A Shade Darker Than Damaged (twenty one pilots)

|Chapter II|

Snow

I might be awake, but never have I ever felt more asleep. All the hope that I had left, I spent on hoping that last night was a nightmare.

Ava was gone. Dead. Killed because of someone else's reckless decision.

And Austen was in a coma because of her own boyfriend.

I was in a hospital bed. Nobody had visited. My family was put in the ground far before this.

My eyes were open, but I was almost positive I had a tube shoved down my throat.

There was a boy. He came in a couple times when I was asleep, well at least that's what one of the nurses had told me. I didn't know who he was, but she said that he was here for his best friend, who was also in a coma. I wasn't sure why he'd want to visit me, the girl with no family, no friends.

But I couldn't deny that it was kind of nice to have someone.

I'd met Austen last night. I'd only known her for a day and she was now all I had left. She might not even make it.

Ava was dead. I knew because I saw how much red had covered the blonde, how her body was twisted in unnatural ways as she lay on the hood of the car. She hadn't even drunk enough to dull her senses. She was responsible.

She knew what she was doing and now she was dead. She was still dead and she wasn't coming back and now I have no one.

Goes to show that you can do everything right and everything will still be wrong.

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream and yell at God for taking her away from me so soon when she was innocent. She was only 23 and now she was in a cold, metal box until they upgraded her into a lonely coffin.

But I couldn't stop thinking about the boy, or whoever he was. And Austen.

I wanted her to live. I didn't know her, but we were in this together now whether she was conscious or not.

I could move a bit. I was told I had a broken collar bone, left arm and wrist and left leg. I was crushed by the tree, but somehow I lived.

I lived and Ava didn't and now I would have to live without her.

My car was destroyed. The silver metal was bent into abstract twirls and dents. It wasn't abstract like a painting, more like a terrifying horror film. It was the worst in the driver's seat, where Ava was. They say she died on impact.

Why couldn't I have died on impact?

I sat up, wincing at the pain. I wanted to see Austen.

I hoped no one would notice that I was gone, that maybe, Cherry, my nurse, wouldn't do my checkup until this afternoon.

I wish I would've stayed asleep. I wouldn't know Ava was dead and I wouldn't know about the boy or about Austen.

But God doesn't want you to be happy, he wants you to be strong.

I shouldn't have went to that party. I shouldn't have let Ava go. Maybe then she'd be alive and Austen would be conscious and I would never even know her. That would be better than knowing her and caring enough to be sad when she's in a coma in the hospital room next to you.

I sat up, hobbling. My leg wouldn't move where I told it to, but maybe I could hop to her room. I didn't want to be the only survivor. If I had a choice, I would've wanted to be the only fatality. Nobody to worry if their daughter didn't come home one day, nobody to care. Ava's family was probably already here, making arrangements for her funeral. I only hoped they didn't hate me for what I'd done.