Before I Forget

Apocalypse

It's funny, the little things you notice when everything stops.

The coffee stain on the carpet next to the couch - it had the exact shape of the map of Greenland. The faded colors of the fake flowers on the table. The scent of disinfectant, medicine, and sick people that filled Hawk's nostrils with every inhale.

The clock on the wall was eating time, the hands moving too slowly, crawling as if there was no hurry. As if this wasn't the end of the world but just any other slow Tuesday afternoon.

But Hawk knew better. This was the fucking apocalypse and he had brought it on them.

They were sitting in the family waiting room. Mom by Hawk's side, Nicholas in a chair nearby. On the table next to the faded fake flowers was a pile of food and drinks mom had gotten from a vending machine - but none of them could even think about eating anything, so there they lay, untouched.

Hawk hated hospitals.

He had spent too much time in them when he'd been small. His cleft lip had required multiple surgeries to be fixed - if you could call it fixing, the hideous scar was little better than the actual cleft lip. The smell of the hospital always made him tense and agitated - in his memories, it was always combined with pain, with loneliness, with fear.

Just like now. The pain in his chest was like a burning dagger in the muscle of his heart, and he had never been this scared in his life, had never felt more alone.

"You should eat something," Mom said with a soft, silent voice, laying a comforting hand on his forearm. "It'll make you feel better."

Hawk shook his head. His stomach was clenched into a tight knot, there was no way he could force any food down without it coming right back up.

Mom let out a sigh and turned her attention to Nicholas. "Can I get you something? Maybe some coffee—?"

"No—" Nicholas breathed. "No, thank you Beth— I couldn't—"

His voice broke in the middle of the sentence, and he didn't continue. He returned to staring at the fake flowers on the table, his eyes seeing nothing. He looked ten years older than he had when Hawk had last seen him, and it made him feel awful.

At that moment the door opened and a doctor - a middle-aged woman in a white jacket - walked in. Nicholas stood up so fast that he almost knocked over the small coffee table.

"Is she—?"

"We have managed to stabilize her—" the doctor said. "Her life is not in any imminent danger at the moment."

"Jesus Christ—" Hawk groaned, the relief knocking the breath out of him.

Nicholas started crying hard, tears streaming down his face. "She's going to be okay?"

"Most likely. Of course, we don't know yet if there is any permanent damage—"

"Permanent damage?" Nicholas groaned. "What are you talking about?"

"Her oxygen levels were very low when she arrived at the hospital, and then there is the possibility of kidney problems, but it is too early to speculate. I would say it is unlikely there will be any long-term effects, but we cannot completely rule it out until she wakes up and we run some more tests."

"She's not awake?" Hawk asked, drawing the doctor's attention to himself.

"No, but it is a good thing right now. Her body needs to rest."

The words permanent damage were still sitting on Hawk's chest, squeezing the air out of his lungs. Whatever the doctor had meant by that, it couldn't be anything good. He looked at Nicholas and saw the same worry on his face.