The Bucket List >> Sabriel ✔️

30: Get Rekt

I hope the last chapter didn't traumatise you all too badly... 😏

A touch on his arm. Arms around him. Wetness. More hands were fumbling at him.

Blood, a metallic scent in the air. It smelled of rain, too. A familiar smell was wafting towards him, perfume or cologne or something... He couldn't tell.

He could taste blood in his mouth, the metallic taste almost overwhelming. He felt the need to spit it out, but he couldn't move his jaw.

His eyes fluttered open. A tall guy with crazy hair and a panicked expression was cradling him, tears streaming down his face. His mouth was moving, but there was no sound coming out.

And then came the pain. It came crashing over him like a tidal wave of white-hot knives, all piercing his skin at once. His hands grabbed at the strange guy holding him, making fists in the fabric of his shirt. He tried to cry out, but his jaw wouldn't move, his jaw was hurting the most of all -

The guy was bending over him, bringing a hand up to his face and cupping his chin. His mouth moved some more, his expression turning concerned and the tears became more frequent. The guy turned away, looking to be yelling. More people dashed over, a few with a gurney. The strange guy lifted him up, pain shocking through his body again like a lightning bolt. He was deposited on the gurney, and he tried to sit up, tried to ask why everything was silent, why everyone was just mouthing but not actually talking, but he couldn't sit up - he couldn't even feel his legs.

He glanced around desperately as he was wheeled into the building - a hospital? He saw loads of people milling around, a bloodied guy being led off in handcuffs, lots of ambulances and police cars parked around the front of the hospital, lights flashing. There was no sound coming from any of them.

He struggled to sit up, but a sudden striking pain in his chest stopped him as he twisted it a certain way. He raised his head to look at his chest, and he saw a huge shard of glass imbedded in the middle of his chest - right next to where his heart would be. His breathing started to speed up - he started to feel the urge to cough but he couldn't, because his jaw wouldn't move, and there was blood still in his mouth, and the world was spinning above him as each breath he took was more painful than the last -

The guy was suddenly in his vision, his eyebrows drawn together in a worried expression. He was mouthing something over and over, but he wasn't good at lip reading, so he caught something like, "Ah life oo." He felt something on his hand, and he looked down to see the strange guy's hand in his, his thumb rubbing over his.

The gurney was wheeled into the hospital and then an emergency room, several doctors fussing over him and attaching him to monitors and jabbing needles into him. They were all mouthing at each other, or at him. The strange guy was hovering beside him, a death clutch on his hand. He was still finding it hard to breathe, and the doctors seemingly noticed this. One of them approached him with a long, thin tube, but stopped when she saw his jaw. She glanced hesitantly at another doctor, who mouthed something at her, then moved more directly into his view. The doctor mouthed something at him, an apologetic expression on his face. He stared up at the doctor, blinking at him, trying to express that he can't bloody lip read.

The doctors glanced at each other, and the guy doctor who was mouthing at him lightly took hold of his jaw. The doctor mouthed something slowly to him, and he realised too late that it was a countdown. Before he knew it, his jaw had been forced down and the tube forced down his throat, blinding pain burning all over his face. He could feel himself screaming but couldn't hear it, he could feel his jaw feeling like it was being split open, he could feel the strange guy's hand in his, squeezing so tightly he thought he was going to pull it off. The pain was overwhelming, consuming, destroying his effort to stay conscious. He felt himself slipping away, the world fading out around him.