one surviving student, Amy, pulled out of school while her parents sued the college for endangerment.

Apparently, the rest of the survivors were determined to continue with their education as planned, with school counselors on call to help. I for one didn't talk to the press, but my dad had told one reporter that I wouldn't delay my education any further. My parents thought I should have delayed a semester, but I was determined not to. I couldn't imagine going back to Phoenix and living in my parents' house again, working some dead-end job and reliving that night over and over again.

I wanted to put it behind me, but the school had different plans. When I showed up at the dorm to move, I discovered Sean was my roommate. The guy who first stepped up to fight the Mark thing when it first came out of the cave. He was as surprised to see me as I was him because he looked unhappy. The dorms were mostly silent because the official move-in day wasn't until tomorrow. Since our trip had been cut short, they let us move in early.

But I heard two voices as I walked down the fifth floor hallway to my assigned dorm. I stopped at the open door, interrupting Sean and Bonnie as they talked, unpacking Sean's things in our dorm. They both looked at me for a long moment before Sean said, "You're fucking kidding me, right?" With a lump in my throat, I shrugged, not daring to speak. I set my plastic storage bin down outside the door and stood there, unsure what to do.

My parents would be up soon with more stuff. Sean took his phone out and stormed past me, talking to Bonnie when he said, "I'm not living with this coward." He went down the hall, calling the school's housing director I guessed. Bonnie stared at me with open disgust for several long moments. "Why didn't you do anything?" she finally asked. "Why didn't you just stand by while Jerome was killed? While we fought that asshole?"

Again, I shrugged, on the verge of tears and with my face on fire. Once again, I couldn't bring myself to do anything at all. I couldn't defend myself. I couldn't scream or yell or storm off. I couldn't even speak. I stared at the floor while Bonnie moved past me, heading after her boyfriend. A moment later, I jumped as someone touched my back. I spun around to see Sylvia standing in the hall, gazing up at me with haunted eyes.

She looked like she hadn't slept. Come to think of it, Sean and Bonnie weren't looking too hot either. "Hey," Sylvia said. "Hey," I croaked. We stood awkwardly for a moment before she spoke again. "You and Sean bunking together? Not if he has anything to say about it. The school took the initiative and put us together, thinking it would be better for us."

They put me and Bonnie together one floor up, she said, pointing at the ceiling. Directly above you guys, actually. Room 614. That's good, I said. For you guys. I bet he'll calm down, Sylvia said, talking about Sean. He's just a little on edge. We all are, you know? Yeah. I wondered what was taking my parents so long. Sylvia cleared her throat. So, I need to ask you something. Yeah? When we were all...

defending ourselves. There's a moment I can't remember toward the end. Did something weird happen?" I thought about lying to her, thinking maybe I was crazy. But the visions of Angel Jenkins everywhere was proof. I wanted her to like me again, and lying would further that goal. But in the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it. "Yeah," I said. "You all just kind of froze all at the same time. It was really creepy."

We just stopped moving? Sylvia asked, clearly surprised. Yeah, just froze in position all at once, for maybe two seconds. Sylvia shook her head and opened her mouth to say something, but Sean's booming voice came from down the hall before she could. One night, asshole! Sean said. One night and that's it. We're going to get this sorted out. I'm not fucking living with you all semester. Sean and Bonnie moved into the room to continue unpacking.

Sylvia grabbed my hand to get my attention. "Give me your phone." I took it out, unlocked it, and gave it to her. She entered her number and gave the phone back. "Don't be a stranger. I know you have your reasons for what you did or didn't do that night. Maybe someday you'll tell me what they are." Sean was adamant about not living with me, but his prediction of one night only didn't come true. Night fell on my first full day living in the dorms, and neither of us heard from housing about the room change.

Sean quietly seethed while I sat on my bed and read, listening to the buzz of excitement outside our dorm as new freshmen flooded the building. The closest thing Sean and I had to an interaction was when I woke up around midnight to him screaming in his sleep. I shook him to wake him up, then explained he was having a nightmare, and he said, "Okay," in a strangely blank voice. I got back in bed and heard him sobbing softly as I tried to get back to sleep.

That was last night. Now, the sun was going down outside. Classes started tomorrow. I tried to be excited, like all those other people out in the halls, talking and laughing and getting to know each other. But I wasn't excited. I was scared. I didn't want the sun to go down, because something terrible was coming. I had a feeling the thing that had been inside Mark was still lurking around, waiting. For what? I didn't know.

I stood outside the wrecked Saturn sedan for what seemed like the thousandth time. I stared through the broken passenger side window at the mangled body of five-year-old Angel Jenkins. The 911 operator on the phone was asking me for additional details, but I could barely make the words come out. I slowly let my right hand fall down to my side, knowing I gave the location of the crash, thinking that was enough. But as I looked at Angel, I knew it wasn't nearly enough.

