ĐɆVłⱠ ₮Ø₩₦ (devil town) • frerard

vi

red. frank's eyes open for a moment. blue. they close. red. frank can hear screaming. blue. lindsey. red. the sound of the ambulance yelling down the road. blue. "fatal car crash, one dead, two injured." red. "hit and run presumed." blue. rubber gloves. red. the soft gurney. blue. red blood. red. black.

the next think frank knows is the hospital sheets, and the harsh ache in his side. the taste of metallic blood filling his mouth. his ears are ringing and everything feels. bad. he hurts. so bad. and when he opens his eyes, he squints at the white hospital ceiling. it's bright, too bright and his head aches at the sight.

things don't come back to him as soon as he wished they would, but the moment his mind wanders back to it, his heart drops and he reaches for something, anything to tell him something. he finds his phone on his bedside table. he doesn't have any notifications but he wastes no time in texting lindsey and hayley both, "what happened?"

he knows what happened, he remembers the car that came out of nowhere, he vaguely remembers the scream, and everything else is a blur. frank waits ten minutes but neither of them reply, so he sighs and pulls the hair from his face, stress taking over and he winces as he pulls the needle from his vein, pulling himself out of the bed and bringing his phone with him as he leaves the room. he still gets no reply from lindsey and hayley as a nurse confronts him in the hall, "what are you doing out of bed? have you been released?"

"i'm fine, i'm frank iero, my friends lindsey and hayley should be here, i'm not suffering from anything i just need to make sure they're okay," frank attempts, but the nurse pulls him back into the hospital room, shaking her head. she grabs the folder from beside his door and tells him to lay back down on the bed.

"i can tell you about your friends but i ask that you stay in this bed," she says, "you've sustained injuries to your ribs which will need to be bandaged for a while, but until we know the exact state, i'll have to ask you to stay in bed."

"what happened to lindsey and hayley?" frank asks, "can't they come in here? or i can go over there?"

the nurse shakes her head, "i hate to break the news but hayley, i think was her name, the one with orange hair, she died. the records say that..." she reads over the papers in hand, "on impact with a car running a red, you spun out, and collided with a tree which broke the windshield. debris penetrated her skull, and she died ten minutes later, we could not revive her. i can't give out medical records for lindsey but i can tell you she has not died. she is in another room currently unconscious. it's a miracle you're still alive, frank. you could have just as well ended up like hayley."

frank's grown deaf through the last few sentences and he stares at the wall as that sinks in. he takes a minute to say anything and when he does it's, "can you let me know when lindsey wakes up? please?"

"of course," the nurse replies, she stands and grabs the iv, but before she leaves she says, "we've notified your mom, but we're unsure if she'll be coming."

"she won't," frank replies, cutting the nurse off, laying back down.

"one more question."

"huh?"

"how old are the scars?"

"years old." months.

•••

frank spends the next couple hours on his phone, watching the clock turn from 11pm to 1am and eventually, he finds himself falling asleep, unable to stay up with his thoughts. for some reason, the thought of hayley dying just isn't putting as much stress on him as he thought it would. he feels fine. he feels okay. maybe it's because he doesn't truly believe it, or maybe because he's just in denial, but he can't seem to focus on any one thing. everything is too fuzzy and he just wants to see lindsey.