The Crimson Clock: Path of The Fallen

Chapter Two

I woke up in a hospital bed, and greeting me was a blinding glare from the ceiling light. I tried my best to think about what happened today. Was it today? Or was it yesterday? I didn't remember. It felt like I was only out for a few hours but It could have been a few days. But the sunlight breaking through the cracks in the blinds told me that it was morning, or mid-day.

I looked around for a clock in the room, but I couldn't get my vision to focus very well. I squinted my eyes at a circular object on the wall. But I soon realized it was just a square painting of a . . . couldn't tell what it was. Something pink and fuzzy. But that could also be the colorful dots dancing around my eyes.

I tried to sit up, but immediately laid back down, feeling a horrible pain engulf in my side. This was the aftermath of what happened the other night. All I remembered was a heavy object landing on me. And that it hurt, a lot.

I lifted up my left arm only to see it wrapped in white cloth, keeping it there was a silver pin.

I unwrapped the cloth winding it around my arm, parts of my skin sticking to the cloth as I un-winded it. Once I saw bare skin, I dropped the cloth carefully on the floor by the side of my bed. My skin was a light red and pink in some spots but not bad. I tried to bend it, but it felt like my arm was stuck in that position and the stinging on my skin increased quickly. Probably for the best anyway. I didn't want to make it worse than it already was.

I was mainly scared to see what happened to my side. Even without sitting up it still throbbed. I was holding back tears.

I slowly lifted up my hospital gown trying not to make the pain worse, until I could see it. I gasped and gagged at the same time. My skin was a dark blue and purple mixed in with some brown from my right side of my stomach down to my back. The bruising got lighter as it got closer to my leg. Something hard intruded on my skin creating a little bump in the middle of my stomach.

If I was this bad, what happened to Rylee and Logan? Were they okay?

I pressed my finger against the bruise. Bad idea. I yelled in pain, waking up someone in the room. I didn't realize it but it was my grandmother. She slept so quietly and still I didn't even see her.

I did have a mom once. She was great. I don't have many memories of her though. She passed when I was five. Along with my older sister, Delaney.

I try my best to remember them, but it's hard. The one memory that always stuck with me was the worst memory I could remember of them. The day they died.

My dad died in heart surgery. He had a heart attack when I was three, and went into surgery for it. He didn't come out.

The doctors said it was a 50/50 chance he lived, but I still had my hopes up that he would live. My mom was a wreck after he died. My sister took care of me more even though she was only ten.

The rest of my family died in a house fire. Somehow I was the only one who survived. I don't remember much from that night but what I do remember was laying in my bed, crying for my mother. But she never came. A fireman did. He must have heard me from my room. I remember him carrying me from my bed into the humid summer South Carolina air. They said there wasn't anyone else in the house I would have corrected their mistake, but all I could do was cry. I cried a lot.

The thought of how my family died was scary. I don't even know why I had to be the one to live. Why wasn't it my sister? Or my mom? Why couldn't I have just died with them? Why did that fireman have to save me? If I had just died that night me and my family would still be together.

But it hurts too much to think about it. And not just my visible wounds. It was a long time before I could think about them without crying. I still do sometimes.