A river of blood ran down his face from his split open skull as he lay awkwardly on the center console. His father had been thrown from the vehicle and ended up down in the rocky drainage ditch that ran alongside the road. I could just see his mangled body in the orange spill from the nearby streetlight, but my gaze was fixed on the boy. Somehow, he was still alive. I didn't know how that was possible. I could see his brain.

He blinked and raised his right arm, which ended at the wrist in a bloody stump. His left hand, mangled as it was, lifted out toward me, gesturing for help. His mouth opened, and blood from his ruptured skull poured into it, causing him to cough and choke. I stood by, unable to move. A tinny voice escaped from my phone, held down by my right thigh. Then something moved in the car's back seat. This isn't right, I thought.

This isn't how it went. My eyes tracked that way to see a twisted, demented version of the Mark thing squatting in the back, staring with sightless sockets at me through the broken back window. The thing lurched through the window at me. I jolted, screaming, finding myself in my dorm room, the terrible nightmare clinging to my sweaty skin like a suit made of sandpaper. I looked over at Sean's bed, finding it empty. Sweaty and jacked up with adrenaline, I wouldn't be going back to sleep soon.

My bladder felt like an overfilled water balloon. So I threw my blanket off and got out of bed. It might be strange to walk the halls in just my boxers. So I pulled on some pajama pants and headed out into the hall. As soon as I exited the room, a blade of freezing fear scraped along my spine. The lights were off in the hallway, making it incredibly dark. They weren't off last night. They stayed on the whole time.

I didn't even see a way to turn them off. Not that I was looking hard. For a long moment, I considered going back into the room, locking the door, and curling up in my bed. I had a half-finished Gatorade on my desk. I could just drink it off and pee in the bottle. Anger surged through me like a desert dust storm. It wasn't a rage directed at anyone else but me for being too scared to go to the bathroom in the dark. A voice spoke up in my mind.

"If you're going to piss in bottles because you're scared of the dark, you might as well give up and eat the whole bottle of antidepressants you were prescribed." Jaw clenched, knowing the voice was right. I ducked back into the dorm room and grabbed my phone. As I turned the flashlight on, I wondered where Sean had gone off to. He'd been there when I went to bed, but I figured he'd gone up to spend the night with Bonnie. It was late, so I wasn't surprised the hall was quiet.

but it seemed almost dead. My dorm room was halfway down the hall from the shared bathrooms, so I headed that way in my bare feet, forgetting my flip-flops. I urged myself on, knowing I wouldn't come out of the room again if I went back now. As I passed a pair of doors on my right, I noticed that one was open a few inches. There was no light inside. I ignored it and moved on.

A sound like running feet erupted from behind me. I spun around and pointed the flashlight, seeing nothing but an empty hallway. Am I still dreaming? I wondered. This seemed real. Then again, so did the dream when I was in it. I headed to the bathroom, stepping onto the cold tile and looking for a light switch. Last night, the lights in the bathroom were on all the time, but not tonight.

Giving up after a few moments, I ventured farther into the restroom, shining the light around at the line of sinks on one side and the urinals on the other. Up ahead, there were toilet stalls and then shower stalls. It seemed like I was alone. I stepped up to a urinal and carefully propped my phone against the wall, which partially obscured the light but provided enough to see where I was aiming. It was better than putting it in my pocket, which would plunge me into darkness.

As I emptied my bladder, a toilet in a nearby stall flushed. Startled, I grabbed my phone and whipped it that way, waiting for someone to exit the stall. "Why were they sitting in the dark?" I wondered. No one came out of the stalls in the time it took me to finish at the urinal. I bent down and shined the light underneath them, but I saw no legs. I thought for a moment that Sean was messing with me. I went to the nearest sink.

As I glanced into the mirror just before putting my phone down, I glimpsed Sean on all fours on the ceiling above the urinals. He stared at me, grinning madly. Inhaling sharply, I turned and ran, feet slapping the tile floor. As I reached the exit, I glanced over my shoulder. Sean scrambled across the ceiling after me. I screamed before sprinting down the hall. I got to my dorm door and tried the knob, finding it locked. I hadn't brought my keys with me because I left the door unlocked.

Thinking of nothing but getting away from Sean, I continued down the hall, not daring to look back until I reached the door to the stairwell. As I pushed through the door, I glanced down the hallway, throat constricting as I saw at least a dozen freshmen on the ceiling, all of them staring at me with that mad grin. Shouting for help, I rushed up the stairs to Sylvia's floor. I smashed into her door with a thump, wrenching the unlocked knob open. I rushed inside shouting, "Sylvia!"

