C - Suite

24 | Hospital

THERE WERE MULTIPLE knocks on Nyla's door. She swung her gaze from the T.V to look at the time. Who on earth was at her door at one o'clock in the morning? It had to be a drunk person accidentally knocking on the wrong door. It was Friday night after all, a time of partying for many.

The knocking persistently continued, and Nyla sighed before throwing over the red and black checkered blanket before standing up and answering the door. Through the peephole, she saw it was Darius.

She opened the door, "What are you doing—"

Before she hadn't finished her sentence, Darius walked inside, and Nyla shut the door behind him. "Hello to you to." she muttered sarcastically.

She watched as Darius paced back and forth in her foyer running his hands through his dark brown hair. He was wearing a jacket, but the buttons weren't in the right places. He looked at Nyla and there was just so much pain, so much agony in his eyes that Nyla breathed sharply.

"What's wrong?"

He didn't answer her question, just kept pacing. Nyla had never seen him like this. Darius was always composed, ready to take on whatever challenge the world threw at him. Making a quick decision, she clasped both hands on either sides of his arms and forced him to look at her.

"Breathe," she commanded.

He took in a deep breath.

"Good," she said soothingly. "Now tell me what happened."

"Vincent," Darius chocked up.

Nyla's eyes went wide, she couldn't believe it, was he dead? Darius wasn't saying anything more, so she asked him softly, "Is he dead?"

Darius shrug off her hands and resumed his pacing. Tears streamed down his face. Nyla hated seeing him like this. "I don't know."

Nyla raised a confused eyebrow at the statement. Based on Darius' reaction, she assumed the worse. Realizing that he wasn't in the right state of mind to tell her everything, she ushered him to the couch.

"I'm going to bring you tea," she said softly, watching him place his head between his hands.

"Don't go," he croaked.

"I'm not," she said gently. "I made tea earlier so I'm just going to grab it from the kitchen."

He didn't say anything, so Nyla quickly rushed into the kitchen and grabbed the first mug. She poured the tea and brought it back to Darius. "Drink, you'll feel better."

He drank from the bright pink mug, which under other circumstances Nyla would have found hilarious. After he had finished drinking, she took the cup from him before sitting next to him on the couch. "Now, tell me everything from the beginning."

Darius wrung his hands repeatedly. "I hadn't heard from Vincent in quite a while, so I decided to stop by his apartment before coming home. He wasn't answering the door, so I used the spare key to enter and that's when I—" Darius paused.

"What did you see?"

Darius hands were now trembling, and Nyla took his hands and rubbed her thumb over this hand comfortingly.

"He was lying on the ground, a bottle of pills right besides him. His body was so cold, and so pale..."

Nyla felt herself freezing for a moment before she gently coaxed Darius to tell her the rest.

"He wasn't breathing so I dialed nine-one-one before performing CPR. He felt so lifeless under me." Nyla could imagine the scene in front of her. It was a person's worse nightmare, to see a family member in such a circumstance and feel so helpless.