Heartstrings

Chapter 46

Sedatives
(Listen to I love you by Billie Eilish whenever you reach Heaven's POV for the second time. Optional!)

*Heaven's POV*
After waking up of a sleep I didn't even know I was in, I find myself lying on a hospital bed. The white room around me was deserted, nothing heard but far off footsteps and chatter. As I change my position from a lounging one, into a seated one, I flinched at the stinging and burning feeling of my chest. I stand up slowly, but still my sight manages to blacken due to the amount of blood I've lost. I footslogged to the bathroom, and observed myself in the mirror.

My facade was battered, bruised, and I had a few rips here and there. My shirt was gone, replaced with a bandage, which still leaked some blood. My grazed shoulder was wrapped up too. The moment I saw my bashed face, everything came back to memory. I felt scorching tears prickle my eyes, before slowly sliding down my cheeks like molten hot lava. All three of my friends, my second family, my sister, brother, and boyfriend, were somewhere in this hospital, doing much worse than I. No time for pitying myself, no time for breaking down, no time for dwelling on what had happened. I summon for a nurse to come, and ask her for a shirt, but it wasn't her who brought me it.

Javier. Javier entered the room. His face showed no sign of sadness, yet didn't beam with happiness either. After all these years, all the experiences he has lived through, he had mastered the art of keeping a still face. I exert all the force I could, to run and hug him. He hugs me back, this time not comforting me. He just holds me silently. Through our embrace, I could feel his quick heart beat and uneven breathing. He was internally panicking.

_ "Javier how are they?" I force myself to ask, terrified of the answer. He didn't answer. I pull away from him, and look him in the eyes.

_ "Javier are they OKAY!?" I press, my tone unexpectedly hardening. He lowers his head and starts shaking it.

_ "I don't know yet. The doctors won't tell me anything... heck they wouldn't even tell me anything about Landon who is family."

_ "WHERE ARE THEY!" My voice resounds throughout the room.

_ "two are in the operating rooms, for three hours already. Only one out, and is in room 266 at the end of the corridor on the right." He says, his voice not expressing a single emotion. As soon as I hear those words, I grab the shirt, put it on ignoring the pain my movements were causing, and burst through the doors, down the corridor into the last room in the hall, marked 266. I take a deep breath, my hand shaking over the knob. Whoever the person in the room was, we both needed each others support at the moment.

=Juliano's POV=
_ "Dad where's Landon?" Asks my youngest child, Rose. In this moment, I wished I had an answer for her.

_ "Rosy dear, Sandra is waiting for you in the garden, why don't you head over to her. Weren't you supposed to go to the mall today?" Intervenes Aphrodite.

_ "I'm fifteen years old mother for god's sake, I don't need a fucking nanny!" Her voice raises.

_ "Language!" Scolds her mother.

_ "Who cares? I've been asking you where my brother is for two days already, and you still can't give me an answer. What happened to him? Huh? Where did my brother go?" Her sapphire eyes, pierced into mine, as tears began to fill up in them, smudging her black eyeliner all over her freckled cheeks, as the tainted drops creeped out of her eyes.

_ "dad please tell me the truth, you can't lie to me anymore, I'm old enough to see through the petty lies you tell me."

_ "I DON'T KNOW ROSE OKAY?! I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOUR PRECIOUS BROTHER IS, SO STOP NAGGING! YOU AREN'T GOING TO BRING HIM BACK THIS WAY!" My little patience and anxiety were getting the best of me.

_ "NO! DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME! I'M NOT THE ONE WHO FOUGHT WITH MY NOW ONLY SON, OVER THE FACT THAT HE WAS TRYING TO PROTECT THE GIRL HE LOVES, THE NIGHT RIGHT BEFORE YOU SENT HIM OFF TO MEXICO TO DEAL WITH GOD KNOWS WHAT, AND NOW YOU MAY HAVE TO LIVE WITH THE FACT THAT YOU ENDED THINGS ON BAD TERMS WITH LANDON RIGHT BEFORE HE DIED!" Screams Rose.

_ "ROSE!" Yells Aphrodite. "GO TO YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW!"

_ "with pleasure." she stomps out of the room, my wife following her: "do you even hear what you're saying? How could you even think that your brother is dead?" And then their words faded away.

I was left there, floating in an endless sea of thoughts. Drowning in possibilities, helplessly looking for a lifebuoy to clutch onto. Every word my 15 year old daughter just said was true, I may have completely ruined things...

*Heaven's POV*
I open the door, my heart beating uncontrollably, pounding and pounding and pounding like it was going to jump out of my chest.

On the white bed sat a figure, holding their head in between their hands. Sobs echoed through the isolated room. The person raised their head and looked at me.

Her face was completely massacred, her red eyes were swollen and blue with bruises. Her nose was covered with a bloodied gauze. Her lips were torn and dry, and her head was wrapped up with bandages.

I gasp, horrified by the way she looks. My body deceives me and starts shaking and trembling out of my control. I run over to her, she stands up and I hug her. I tightened my grip around her, afraid to let go... afraid that if I were to let her go, she would shatter.

I have never seen Athena crying. She was always tough unbothered, unphased. Here she was shuddering and crying obstreperously. I started crying as-well. Crying in pain, worry and exhaustion. Just the sight of Athena so annihilated made my whole being ache.

_ "I-i can feel him Heaven." sobbed Athena into my shoulder. "I can feel him battling for his life. I can feel the life being drained out of him... It hurts, it hurts so bad Heaven, please... PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

_ "Athena what's happening!?" I could feel the suffocating panic rise through my body.

_ "as we were being moved into the operating rooms, I-I regained consciousness for a- for a split second... and before I lost it again..." she whimpered, sobbing with every word, "the last thing I heard was the voices of nurses yelling 'we're losing two! We are losing them!'"

_ "l-lo-losing them?" I stumbled back. Athena's twin, her other half... was on the verge of moving on to a better place, and she could feel his every emotion and feeling. This must be agonizing hell. And my boyfriend was in there fighting for his life too...

Suddenly Athena begins to have a convulsion. She begins to yell, wail and screech like a banshee, pulling at her hair and slamming her body against the bed. Terror was the only thing I felt at the moment. It was like seeing an exorcism take place right before my eyes.

I tried to stop her from harming herself, tried to calm her by holding her hands and fixating her in place, but she would only hurt me along, her paroxysm not stopping. I sprint out and look for a nurse for help.

Soon after, five nurses rush in. Each held her, but Athena would still manage to free herself out of their grasps... until finally, one of the nurses injects her with a sedative, causing Athena to buckle and fall onto the bed. I rush over to her and look into her white ghostly eyes, now red. And the last words that escaped her lips were:

_ "He's dead"