My phone's flashlight picked out Bonnie first. She sat cross-legged on her bed, body facing away from me, but her head was turned all the way around, her chin positioned above a grotesque bulge of broken vertebrae. Sensing something, I shifted my shaking hand to the right and brought Sylvia into view. She stood just a few feet away from me inside the room, staring with sightless eye sockets, just like the Mark thing.

Pulsating bulges deformed her head, hairy insect legs poking out of gashes in her skin. Blood streamed down her face from her injuries. She tilted her head and gazed with those bloody holes. "Why are you special?" she asked in a strange, gravelly voice. I shook my head, frozen in fear. "Do you have a guardian angel?" Sylvia asked with a wicked smile, teeth stained with blood from her eye holes.

I heard shuffling behind me and looked over my shoulder, spying Sean and the other freshman crowd, preventing my escape. They still had their eyes, but they were clearly under the Sean thing's control. I wondered if the whole dorm would soon be under its control. Maybe the whole university? The whole town? What then? The Sylvia thing grabbed my jaw and wrenched my head back to look at her. "Why can't I crawl inside you?"

A burning smell and a sizzling sound erupted, and it yanked its hand away from my jaw. It looked down at Sylvia's burnt, blackened skin with those sightless eyes. Then it looked back up at me with something like concern, but as the Sylvia thing studied me, a grin crawled back onto its face. "What good is a special coward?" it asked, moving past me and into the hall.

On some unseen signal, Sean and the other freshmen spread out and broke into the girls' dorm rooms. They splintered the doors with single kicks. Screams erupted from the rooms. The Sylvia thing's head twisted slowly around to stare back at me, still smiling. I shook where I stood, unable to make myself move, to do anything at all but watch.

Just like with Angel Jenkins. Just like with Jerome and the Mark thing. Like those other times, I just didn't know what to do. I was petrified with fear. Not only of the situation, but of doing the wrong thing. I didn't want to make things worse somehow. And was certain I would.

Sean pulled a petite blonde out of one room across the hall and bashed her nose in with one punch. "Anything's better than this," a small voice said inside me. It wasn't a voice I recognized. It sounded like it belonged to a little kid.

Shaking, I looked at the blonde and at the Sylvia thing. Its smile was fading as it gazed at me. "Anything's better than this," another voice said. This time, it was mine. My inner voice. "Sometimes, even the wrong action is better than no action," the voice said. "This is one of those times." "Stop!" I cried, finally breaking my paralysis. Everyone stopped, but the girls still sobbed and whimpered and begged for mercy.

Sean and the other possessed freshman stared at me. The Sylvia thing stared at me. Then it broke into laughter. "Stop! After cowering there, all you can say is stop!" The Sylvia thing laughed as a shadow grew behind it. In a moment, the shadow had grown into some hulking, midnight black beast with a blood-red slash of a mouth, too many squirming limbs, and two coal-orange eyes. As its true form emerged, Sylvia's body dropped to the floor.

You can't stop me! The shadow creature growled. I didn't care anymore. I just couldn't stand by and do nothing. I thought of Angel Jenkins and Jerome and the Mark thing. And every other time I did nothing when I should have acted. I didn't care. So I said the only words that came to mind. I can fucking try!

I lurched toward the creature, dropping my phone and swinging a fist, not knowing if it would connect or just go through the thing like fog. It connected, although it wasn't much. The thing was surprised. Its orange glowing eyes widened and its bloody slash of a mouth turned down.

Then my body moved on its own, my hands gripping the thing's slithery neck. But they weren't just my hands. They were also the hands belonging to a five-year-old boy I'd watched die. We rode the monster to the floor as it writhed and screamed that this wasn't possible. But it was. It was happening. Angel's hands moved to the creature's mouth, and he wrenched it open. Without hesitating, he shoved his head in the thing's mouth and forced himself inside.

He crawled in as the creature writhed. I held it down as best I could, but I knew Angel was doing the lion's share of the work. The kid's tennis shoes disappeared down the thing's throat. The creature's eyes were wide, its mouth open in torment. A moment later, it exploded in a flash of brilliant white light. I found myself on all fours in the middle of the hallway, with confused or scared freshmen all around. I looked into Sean's eyes and saw that he was himself again.

It looked like it was the same for all the other guys who'd been taken over by the thing. They were back to themselves. I crawled over to Sylvia's body and checked for a pulse, but I knew she was gone. Sean darted into the room and tended to Bonnie, who seemed okay. I didn't know how that was possible. I'd seen her neck twisted around, but I was thankful she was alive.

As I sat down beside Sylvia, knowing there was nothing I could do for her, I almost fell back into the pit of paralysis again. But I caught myself quickly. There were other people who needed help. People nearby. I got up and approached the blonde girl with the broken nose. "Are you okay?" I asked her. "What can I do to help?"