Manburg Underground

Interrogation

TW: blood, injuries, and medical talk.

Dream finished his talk with Jimmy and began the long walk home. It was dark outside, and he enjoyed the quiet that had fallen over the otherwise busy city. New York at night was truly a sight he could get used to. Everything seemed to freeze as time stopped. The chaos had subsided and now he was left to walk freely along the sidewalk.

He watched as each exhale brought a swirling cloud of mist floating above his head. His feet shuffled on the wet concrete, mind clear.

Dream could remember bits and pieces of his life before. He remembered living somewhere hot and humid. Maybe that was why he enjoyed the cold so much.

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the sounds of sirens and he looked up, watching as a fire truck blared by. He put no mind to it. He watched again as an ambulance rushed past, shortly followed by a police car. Curious, Dream watched where they headed.

They turned up the road to where he and George lived. He shrugged it off until four more police cars sped by, turning down the same road. Making worried guesses in his head, he quickened his pace, no longer thinking about the cold and empty city. His only thoughts were of George.

The front of the apartment building was surrounded by men and women  in uniforms and as Dream got closer he could see that they were on-site paramedics. He pushed his way past them but was stopped. "Sir, we are going to need you to take a step back."

Dream's voice was caught in his throat. Please don't be George. Was the only thought in his mind as he obeyed his orders.

The loud voices were drowned out by a loud scream of pain as the front doors of the apartment building opened and a man was brought out on a stretcher.

George was laying flat on his back, arms being held down by a paramedic as another yelp left his throat. His blood soaked hair stuck to his forehead and tears rushed down his face. It was obvious he was in the worst pain of his life and every move of the stretcher resulted in an outburst from him.

Dream was in shock. Without thinking about what he was doing, he pushed past the paramedics and police officers and fell to George's side. "George!" Dream screamed.

George turned to look at him. "Clay-" he mumbled. "Clay I called for you and- and you weren't there! Clay stay here, please. Don't leave again."

The words were knives in Dream's chest as he could do nothing but follow the stretcher into the ambulance. Everything after that was a blur of commotion. George flatlined twice before losing consciousness, resulting in a chest tube.

There was nothing Dream could do. The adrenaline prohibited him from crying, so he sat, bouncing his knee at a violent pace, across from the other two paramedics who ignored his presence in the vehicle. Within twenty minutes they pulled up to the emergency room bay doors and were rushed inside. Dream was left in the waiting room as George was rushed off to emergency surgery.

"Clay?" George called from the room, hearing the door open and close softly. There was no response and so he assumed Clay was still upset. George was upset as well.

He sat in the bed, waiting for Clay to enter, but he didn't.

There was a shuffle from the front of the apartment and George called again. "Clay?" The shuffling stopped. Finally done with the silent treatment, George stood up to go investigate, throwing his phone onto the bed behind him.

The second he walked through the doorway, he was knocked to the ground by a blunt force to his lower jaw. He gasped at the pain and looked around wildly to see his attacker.

The man was tall; definitely taller than Dream. He wore an all black outfit with a ski mask pulled over his head, hiding any distinguishing features of his face. "Where is he?" The man demanded, holding a knife to George.

George gasped for breath, unsure whether the situation was real or simply a dream. "W-who?" George stuttered.

He was struck again, this time feeling a stream of blood flowing down from somewhere on his face. He was suddenly lifted by the stranger and shoved onto a chair in the small living room, allowing his hands to be bound, defeated.

"Where is Dream? There's a bounty on his head, you know. I can make some nice money with that precious little mask of his." The stranger chuckled, a dry, horrific laugh.

George gasped to form a coherent sentence; his head was too foggy to form a clear thought. "I- I don't know where Dream is-" he gasped.

Another blow to the head left George powerless. He wasn't going to back down that easily though. After everything, he owed it to Dream. He owed Dream at least one thing.

The man stepped closer to George and George recoiled, feeling the man's warm and alcohol laced breath on his face. "Please," George whispered. "I don't know where Dream is. Please," he pleaded.

"You know, only few people even know what he sounds like, let alone what he looks like. Maybe," the man chuckled again, "if you were smarter, you could have said anyone that lives in this building and I might have believed you."

To George, it was worth it. He kept his mouth closed. This resulted in yet another blow to George's head, this time leaving his vision spotted. "Dream," he whispered, or at least thought he whispered. In reality, he hadn't spoken at all. "Dream please. Clay," he thought again. "I need you."

George barely felt anything when the knife first plunged into his gut. All he felt was a heavy pressure and a release, his body slumping forward. He closed his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer.

Another pressure against his gut.

Then another.

He felt a slight burning sensation on his chest. He opened his eyes, only wide enough to see the knife cutting his shirt off, leaving a long slash down his torso.

Then, a lighter was raised to his chest. He felt the hairs that littered his bare chest singe and then his world erupted into a crash of pain and cold heat as the flame made contact with the base of his throat.

Seventeen hours, George was in surgery. Every hour, a doctor would enter the waiting room to fill Dream in on what was going on with his friend. Every nurse he talked to was nice, but he didn't care. Almost every time resulted in him screaming and getting empty threats to be checked in himself.

Dream completely forgot how to act. Finally, when the clock struck three in the afternoon, he was beckoned to follow the nurse. "You need to be respectful, Clay." She warned, referencing their earlier encounters. "He's in rough shape, and he doesn't need any stress put on his body, right now."

George laid on the hospital bed, face smoothed over and half covered by a large pump connected to a machine to his left. Every other second, the machine would click. Clunk....whoosh. Cluck.....whoosh. He watched as George's chest, covered in a loose hospital gown, rose and fell with the machine. He was on a ventilator.

"How....how bad is it?" Dream asked, choking on the words.

"Well," the nurse sighed, "we already told you about the surgery, but I can run through it all again. He has a severe concussion and is unconscious being aided by the ventilator. He has several deep facial lacerations, with about thirty stitches in total on just his face alone. He has second degree burns on his upper chest and has several more lacerations on his abdomen.

"That's only external injuries. He has three fractured ribs, and one heavily bruised. Most likely, he will have difficulty seeing, so glasses for him might be needed in the future. He has a snapped Achilles' tendon in his right ankle, and a fractured femur in the other." She finished speaking, allowing Dream time to process everything she had told him. "And," she added, "I need to warn you that he might not wake up from the ventilator."

This was a heavy chapter guys. Remember to eat some food and stay hydrated :)

~ Zak's mystery editor