Days of Darkness

Genesis (Part 1)

My throat still felt like crap and every breath slowly scraped along the inside of my throat, occasionally dragging a cough or splutter back up with it. The pain was nothing compared to what it had been like inside the building though. Which reminded me about the burn on my shoulder; with everything going on I had kind of forgotten that it'd happened. Pulling open my t-shirt I could see that a section of my left shoulder had been singed. It looked as if someone had just ripped the top layers of my skin off. Luckily it was nothing too painful so I just covered it up again and ignored the inconsistent pain, pretending it wasn't there. Looking across to Jane she didn't appear to be showing any signs of life, her eyes were closed and in all honesty it wasn't looking very good for her. She was there, but she wasn't really. Just a shell. A motionless shell that resembled Jane. I tried to remain positive but her whole body just lay there. I'm not even sure if she was breathing. Gingerly edging closer I put my hand forward and slowly weaved it through her thick hair, thinking of what had happened as I did. Now that I'd got closer I could feel that the fire had burned quite a bit off. This was hardly surprising considering how long she could have been trapped in there. She won't be very happy if she wakes up, I thought to myself, having her precious hair in this state. Just the thought of this brought a tear to my eye, which was promptly wiped away. Stay strong Joe, stay strong. You're going to get through this I thought to myself, everything's gonna be ok.

After what seemed like hours the sirens suddenly stopped, the sound was still ringing through my ears but by now all I could think about was my dying sister sat inches away from me. All decisiveness had left my body-I was too scared to even ask how she was. I didn't want to hear it. There was a loud screech as the ambulance evidently pulled up into the hospital and the doors opened revealing three figures in uniform that quickly lifted Jane out of the ambulance. All my fears were becoming real; there were worried faces everywhere and some sort of slow beeping echoed through the air. Was it good? Was it bad? This was crazy; life couldn't go on like this. All the uncertainty was killing me. I didn't know and I couldn't take it, a loud noise brought me back to the normality of reality and she was gone. Then I realised...that might have been the last time I'll see her alive. This thought now implanted into my head I just sat there in silence until I was snapped out of this trance by a fourth uniformed figure saying something to me and Matt as she ordered us out of the ambulance. We were checked there and then and everything seemed to be fine with no permanent effects. That was some good news because at least I knew that I hadn't killed Matt as well. However we were strongly advised to stay overnight to get some rest and remain under observation.

"Well I was going to stay anyway to see how Jane is, but-" I looked at Matt to see what he was doing and he gave me a reassuring pat on the back. He was staying.

We stepped out of the ambulance onto the cold concrete and followed the woman into the hospital; we had been traipsing through the dreary corridors of the hospital for a couple of minutes when the woman instructed us into a cramped room full of empty beds. We had a drawer beside our beds full of various necessities; water, bedclothes, toothbrush and toothpaste. That kind of stuff. She told us not to worry and that she would sign us in, contact our parents etc. After all that had happened in the past hour I just wanted some rest so I lay down on my bed thinking about my sister, the same sister who I might never see again. Then it hit me again. All the fear and paranoia filled my head, the flashing images of her unconscious and limp body began to fill my brain again. The fear was overwhelming, like a wave slowly drowning me. Drawing me down and drowning me. Silence crept in through grey brick and seldom used windows, light piercing the air and landing with grace on the grey bedclothes on my grey bed in our grey room. Though our room wasn't dirty, it wasn't pleasant either. Glancing across the emotionless room I saw nothing that defined it, I know we were in a hospital but there was no personality. It made me feel...tired. But that could have just been the fire.