the buddy system / lrh 🍒

27:waves

Luke wasn't dead.

Well, he might be, but he had no exact way of knowing.

It was a bit difficult to know whether or not you were dead if you've never been dead to begin with.

But there was probably an essence to being dead that one's soul would just wholeheartedly feel in order for that person's dying soul to realize, hey! shit! were fucked! It would only make sense, but whatever that essence was, Luke didn't feel it one bit.

In fact, he felt very much alive, which he sort of knew since he's spent a fairly decent amount of his life, y'know, living.

But the fact that he knew he was alive in the head didn't quite excuse the fact that his actual physical body was probably pretty messed up.

He didn't have to be awake or conscious at all at the moment to know that part, he found out when he was being rushed here, a situation in itself, that was horrifying, something that you'd probably see in your worst nightmares, buried deep inside your consciousness where no one would ever have to touch it, not even you.

They initially came in terrifying waves, waves just hovering over the thin, breaking line between life and death.

The first wave was the pain. Oh god, the pain. The searing, hot pain that brought tears to Luke's eyes, the pain that paralyzed him.

He remembered wanting to scream, move, pull whatever the fuck that was killing him slowly out, yet nothing happened, he was powerless. He couldn't breath, he couldn't do anything.

And that's when it hit him. Luke knew he was going to die, knew he was never going to write songs with Calum and argue with Michael or Ashton, knew he'd never get to see the world outside of Sydney or even see Katherine again.

Katherine with her red hair that was just as fiery as her personality, her laugh that made his heart skip a beat, her grey eyes that seemed to reflect his entire world because, the funny thing was that she was his world. She was everything he could ever want and more, she was the person he wanted to give his heart to, the person he wanted to spend the rest of his fucking life with because god, he loved her. He loved her more than the stars in the sky, more than the moon loved the sun, more than anyone could possibly love another person and the shittiest part of that entire moment was that he thought he'd never see her again, thought he'd never hear her laugh or take her out to coffee or go stargazing with her, or tell her he loved her.

And that hurt more than anything, even more the metal lodged into his body, preventing him from breathing for every single moment that passed, a boy was dying.

The second wave was the sirens.

The deafening, bright, glowing sirens that illuminated the darkness, practically blinding the blue eyed boy as the paramedics rushed to his aid, lowering him down into a gurney and rushing him into the ambulance.

He could remember the screams and sounds of crying of people calling his name as the doors closed, the silhouettes of hands reaching out for him, pulling him into the darkness, into the death that he didn't want, refused to want.

And then there was silence.

Complete utter silence as the ambulance doors slammed shut and the car sped to the nearest hospital, the same exact one little Luke and his remaining family had went to just to find out it was too late for his mum to be saved, to find out that her soul was already gone, in a world beyond his reach, beyond any of their reaches. And even his dad's, whom he once thought lifted the world on his shoulders, Luke's world, knew that she was too far away for him to pull back.

Back then, Luke remembered thinking  that the silence was deafening, lonely, horrifying because he couldn't do anything to stop it, yet now he found it oddly comforting because maybe, just maybe, he'd be okay beyond the flashing lights, pain, screaming, and darkness.

Maybe it was just his turn to hold the world on his shoulders, and maybe the world he was holding was the one he was fighting to stay in.

Wave three came later.

It was the most hectic wave, one filled with even more screaming and running and rushing into the emergency room as blood trickled down the side of Luke's mouth, the dark red substance spilling from his parted lips as he fought to breath, a feat that got harder and harder every step the nurses and doctors took in order to get to their destination.

He stared to the light hovering above his head like a halo in the shape of  a sun, showering him in all it's light. He remembered catching the eye of a woman who begged him to stay conscious, to stay alive, but just as her lips began to form the foreign words, he was gone, succumbing to the darkness even under the light.

At that point, Luke didn't wake up again.

---

"The family of Mr. Luke Hemmings?" the doctor, an old man with greying hair, stated as he made his way into the waiting room in which the mourning people were in, catching the attention of almost everyone.

"Yes, that's us," Mr. Hemmings stated, voice thick with tears that proceeded to spill from his eyes, even in speech.

"I have news about your son," the old man informed him, his lips pursed into a thin line as the horrid words slipped from his mouth, wrapping everyone's hearts in absolute dread and despair.

"He's gone into a coma. It may take weeks, months, even years for him to recover, yet there is a large possibility he may not wake up at all."

---

Hello, hello loves!

i'm alive and still here and i'd like to announce that this story only has one more chapter left, which honestly surprises me because i honestly didn't know if i'd ever finish it. But it's actually done and i have the ending planned out and everything.

i'm also sorry that i haven't been updating for like months, i've been super busy and i'm honestly just trying to survive high school. I promise that i'll at least try to update more and i'll hopefully finish this story before school starts up again next week.

Thank's for reading and i love you all to like the moon and back.

peace out girl scouts!