Survivors Guilt

(Just putting in your bookley reminder to comment. Reading comments is my favorite part about writing and it's just about all I actually get out of this)

Jessica Cruz stared in absolute terror at the scene unfolding before her. She and three of her friends had gone on a camping trip, after a while they had decided to walk a bit deeper into the woods, that's how they got where they were now.

The men they had found burying the body walked behind them with gun's in their hands as the four terrified group sat on their knees as they held  their hands behind their heads. One of them was failing to hold back tears. She was the first that was shot.

Jessica screamed as she watched her friend fall to the ground with a bullet through her head, her blood splattering on Jess' face. The other man aimed his gun at the dead girls boyfriend, Thomas, next. "No, no please! No!" He was shot too.

Jessica quickly bolted towards the trees while the killers were focused on the bodies of her dead friends.

Bam! Jessica didn't know if that gunshot had been aimed at her and he had missed or if the killers had just killed (y/n). She quickly stiffened as that last thought had occurred to her. She had completely forgotten about her last friend. She had left him with the killers. The already flowing tears flowed faster as Jessica quickly continued running, not bothering to look back, afraid she'd see her last friend laying dead on the ground behind her.

Bam!

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Jess gasped as she bolted awake and fell out of bed. The girl could feel the tears running down her face as she lay on her side on the floor.

Bam!

"Fuck" she whimpered as she curled up into a ball, trying to tune out the sounds of the gunshots from somewhere outside.

Bam!

Each shot made her cry harder as her mind forced her to relive what had happened again and again.

After another minute or so the shooting had ended and Jessica could hear the sirens of the coming ambulances and police cars, those unfortunately weren't much more welcome nosies.

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After an hour of running she had reached a main road and finally collapsed, the adrenaline wearing off. She had quickly been found by a passing police officer. She had told him everything that had happened and he had called an ambulance for her and a couple more in case any of her friends had survived. Jessica knew they hadn't but she didn't argue.

Once the first ambulance arrived the paramedics quickly helped Jessica inside as the police officer drove off towards the campsite where Jess and her friends had been staying so he could follow the path she had described to him and look for her friends.

Jessica cried to herself as the paramedics looked her over. She was covered in blood that wasn't her own, she had many bruises and scrapes from times she had tripped and fallen while running, and she couldn't stand, probably due to overexertion, but otherwise she was mostly fine, physically that is.

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Once the sirens had stopped Jessica slowly uncurled herself and got back up onto her knees. She wiped her tears away but they were quickly replaced by new ones. She stayed like that for a while before slowly getting to her feet.

Jess' legs wobbled as she quickly grabbed onto the nightstand to keep herself upright. It had taken a couple weeks but she was finally starting to stand up again. According to the doctors at the hospital she had just been released from, Jess' mind had more or less paralyzed her from the waist down as a method of dealing with the survivors guilt and especially to deal with the guilt of leaving behind her one friend who had still been alive.

She of course hadn't believed them at first. Jess had thought she must have been truly paralyzed, why else wouldn't her legs work? The mind couldn't just cause that sort of damage, could it? Apparently it could.

Once she had stood there for a moment her legs stopped wobbling and Jess carefully let go of the nightstand. She slowly got back onto her bed before laying down again, she was as exhausted as she always was nowadays and ready to go back to sleep.

On the nightstand Jess' phone rang but she ignored it. She knew it would be the doctor calling to check in but she didn't want to talk to her right now. She didn't have the strength to lie to her right now.

Other than falling out of bed from time to time, Jess hadn't left her bed since getting home. She hadn't showered, used the toilet, or even eaten any food or drank any water since the hospital and she had no desire to, anything she put in her body since coming home always came right back up and out a minute later.

All Jessica Cruz did these days was sleep, ignore phone calls, and overthink. It's not that she didn't want to get better but she was to afraid of what could happen if she went outside to even try.

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Jessica cried as she sat in the hospital room she had recently been moved to, she had started in a more crowded area but the longer she was left to think the more she freaked out. What if one of the other patients went nuts? What if someone attacked her? What if the men who had killed her friends came for her? The police hadn't found one of them after all.

Eventually Jess was sedated and moved to a more isolated area of the hospital. It was still terrifying to her but the sedatives helped to keep her from completely freaking out.

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Jess cried as she stared with a scared look at her window. Did she deserve whatever was out there? She had left her last friend to die without even thinking about him. Sure she had regretted it after the fact but that didn't mean anything. Even when she had remembered him she hadn't turned back, she just ran.

Not for the first time Jess glanced at her phone. She considered calling (y/n). She had been relieved to hear that he was alive but to terrified of what he must think of her to call him. The boy had tried calling twice after the event and every day after those initial calls would try at least once or twice but Jess didn't pick up. She imagined he just wanted to yell at her for what she did. She didn't blame him, she would hate her too.

The police had informed Jess that while the kidnappers were distracted by her running away the boy had quickly knocked one down and taken his gun. He had shot the man before being shot in the arm by the other one. He had shot back and the last killer ran since he was now out of ammo.

In other words, and in Jessica's mind, while she had run like a coward the boy had saved her. He was probably the only reason the men hadn't shot her as she ran. He was also now a killer and that was on her. He was such a nice boy, one of her best childhood friends, he had never so much as drawn another's blood and now he had killed to save her.

Word count: 1289

(I had a two part story like this in my Beatles Songfic book and always wanted to continue it. I finally decided now that this deserves its own book so here it is. Thoughts?)