I am the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass (glass)
Spoiler alert: they didn't.
When they arrived, the terrorists were gone, leaving only smoke and the echoes of stolen screams in the air where there had once been life.
The building had been razed to the ground, and bodies were everywhere.
Even the indomitable May had to fight back a rush of nausea at the sickening sight of a young boy lying on the ground, unnaturally still and pale, white dobok (training uniform) stained red.
"Check for survivors." Coulson ordered, already crouching down to check for an older, white-haired man's pulse. They worked in silence for a long time, finding no sign of life.
May found her; a slender girl with blonde hair flecked with ash, behind a couple who could only have been her parents, glasses lying discarded on the floor. The pulse was weak and erratic, but it was there.
"Simmons!" she called, and the team's unofficial medic rushed over.
The girl was trapped under a burnt piece of timber, which May removed, and her left shoulder was soaked in blood from a bullet wound.
"Take off her belt," Simmons ordered. "I need to cut through her top." May carefully but efficiently unravelled the long black belt, tucking it under her arm. As a martial artist herself, she knew how much time and effort it took to earn a black belt, and was sure the girl would want it back.
Simmons worked quickly, but there seemed to be little improvement in the girl's demeanour.
"We need to get her to the medbay," the doctor ordered. "She needs oxygen, and probably a transfusion."
May lifted her up, feeling a strange surge of protectiveness, despite not knowing the girl. She was obviously loved by the couple; by the way things looked they were protecting her when they fell. This kid had lost everything, and she didn't even know it.
Simmons was called to see to another victim, a dark-haired older woman in instructor uniform, so it was up to May to install the oxygen mask and hunt down some O-Negative to give her. Thankfully, she remembered her training in field medicine and was able to do it without a hitch.
She stood up, about to leave, but her eyes caught on the girl's face and stayed there. She didn't deserve this, any of it. It was awfully reminiscent of when Skye was shot, only at least Skye was surrounded by people who loved her. This young girl had nobody.
She wouldn't let her wake up alone, in a strange place, with her parents gone. No, May would stay with her.