The Dark: Chapter Seven

You feel awful. More than awful. Like someone tossed you into a huge trash compactor and let it run just long enough to crush every bone in your body without managing to kill you.
You try to open your eyes but the effort is more than its worth and you quickly give up. and so instead of affirming your long awaited return to the world of the living by allowing it to flood your throbbing retinas, you try to once again bury yourself in the comfort of unconsciousness.
after a few restless minutes, however, you realize the world isnt going to just sit by and wait for you to wake up when you feel like it and so you decide to brave it and hope for the best.
With a will strong enough to bend iron you manage to pry open your eyelids.
You expected the brightness to be a shock to your retinas but had no idea it would be so damn painful. It feels las if someone is poking at your eyeballs with a tiny hyperdemic needle, injecting them with a saline liquid that then pours out from the corners of your eyes in the form of tears.
The tears run down either side of your face pooling in your ears even as you try to blink them away and try your best to bring your eyes into focus.
It takes a few moments but you eventually manage to bring some clarity to the world around you.
Its unfamiliar; pristine with clear cut corners. Slowly swiveling your head from side to side trying your best to avoid giving yourself a sense of vertigo, you slowly take it in.
The bed across the room is empty but obviously occupied. The bed sheets and thin hospital issue blanket are in a tussle, the bedside table giving harbor to a number of 'Get Well Soon' cards and a conspicuous looking basket of fruit. The sight of the peaches and pears and bananas and apples sets your stomach into motion and you realize just how hungry you are. You feel like you havnt eaten in days. Like your stomach has been completely hollowed out, deserted, your body fighting to remember what its even like to have food in its system.
Trying to ignore the hunger gnawing at your insides you continue your inspection of your surroundings.
Your eyes straying from the luscious basket of fruit you notice a number of chairs at the side of your apparent roommate's bed. Only one is occupied. a withered looking woman taking up a semi-fetal position fills it; her extremities sticking out every now and then. She looks awfully uncomfortable and you wonder how long she has been like that; trying but failing you're quite sure to catch a few winks of sleep.
Shifting your gaze from the chair you find yourself wondering if anyone is watching over you. If anyone even cared enough to want to. With some sense of satisfied vanity your eyes arrive on the form sitting in a chair of its own next to your bed.
The form is not as depreciated as the one across the room, nor does it appear to have been there very long. And on closer inspection you realize you do not recognize the form filling the chair at all. The person watching over you is a complete stranger. You let out a small gasp that comes out sounding like the cough of an old dying Studebaker alerting the stranger of your return to consciousness.
The man shifts in his seat. There is no pretending you are still asleep and so you meet his gaze when he brings it to your face. His lips twist into a wry smile.
"Awake are we?"
You dont answer but ask him a question of your own.
"Who are you?"
Your voice comes out sounding like a car driving over gravel. Your throat feels as if you have swallowed some as well.
Instead of answering your question the man stands up and walks away. He's back within moments; with a nurse. She's pretty with a luxurious head of hair. Smiling, she repeats the strangers words.
"awake are we?"
But unlike when the stranger said them you do not feel threatened or the least bit apprehensive by her words. Her voice has a sing song quality to it and more than anything soothes you.
Still smiling she holds up a tumbler with a plastic spoon sticking out of it.
"You must be thirsty, how about a couple of ice chips to sooth that throat of yours?"
You manage a nod.
Leaning over, the nurse spoons a chip of ice into your mouth.
"Dont swallow it whole but let it melt on your tongue." She instructs you. You obey without a thought. After the chip melts you let the chilling water slowly run down your throat. You feel the difference almost immediately.
"More?"
You nod. This one more vigorous than the first.
She spoons in a couple more but then tells you that's enough. You can have some more later. You give her a disappointed look but she doesn't budge.
"Later." She assures you.
Then addressing the stranger, she tells him that maybe he should wait until the parents got there. They have just been alerted that you are conscious. They'll be there in no more than fifteen minutes.
The stranger nods but says that he would like to ask you a few questions before your parents arrive. Just to lay down some ground work. Nothing serious.
