Static

CHAPTER TEN

*Imogen pictured above*

"Stay with me, your stronger than this, I know you are."  Blake?  Yes, it was Blake, his voice drifted into my ears like it was being carried by a wave and I was underwater.  My senses were dull, my eyes squeezed tightly shut.  I smelled something like alcohol and smoke but it was hard to tell.  All at once, the pain in my side jolted me upright and I banged my head on something hard and metal.  I groaned and put my head back down, eyes still closed, pain still throbbing around my body.
     "Stay down, and stay quiet."  Blake whispered from somewhere out in front of me.  I opened my eyes and there was only darkness.  For a moment I panicked that the pain had literally blinded me but then I saw Blake's familiar silhouette.
     I bit my lip to keep from making anymore noise, I pressed my hands to my side and found that my makeshift bandage was no longer soaked through entirely.  There was a patch of wetness that I could feel but only for a moment, I couldn't press my fingers there too long without feeling like I'd pass out again.
      I leaned my head back against the ground and squirmed as I tried to stay quiet.  I'd never felt anything like this, a pain so real that I could do nothing about it but lie here and hope that either the end came soon and my eyes shut for good, or that I could some how crawl back to the land of the living and bare the scar forever.
       I clawed at the darkness, at the air around me, searching for something to anchor me here so I didn't drift away again. Blake's hand found mine but instead of holding it, he curled my fingers into a fist and pressed my hand against my chest.
        The pressure was dull and I hardly felt it at all but I knew it was there and when he let go and moved away, I felt his absence in a new kind of pain.
        I didn't have the strength to object and I wouldn't dare cry out to him even if I could.  He retreated into the darkness and vanished without a sound and I couldn't help but wonder if he had been there at all or if my dying mind had made the whole scene up.
        I was lying down although it took me sometime to discover this since I couldn't tell up from down or left from right in the pitch black.  My body was pressed against a metal floor that I imagined was cool to the touch but I couldn't tell, I couldn't feel anything but the unbearable heat in my side.
        I slowly pushed my upper body up with my arms and slid back as fast as I could until my back was pressed against a metal wall.  I had changed my position quickly to get the movement over with, I didn't want to worsen the pain more than it already scalded me but I also didn't want to lie flat on my back, waiting for death to come and take me willingly.  I would fight whatever form He took and I would not go down easy.
       At the same time, I wouldn't dare try to stand, I was just sane enough to know that if I stood, I'd have no more blood left in my body.
       Maybe I was in Heaven, or on my way there at least.  But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I were headed upstairs, the pain would be gone and I wouldn't be stuck in the dark.  Perhaps I was going the other way.
      This excruciating blankness in my mind, the constant throbbing of my skull, that was Hell.  The suffocating darkness, the insurmountable pain, the sent of chaos in the air even when all seemed quiet.  What made it worse was the fact that I could do nothing but sit here helpless with a bullet wound slowly leaking at my side. 
       "Help."  I sputtered.  My throat was dry and raw and an ugly taste of something like alcohol stung my lips when I breathed.
       The silence that returned my pathetic plea was the loudest quiet I'd ever known.  Why did Blake leave me?  Does he know I'm dying?  Of course he does, he has to.  But why...
      I started to cough, gasping for the air I had forgotten to breathe.  With each jerk of movement I made, I felt like a branding rod was being jammed into my side, searing my flesh and scarring my bone.
     I don't know how much longer I sat there in the dark, fighting my drooping eyelids.  I had to remind myself that life was what I was clinging to and my heart was slowing to a pace I couldn't imagine would keep anyone alive for long but I tried not to think about death when it was so close, knocking impatiently at my doorstep.
     "Imogen?"  The voice was faint in my ears, a dull sound that I couldn't afford to pay any mind to, lest I forget to breathe. 
     "What happened to her?  She's as good as dead, Blake, and you just left her here?" That was it, that was all I could make sense of before death got tired of knocking and kicked my door down.  I might have hid under my bed but it only bought me a few more seconds until death became curious and peeked underneath to snatch me away.

You can't die yet
Just hold on a little longer.
Just hold on.
Hold on.
Hold-