Etched

Chapter 41

Jenna's POV

What happens when a leaf falls, when it detaches from the stem and remains suspended in air in hopes of touching the ground. The branch it was held on had kept it safe and secured even at the teasing of the merciless wind but until how long? It was meant to be shed eventually and now that it had, what is the imminent fate? 

There comes a time where when it is realized that holding onto false hopes, temporary attachments isn't worth anything. Every scarcely worked up struggle, to keep, to hold, to maintain falls apart when the duration ends up.

And the duration... it always ends.

The more in denial we wish to disappear into, the harder is the jerk of reality, to wake us up from the slumber, to gaze at the horrors around... for without fiction, it really becomes a dark place.

My hands numbly traced the abrasion of the metal surface I was sitting against, pressing further into it to divert towards a form of a physical pain that might pull me out of the stupor I'd been put into but it felt impossible to ever be out of it.

Sometimes I wish I could run away, to never feel. It would be so much easier then, but would that be an escape? An easy exit? Probably.

They say feeling pain has a way of bringing pleasure. If it were so  but then why are they considered so contradictory? Why do they go to the extremes of shattering one down? Could there never be a middle ground, where there is never too much pain which is demanded in terms of ever getting happy enough.

Beeps, blood, OT, emergency, dropped pulse, loss.

These words were ringing in my ear, pushing one after another to assemble, to make sense, to be comprehendible but nothing was close to making sense to me. I was motionless and the world seemed to buzz pass in a circle of never ending chaos. I didn't know who was around me, talking to me or anyone even present within the vicinity for that matter.

The smell of blood and antiseptics was scarring my breath, choking me. Even when I'd washed all the crimson that coated my hands in aggression earlier, it still felt as though it was lingering and no amount of soap or water could ever get it off me. 

It was the blood of Jerdy that had been painted on my fingers. The Jerdy who is my everything was drenched in blood right in front of me and all I could was gaze hopelessly at the events conspiring.

The delirium I was in was so vivid and had made its presence feel so real that there was nothing countering that could ever work against it, no matter how much I tried.

I shook my head, threading my fingers into my hair to reassure that I was alive and not soulless as I'd felt within. My trembling hands tried to grip ahold of the locks yet being so numb that they slid right through them. 

The throbbing of the forehead from the pain was so excruciating that all I wanted to do was yell. I wanted to scream, I felt suffocated and my throat felt so clogged up as if someone had lodged a golf ball in there and if I don't shout I might end up dead from the pressure of emotions.