Chosen

Sunday

Edited as of 9-2-16

Sunday:

I wake to beeping.

This is actually kind of annoying. I am stiff and try to stretch before I open my eyes, so I can go to school. As soon as I lift my arms however, my stomach and abdomen ignite into fire!

"Ahh!" I cry and lower my arms immediately. I open my eyes to see the blinding white of this hospital. Hospital? So I made it? I try to smile, but I only grimace. I made it. I am alive. Was I? Did I really make it? I must have otherwise I wouldn't been in so much pain. Shouldn't the pain have gone away though? Morphine after all.

"Alana?!" Someone takes my hand. My head looks over to where my mom has been sitting. She breaks out into tears at once, and it is clear that she has been crying for quite some time now. Her hair is a mess and her clothes are covered in wrinkles acquired from sleeping in chairs.

"Mom?" I look around and see nurses filing back and forth in the hallway. There is another chair on the other side of me, and I can see my dad's black leather jacket.

"Oh honey I am so glad that you are alive!" I am glad she doesn't say okay, because I'm not sure if I will ever be okay again, but I am alive, which is a lot more than I could have hoped for. Still, I feel lost.

"Mom?" I say, still not quite believing that I am here. For some reason I think the walls will fall down and I will be in the darkness. My mother will evaporate and that voice would ask me, what are your last words? I break out bawling like a newborn, even though it hurts my ribs, and almost every other part of me. My mother comes and pushes the arm rest of the bed down and slips into the bed with me and hugs me close. God, I love my mom.

"Alana?" I hear from the door way, it is my dad with a bag of food. He tosses it onto the empty chair and rushes to join us in my pity puddle. We all cry like that for a while. It is in this moment that I finally start to believe that maybe this isn't a dream, and maybe I did make it out after all.

Later after I am well medicated the doctors tell me about the five stab wounds I can feel all too well. They all tell me about the old lady who found me as she was driving home on Saturday and brought me in like a nascar racer in her minivan. They gave me some more medication and left the room.

Not long after that the police come in and question me even though I have not much to give. All I could tell them is about the other nine people, and yes I even mention the brown hair. Half way through my story my mother exits the room crying, my father looks green but he stays, all the while holding my hand. He never once looks me in the eye. I can see he is fighting off the tears. I wish I could spare them the knowledge of what happened to me. The information only hurts them.

The police thank me for my time, although it's not like I am going anywhere. My mother comes back into the room weeping still. She looks at me and I start to cry as well. She rushes over, her heels clicking on the hospital floor. I can't see because my mother presses herself so close to me. I can smell her though, the smell of rain. How I love the rain.

Behind my closed eyes I can see the water drops making ripples on the ground. But it is then that the monsters come, and grab me. The monsters take me away. I squeeze my eyes shut tighter to remove the image from my mind. I am crying hysterically now. I hold my mother so tight I can hear the bones creaking.

"Oh, honey." She breathes into my ear, as she holds me tighter as well. My father joins in with his sturdy arms and I feel safe. As safe as anyone can be.

Soon though, my mother leaves to go pick up my little brother from the babysitter so he can see me too. She stands in the doorway and smiles at me, not even trying to hide the tears that build up in her eyes as she waves and blows a kiss to me. I can hear her heels clicking as she walks down the hallway until I can't hear her anymore.

My dad stays with me talking softly about things I use to do as a child in his big papa bear voice, "Remember when you left that gum in your jacket and when we washed all the jackets that gum covered every jacket with pink sticky slime?"

I laugh, although it sounds so foreign and fake in my own ears. "Yeah, I remember."

He smiles not saying anything for a while, just looking at me with such a sad look in his eyes that I wish I could just hide from it.

Finally I can bear it no more, "Dad, can you go get me something to eat?"

He sighs real long and comes next to my bed and ruffles my already messy hair. "Yeah I can do that."

So he goes to get me something to eat and I am alone.

Mostly.

He walks in, the monster that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. His face is covered, but I know the build. I know his hands. I know his arms.

When I notice who it is, in his surgeon get up I almost start screaming, but I breathe in too sharply and start coughing on my spit. I am such an idiot! He closes the door as I am coughing that sends painful spasms all across my abdomen. He comes over to me and covers my mouth.

I still can't see his face because he has a surgeon mask on and weird reflective glasses complete with a blue paper hat, but I can still see a few brown hairs escaping from it, which is funny because the only useful information I will ever get out of this is his damn hair color!

"I did not come here to hurt you Alana, but I am happy that you made it. You have done well. I liked what you had to say." And with that he shoves a needle into my neck and plunges sweet oblivion into my system.

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