The nurse is obviously not sure how wise it is to leave you there with this stranger but then realizing that he wasn't going to budge no matter what she says, the nurse gives in.
"Okay," she allows, but warns him not to over strain you. you need your rest.
The stranger nods, assuring the nurse that he'll take it easy.
Then gesturing to a remote resting next to you on the bed, which you have not noticed until just then, the nurse tells you that if you need anything, anything at all, all you have to do is just press the red button and she or another nurse would be right in.
"Okay?"
"Okay."
Giving the stranger one last warning glance, the nurse walks off. carrying the tumbler of melting ice chips with her.
The stranger waits until the nurse is out of sight and out of earshot before he speaks.
He introduces himself as one Detective Gervaldi. Homicide.
"Homicide?" You repeat. This time as a question.
A puzzled look crosses the detective's face.
"You mean they havnt told you?"
Gervaldi takes your blank expression to mean that no one has.
"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this but your friend Kelly... she's dead."
The detectiive's words make your heart stop. You close your eyes. When you open them again, the sting of tears touches the corner of your eyes. This time you dont try to blink them away but let them fall uninhibited. Your best friend...gone.
"I'm sorry for your loss but I need to ask you a few questions. About what happended two nights ago. the night of," taking out a small notebook Gervaldi refers to it,
"The night of Spencer Elson's party."
You barely register the detecive's words, they are of no importance to you. Of no consequence. Only one thing registers. Only one thing matters. Kelly. How can she be dead? She was invincible. Death proof. Immortal. It just isnt possible. But deep down you know it is possible. She isnt Death proof. She isnt immortal. She's just like everyone else. Fallible. Fragile. Delicate like a dandelion, easily blown away by the slightest breeze.
After wiping away the tears and clearing your vision, a brief inspection revealing Gervaldi's serious demeanour and no nonsense attitude, makes it obvious that the detective is telling the truth. He has no reason to lie.
"H-how did it happen?"
Gervaldi raises an eyebrow.
"I was hoping that you could tell me. After all, you were there."
Your expression is a puzzled one.
Leaning in, Gervaldi tells you that you were found unconcious just a few feet from where Kelly was. So that meant that whatever happened to Kelly, you were there.
"What about Fifi?"
Gervaldi glances at his pocket notebook.
"Fifi Payton? She's alive but just barely. She was dumped in the woods two, two and a half miles from where you and Ms. Novak were found. She's still unconcious so I havnt been able to get her statement yet."
It doesnt make sense. Kelly dead? Fifi just barely alive? You in the hospital? You dont know what to make of it all. What the hell happened?
And just as youre asking yourself this question, images bombard your head. Relentless, coming in from all corners. Catching you completely off guard.
You quickly close you eyes in an attempt to block out the images but the self imposed darkness only makes the images more vivid. You open them again only to have the images sperimposed ontop of Gervaldi's face. There is no getting away from them.
"Tell me about that night." Gervaldi insists.
You shake your head. Both in refusal and in an attempt to shake it free it from those horrible images.
You close your eyes again. Not only in another attempt to dispell the sharpening memories but also to close out the presence of one Detective Gervaldi, Homicide. You cant handle this right now. Its all too much to take in.
Then as if the gods heard your private lament, you hear a familiar voice. Opening your eyes you spot a familiar face. Infact you spot two. Your parents have arrived and not a moment too soon. You have never been so happy to see them in your life.
Your mother heads straight for your side smothering you with a hundred pounds of much needed love and attention. Planting kiss after kiss on your cheeks, forehead, nose and lips. Your father hangs back to deal with the nusance that is one Detective Gervaldi, Homicide.
Although never laying a hand on the detective, your father makes it clear that his presence is highly unwanted. After a few moments and a promise that he will be back, Detective Gervaldi, Homicide jaunts out of the room leaving you alone with your parents. Your heart swelling you feel as if you have never loved them so much.
Your father's hand on your head and your mother's lingering on your arm you finally feel safe enough to let the damn break. Your vision blurring, you allow yourself to cry in earnest.