If Roosters Crowed Every Time Someone Died

It's Like a Burglary in Your House III

I woke up in a white room. It had soft, light blue walls. There was something on my face that bothered me. There were a few people around me, dressed in blue as well. I don't know how many. I felt pressure on my hand. Another hand was holding it.

When you turn on an old tube television, a really old one from the early days, it takes a while for the screen to colour up. I felt like one of those old TVs: As I woke up, the images slowly took shape. The soft walls were curtains, and the people were nurses. What I had on my face was an oxymizer.

I was at a hospital.

My body felt twice as heavy, and I still felt splinters in my leg. When I opened my eyes, I saw a doctor removing bits of glass with tweezers. They cleaned, sutured, and disinfected my leg and my arm. They sat me up on the gurney and placed a cup with something hot in it while they waited for the anesthesia to wear off. The police were there, I saw them looking into my eyes and moving their lips, but I couldn't hear a thing. I didn't want to hear a thing. The doctors talked to the police, my friends talked to the police, everyone talked to the police except for me. Samuel later told me what had happened. The police found me unconscious, battered and bleeding in the neighbour's shed. They took me to the hospital in an ambulance.

Little by little, I began to pay attention, and I was able to hear questions, but I didn't answer any.

"... the patient is in a state of shock... I do not consider it appropriate for her to be interrogated..."

Blah blah blah.

"I want to go home."

I didn't recognize my own voice when I spoke.

They filled my ears with questions as soon as I opened my mouth. I answered the first half and ignored the other half. They didn't want to let me go, but in a back and forth the doctors had with Moka and Samuel, they discharged me. They made me sign a paper —an important one, I imagine— and we went home.

At Moka's house, all the lights were off. They ordered something to eat, and I went to the bathroom. I urgently needed a hot shower. I went in, turned on the light, and opened the faucet. I took off my clothes and, at that moment, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, out of the corner of my eye.

I was not prepared for what I saw.

I was a mess.

The girl looking at me from the other side had her hair tangled, sticky with blood and dirt. Her face was pale, with sunken eyes and cracked lips. I ran my hair, and so did she: she had a huge bruise, crimson red and royal purple, in the shape of a hand that wrapped around her neck like a choker. Her arms: the right one was well, well bruised; the left one had bandages on it. I removed them carefully to see the wound: a clean and somewhat deep vertical cut, dried blood stained each of the stitches. A scar was sure to remain. I didn't want to touch it because my hands were covered with grime, and I didn't want to peel off the waterproof dressing covering it. Her torso was not spared. She had one dark bruise near her ribs, where the stupid clown had kicked me, and another one on her ass, from falling on the neighbour's floor. Knees? Full of scrapes like the elbows. Calves? One ok, the other stitched up. Ankles? They were the only part of my body where I had no marks, but they were dirty, full of grime like my hands.

Now I understood why he hadn't killed me. I already looked dead. Beaten and stitched all over.

I got into the shower, and the water ran stained, between earth brown and rusty blood brown. Good thing Moka hadn't seen me. Otherwise, she would have been shocked. I sat down on the floor and showered like that, soaping myself slowly, letting the water relax my aching muscles, wishing the water would wash away the bad memory. And I washed and showered, and only got out when the hot water ran out. I wrapped a towel around me and went to Moka's room. There was my backpack with the change of clothes I had brought to stay until tomorrow. From the backpack, I also found some painkillers and took them. I put on my pajamas, dried my hair, and was about to go to bed when shuffling down the hallway, Moka appeared in the doorway and turned on the light.

"VIRGIN MARY." She jumped and grabbed her heart when she saw me sitting on the bed.

"I'm not Mary, and I'm not the virgin, but you may talk to me." I was still surprised to hear a hoarse, raspy voice coming from me.

"You scared me. How are you feeling?"

"Fine... Better."

"When we saw the mess, the blood in the garage, we imagined the worst." She started. "While we were in the hospital, the police came and took our statements, but we couldn't complete the identikit picture for lack of details. I can't remember his face. I'm so stupid." She blamed herself.

"It's okay. You went through a lot." I comforted her. I could sense her pain, her helplessness.

She stared at me. I rested one of my hands on her shoulder. I was thankful I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and had my legs tucked under the blankets because if she saw me, she might as well die of blame.

"Are you going to fill a police report?"

"Yes, yes. I'm going to, but now I want to sleep." I cut her off.
I was tired, and my eyes were closing.

"What about your phone? Did he take it? The cops didn't find anything."

My phone. Fucking hell.

If it wasn't in the garage, it was in the neighbor's shed.

"No, he didn't. It has to be outside." I rubbed my eyes, feeling miserable. "I'm going to go look for it."

With a most reluctant soul, I put on a jacket and got out of the warm, cozy bed. There was nothing in the garage. With a most reluctant body, I walked across the dividing wall. When I entered the shed, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Inside, the silence grew louder, and the smell of damp and wet wood brought back memories.

Gleaming on the workbench was my beloved Samsung. I picked it up warily, because next to it lay a handkerchief and a folded sheet of paper.

My heart skipped a beat. I looked around in fear, thinking he might still be there. If the police didn't find this, had he come back after they left?

I went back into the house and got into the bed. I gathered my courage and opened the note.

Written in perfect cursive, the note read:

"Don't forget me."

Well, shit.

That message was like a death sentence, a threat. Of that, I was sure, and now, because of me, my friends were in danger. I had earned the hatred of a person who had almost killed me, not once but three times. I would be in danger every time I went out on the street. I had to be careful now, for myself, but also for Moka and Samuel. I couldn't even imagine what I would do without them.

At night, I had trouble falling asleep. My head was racing, full of thoughts and theories. Until the pill kicked in, and then I didn't think about anything else.

I was sure of one thing: a very dark and hidden part of me, the same part that had stabbed a clown, wanted to defy fate and find out what would happen should I see him again.