Compassion: A Principle to Keep

     As I wrapped the strips from my worn out t-shirt around his arm, my gaze was drawn to his face. Eyes closed like a sleeping child, shaggy brown hair that hadn't seen a scissor since the sun left the sky. His peaceful smile was a mystery to me, as was the patchwork of tear tracks and grime that covered his face. 

      Dead meat. That had been my first reaction when I found him on the side of the road yesterday. Under the blacked sky, on the ash-gray road, there was nothing I could do for him. Might as well focus on myself.
The dry breeze that cracked the feeble branches and blew my hair must have stirred up the ashes in my heart. I turned around and my gaze came to rest on the boy by the side of the road. His bleeding arm and fading smile seemed to stir up the last human emotion I had left. In ten steps that virtue had led me back to him.

     Compassion was on my mind as I bandaged his wounds and sat quietly, waiting for him to wake up.
As I leaned back against the rough tree bark the holes in my shirt reminded me of that overwhelming connection that kept the gun from my head. Compassion. A principle to live by. 

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For this blog, I decided to focus on the principle of compassion, because I value it highly and I think it is often neglected (by myself too.) I wanted to use fiction do demonstrate this so I've written a Road inspired scenario in which I hope I'd take the actions of my main character. 
In a world where all material things are taken away, I think that compassion would be one of the last principles to keep us alive.