Go Away (#TheWattys2015)

Chapter 18: How many more times will this happen?

I woke up when I realized someone was shaking me. My head swayed to the side and I groaned as I caught a bit of whiplash. The person stopped shaking me but my head was exploding in pain. I heard a noise. It was distant and low at first but it slowly started to become clear.
"Daija!! Daija can you hear me? DAIJA!!"
My eyes snapped open and I looked up into beautiful hazel eyes. Zacks eyes. Were those...tears? Why would Zack be crying?
"I-I think she's awake," he stuttered.
"Her head stopped bleeding. Is that good? She's not talking what does that mean? Hey! Is she going to be okay!?" His voice slowly started to rise as he stared at someone. I didn't have the strength to turn my head and see who it was.
Warm fingers pressed against my neck and I slowly let my eyelids fall back down.
"She has a pulse." The voice was soft, slightly high pitched. A female.
School nurse maybe?
"Daija can you move? Show us a sign that you're okay. Anything."

Tasha's voice. I opened my eyes and was, once again, looking into Zacks eyes. Tasha was kneeling beside him. As soon as he saw my eyes open he embraced me in a tight hug, holding my head gently in his hands.
"Hey there," I croaked into his ear. He chuckled and I could feel his body shaking as he pressed it against mine. He hugged me harder as if I would slip through his fingers.
"Thank God," he said in a half whisper.
I stared at him and glanced at my arms flopping helplessly to my sides. I tried to move them but failed. I giggled. Zack pulled away so that he could face me.
"What?"
"Can't really move my arms. Sorry."
He smiled back at me.
"It's okay. I've got plenty of love to give."
He reached down to hug me again but someone shoved him aside. Tasha.
"Holy crap you look horrible!" I gave her a weak smile.
"Gee thanks."
She hugged me tight.
"Thank goodness you woke up when you did. Zacky boy here was ready to have a heart attack. You should've seen his face." I laughed ignoring the throbbing pain in my head. Why would he be so worried? I was just unconscious right? A woman with long blonde hair, bright blue eyes and rosy pink lip stick bent down and examined what I imagined to be a cut on my the side if my head.
"Yup I think she's going to be alright now. Let me just clean this up and then you can be on your way. Your mother should be here to pick you up any minute now."
I nodded and winced at the growing pain in my head. It felt like much more then a little cut. The nurse got out some ointment and rubbing alcohol, pouring a bit into a cotton ball.

The moment it touched my head I screamed at the top of my lungs. I jerked my head around and hands pinned me down.
"Hold her steady! I think there's something in here!" I heard her rummaging through something and she came back to face me with tweezers in her hand. She clamped them down onto something. Something that was in my head, and yanked hard. I lost control then. I screamed and screamed until my throat felt dry and raw and I started losing my voice. I kept screaming. Blood dripped down the side of my face leaking into my shirt, down my neck, arm and eventually to my hands. I could hear Tasha gagging in the corner and I looked over to see Zack holding his ears firmly with his back turned to me. Next to me the nurse began to scream too. What was her problem? I looked at her up and down and realized something. In the tweezers she held a piece of what looked like the tip of a sharp black nail, dripping with clear liquid. With horror I realized it was the creatures venom. It poured onto the ladies hand and I saw why she was screaming. The clear liquid hissed and ate away at the skin of her hand leaving it bloody and bubbly. Yes. Bubbly. Disgusting yellowish wart-like bubbles formed on top of the burning skin. The bubbles slowly spread up her arm and started to creep up her neck. Some of the bubbles burst and leaked yellowish liquid around her clothes. She fell onto her side squirming in pain.

That's when I stopped screaming and sprawled out onto the floor, my body shaking as my stomach heaved, not stopping until I emptied my lunch all over the floor. I started to panic. Is that liquid in my head? Am I dying? I felt the familiar comforting warmth of Zacks hand against my back. He held onto me tight as if he wasn't just comforting me. He was trying to hold himself together too. I could tell by the way he shuddered a little and held onto me even tighter when it happened. The shuddering stopped. Tasha wiped my mouth with a handkerchief and I looked up at her, smiling thankfully. Someone crashed through the locker room door and gasped at the scene before them.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?" My moms voice boomed through the room. A searing pain shot into my head, crashing and spreading like a wave all around my brain. All I could feel was pain and I wanted it to stop. Anything to end it. Anything. My eyes darted around the room and I crawled over to a locker, struggling out of Zacks grip, one hand clutching my head firmly as I struggled to move with the pain in my head slowly growing to the point where it was unbearable. It felt like millions of knives were digging into my brain but I was somehow being kept alive. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't. Tears streamed down my face. Just stop. End it. End it! I repeated over and over in my head.

"Daija what are you-" before my mom could finish I slammed my head into a near by locker and was knocked out cold. The pain became a dull throb as I slipped away into unconsciousness.
Finally.
Peace.