Living Off Past Trauma [EDITED]

Please Come Back

Published: 22 April2025
Edited: 16June2025

A thanks to @Mrskittiey for helping me...partly

Well, Enjoy...

Omniscient
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~Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, LA

2-3am 29June2024

The night was cold. Not just the chill-in-your-bones kind of cold, but the kind that crept into the soul—quiet, heavy, and endless. The kind of cold that made the silence feel louder than any gunshot, than any beeping sound.

Outside, the wind whispered through the empty streets, brushing past the shattered remnants of the fight left behind—bullet holes in walls, blood dried in the cracks of the floor, and the distant stench of smoke still lingering in the air. But here, inside the hospital, the war had stopped.

The fluorescent lights overhead flickered faintly, humming with a steady indifference that felt too calm for what they'd all just come from and for what doctors were to tell them. The once-white tile floors were scuffed with dirt, boots, and blood. 

They sat scattered in the waiting room—some slouched against walls, some with heads in their hands, others staring blankly into space. Their clothes were torn. Faces smudged with ash, sweat, or tears. Eyes hollow.

No one spoke.

The silence was a strange kind of mercy. After the endless hours of gunfire, of screaming and running, of losing a person they loved and killing to survive—this silence felt unreal. And almost unbearable.

From down the hall, the occasional beep of a heart monitor or the soft footsteps of a nurse were the only signs that life still existed here.

Taylor lit a cigarette just outside the entrance, the flame flaring briefly in the dark like a tiny, defiant star. His mind lost in his own thoughts of what happened and what were to come. Someone else sat praying quietly, lips moving but no sound coming out.

The night dragged on. Slow. Relentless. Still.

There were no more screams, no more gunshots, no more rushing footsteps on ground or thunderous explosions in the air. Just the cold. Just the ache. Just the weight of everything that had happened and what were to come.

And in that numb, bitter quiet, they waited. For news. For recovery. For something—anything—that didn't hurt.

Taylor Eima//Tai
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We all, well at least the ones that are conscious, which is Me, Lamar, Pooter, Skyler and Lizzo, were standing impatiently the hallway of the hospital. Still trying to comprehend what happened. Standing in the hospital felt like ages. The atmosphere, or to be more specific the aroma was so unsettling for no particular reason which made my mind drift into my thoughts....

I've never been this cold in my life, and the hospital isn't even that cold. It's something else—a kind of cold that wraps around your bones when you're afraid something you love is slipping away.

She's lying there, motionless. Tubes coming out of her, machines blinking with this awful, steady rhythm. It's too quiet, except for the beeping, and I can't stop thinking about the blood that's soaked through her bandages. Chest wound. A gunshot. Jesus...

I can't stop thinking about how she looked at me when it happened. In that moment, my whole world stopped. Her last words still roamed in my head. Her soft ragged voice still lingered in my head. I clenched my fists as I thought of her last words; "But this is my last goodbye" and then she just...dropped.

Now she's unconscious, and they're telling us she might not make it. Might. Like that word is supposed to comfort me. Like it's enough to cling to.

I remember holding her hand. I didn't even think she could feel it. Her fingers were cold, and I was trying so hard not to fall apart. I've never felt so useless. If I could, I would go back in time and push her out the way, taking the bullet for her a thousand times. Instead, all I could and can do is sit here and whisper to myself like she can hear me. "Don't leave. Please don't leave." 

My thoughts were cut off by the sound of a crying lady running in. I looked and saw it was Lola's mom, Millie. 

"Where is she?!" she cried out, her voice ragged, cracked open by fear. She didn't wait for an answer. She didn't see the people around her, didn't care about the nurses behind the desk or the gurneys rolling past. Her eyes locked on mine—sitting in the waiting room, clothes stained, face pale, hands still trembling.