My Infinity 》Renga

14

Chapter 14- Reki's POV:

I get halfway to my house, when I realize that I left my jacket behind at the restaurant. 

Cursing myself for being forgetful, I skate back and find it next to the door where Joe must've put it, and I also find a confusing situation.

As I kneel down to pick the piece of clothing up off the ground, I hear hushed voices from inside.

The voices are unmistakably Joe and Langa's, and I feel a surge of fear hit me like a lightning bolt as I hear Langa crying. Not just crying. Sobbing. I've experienced Langa crying before and hearing it makes my heart hurt. I wonder what could possibly be wrong, he seemed alright earlier? Maybe slightly off, but he didn't seem upset...

I try to listen to their conversation, but their words are muffled by the wooden door. A third voice enters the conversation, and I recognize it as Cherry's.

I catch the odd word, but there's no way I can understand what my friends are talking about. All I know is that it sounds as though Langa is crying and the other two are trying to console him.

I freak out as I hear footsteps approaching the doorway, so I grab my board and get out of there as fast as I can. I look back once I'm a little way away from the restaurant, seeing Cherry skating a few hundred metres distance behind me, confirming that it was him I heard with Joe and Langa.

My thought process becomes panicked and I can barely understand the voices in my head as I search my memory for something I could've said or done to make him sad.

A black cat runs from a front yard onto the footpath, scaring the life out of me, and as I swerve the skateboard off the path to avoid it, I fall backwards.

Of all the places for a hill to be, there had to be one there. I'm sure that I don't fall far, but I fall hard. I think there are rocks underneath me.

The world goes fuzzy, as if I am falling asleep. Air is knocked from my lungs, sharp pain shooting up my spine. I don't know how long I'm screaming for, because I can't hear myself.

Cherry catches up to me frantically, yelling things along the lines of "are you alright?", "can you hear me?", "can you stand?", but I don't see him or hear exactly what he's saying through the increasingly loud crashing sound in my ears and my own pained yelling.

I taste blood in my mouth and my back hurts as if someone is using my spine as a whip. 

The pain in my lower back gets worse and worse. I try to pull myself up, but that makes my head hurt more. I scrape my palms open. Cherry holds me still, talking anxiously.

I see the world darkening around me, and my eyes shut.

When I wake up, I'm still there and still hurt.

"Reki! Can you hear us?"

That's Miya's voice.

I open my eyes, trying to distinguish my friends from one another. They all seem blurry, but I can sort of hear what they're saying, so I nod weakly in response to Miya's question, once again trying to force myself upwards as voices protest. Joe picks me up and takes me back to the footpath, where he gently places me on the ground.

I throw up on the footpath as I try to stand, and I get lightheaded, collapsing again into someone else, and they gently guide me back down to sitting on the ground. I hear words but they don't make sense at all, what is everyone trying to say?

"You're gonna be alright..." Says Langa, who is the person holding me still. Immediately, I try to ask if he's alright, but through the pain, the disgusting taste in my mouth and loud sirens, all I can manage to articulate is his name.