There are ways of dying that do not end with a funeral. Types of deaths you can't see, feel or smell. Because death, just like love, has a mind of its own and some things can't be prevented.
What started as an innocent high school quest in search o...
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I wake up gasping for air.
The light is so sharp I can't keep my eyelids open for longer than a millisecond at a time. My eyes burn like hell – that's the first thing I notice— and I attempt to blink it away but somehow, it only seems to make everything worse.
There's a mixture of muffled footsteps and shuffles moving around somewhere and this weird beeping sound not too far away from me but I'm still unable to open my eyes properly so I can't really place where the sounds are actually coming from.
My entire body feels laden, stiff, enfolded in a cage for some reason, which makes me think I won't be able to move, either, but I manage to clench and unclench my fist, digging my fingernails into my palm as I try to breathe in and out to calm myself a little. It takes me several painfully long seconds, maybe minutes even, to push through the uncomfortable eye-burning sensation and once I do, the first thing I see is the pristinely white ceiling above me.
Where the fuck am I?
Tilting my head to the side, I feel a sharp little stab in my neck – almost like when you fall asleep in a wrong position, blissfully unaware of what it'll do to your body once you wake up and suffer the consequences of cramped muscles and unnaturally bent joints.
The sensation is so prominent that at first, I don't pay much attention to the fact that there's something stuck to my throat, so when I do take notice and the realization hits, the panic settles in again. It's a weird sensation. It's not a ventilator, but a nauseous compulsion overcomes me as I try to sit up, at least a little, and raise my hand to touch the spot on my throat. A strap. A piece of plastic. A fucking hole in my throat?
There are several other tubes and cords snaking around my upper arm, making me feel like I'm a prisoner here, wherever the fuck this is. A hospital? Is this real? Or is it just another figment of my fucked-up imagination?
The tubes go next. I start untangling them, pushing through the jabbing waves of pain that have spread from my neck to my rib-area, hearing the beeping sound first raise, then decrease in volume as I continue pulling the tubes as far away from my body as I can manage, ignoring the notion of blood suddenly gushing down my forearm. I must have pulled out the tubes too aggressively but surprisingly, I don't feel any pain in that area.
The door flies open before I get to set my feet on the floor, a red-headed nurse rushing in. "Mister," she staggers toward me, "you need to lie back down."
I ignore her as well, my bare feet hitting the cold linoleum for a split second before my legs give out and I lose balance. I hear her gasp as I topple over and hit the floor with the rest of my body, the shock and the impact squeezing my lungs together, making it hard to breathe.
Faintly, I hear the footsteps draw closer and closer but I can't think past the ache stabbing through what feels like every cell of my sore body. I want to crawl away, somewhere safe. Far away from wherever this is. But I can't.
All there's left to do, all that my muscles and bones and tissue seem to be capable of pushing me toward is curling into myself, desperately attempting to control my breathing pattern to ease the shakes and trembles.
Someone's talking. Several different voices twining together, overlapping but I'm not able to hear them, to focus on them long enough to make out what they're saying.
"Please," I sob, "make it stop."
I don't know if they hear me. I don't know if I said it coherent or loud enough for them – for the nurse—to understand. I just hope they can see how badly my body is shaking, how I don't have any control over it and they'll understand.
"Please," I cry out again, the pain magnitudes higher, my own voice lost to me--like a dying fish in an aquarium silently opening its mouth, begging for help but doomed already. "Get me out of here. Please."
This is the most painful moment of my life, I think.
I cry and cry, unable to stop, coiled into a fatal position until everything hurts so bad that I can't even cry anymore.
a/n: what do you think is about to happen in the next chapter? did you expect this to happen all along? there are still so many twists and turns to come, so don't worry, we're not done yet!!
take a wild guess what are you expecting to come. don't be shy and leave me a comment here. :)
