Amnesia • Calum Hood

•Chapter Fifty•

I leaned over the grass again and coughed, hands on my knees as my stomach continued roiling.  I'd vomited the entire contents of my stomach already, which wasn't that much to begin with, but I still felt sick.  It smelled like death and I must've looked pretty bad, too.  There were people walking to their cars or towards the front door, clearly judging me for hurling on the side of the parking lot, but I didn't have the energy to even look them in the eye.

My whole body was shaking, weak with exhaustion and hunger.  The only reason I wasn't intensely dehydrated was because of the glass of water Sadie forced me to drink.  In the moment, I was bitterly thankful for that.  I could only imagine how much worse this aching feeling would be if I hadn't put at least a little fuel in my body.

But even so, it hurt like a bitch.  I never knew emotional trauma could have such a physical effect, yet here I was, trembling in the parking lot.  I gulped in lungfuls of air like I was drowning, and attempted to steady my body and straighten.  My head was spinning like a top, and I could barely see five feet in front of me.

Regardless, I had to go back inside.

On top of feeling like a prison, now the hospital reeked of death and decay.  That feeling of being trapped when I walked inside was multiplied infinitely, so much so I had a strike of anxiety that I'd never be able to leave.

Even still, I managed to make my way upstairs.  I was truly stunned at myself, and the strange instincts that kicked in even after watching my father die right before my eyes.  I thought they were gone for good, but thankfully the rational side of my brain wasn't completely wrecked and managed to keep me going.

One thing I hadn't done yet was cry.  In fact, my eyes were drier than they'd ever been.  I might've been ill and shaking, but no tears had come.  I attributed this to the shock of it all, but there was an underlying realization that maybe I just wasn't sad.

When the doctors had pulled a sheet over my father's head, I wasn't sad.  When Dr. Kelson came out of his room to hug me and offer me sympathies, I wasn't sad.  I wasn't even sad when she told me I had to decide what to do about a funeral.  My only reaction was a lurching in my stomach, and a sudden onset of chilled sweats.  I gave her no response before running out of the hospital and throwing up beside the parking lot.

When I emerged onto the floor from the elevator, my eyes instantly found Dr. Kelson.  She was leaning on the counter of the nurse's station, looking exhausted and drained.  The intern Pierce was next to her, hands in the pockets of his lab coat, looking somber and serious.

Wasting no time, I walked right up to her and rested my elbows on the counter.  "So, what is it I have to do now?"

It took her a minute to find my face and focus on it, only a slight amount of shock evident in her tired gaze.  I knew at this point, Dr. Kelson wasn't surprised by my lack of emotion that much.

I glanced behind me towards my dad's old room, surprised to see it empty, the bedsheets being replaced already by a nurse.  Furrowing my brow, I commented, "Wow, the morgue works fast.  For some reason I thought it would be like, I don't know, the DMV.  A lot of lines of dead people waiting to be dumped in bags."

Pierce disguised his gasp of surprise in a cough, but Dr. Kelson merely shut her eyes for a moment.  A few heartbeats passed, and then she was composed and professional once again.

"We can call the local funeral home for you, if you'd like.  They do wonderful services, and I'm sure there'll be one you like."  She sounded so rehearsed when she told me this, and I wondered how many times she had to say this to grieving families.