Faded

Chapter 12

Present Day                                                                                                                    (Nearly two hours after the accident.)

"Two New York police officers Sharon Turner and Seamus Jackson were recently pronounced dead after an unfortunate shootout between the officers and the spanish drug cartel that occurred at Zurich Avenue. Now over to Henry reporting live from the scene." announced a female news anchor on the large 70 inch tv screen that was placed over a white glossy entertainment center in the hospital lobby. Both the officers faces were shown on the tv as the reporter spoke about the incident in grave detail.

I sat in my wheelchair with both hands gripping on the wheels with blood on my shirt, blood that wasn't my own but rather Mr. Fongs. Mr. Fong's car had come to a stop nearly colliding with the police car but barely missed it as the passengers inside the cop car were shot dead. Our car had swerved off the road and hit a lamp post that landed on the hood of the car and shattered the front window. I got lucky by sitting on the backside of the car and got away with a couple cuts and scratches while Mr. Fong was unconscious what a large cut on the side of his head with blood dripping down. I had then looked out the passenger window expecting to see the black SUV drive away but it never did, it was as if it was never there.

The ambulance had came to the scene shortly after and both Mr. Fong and I were taken to the hospital. Mr. Fong had suffered a concussion and was getting the cut on his head stitched up while I was waiting. Both Turner and Jackson were the only ones that took my parents death and were persistent. They wanted to find out the truth and now...they're dead. There were other witnesses at the scene of the crime but the story they told the police did not match mine at all. They didn't see the drive by happen but saw an unfortunate shootout between a gang and two police officers instead.

Why is it that I see things differently from everyone else? I know what I saw but still... am I going crazy? Will I end up like mother? Although...I might not be as fortunate as her. They might even throw me into a psychiatric hospital.

I shudder in fear at the thought of it. I roll my wheelchair out of the lobby and down the hall to retrieve water from the vending machine but stop after noticing something unsettling.

Edward A. Shires M.D.

I frown at the gold plaque as I grew more and more curious.

Dr. Shires was a woman. How is this possible?

"Oh hey Scarlett." chirp a voice behind me whose footsteps were growing nearer. I frown for a moment after a female nurse came up to me with a smile. She was wearing blue scrubs with a black clipboard in one hand which seemed to complement her glowing tan skin, and then I began to remember. The woman who was standing next to me was nurse Alia, one of the nurses that monitored my health after my surgery. "Are you here to see Dr. Shires? Didn't he say that he was going to be away for a while?"

He?

"Is there more than one doctor with the last name Shires that works at this hospital?"

"No. There's only one, you should know, you were one of his patients. Why?"

But the person in charge of my surgery was not a man but rather a woman.

"It's nothing I must be confusing Dr. Shires with someone I now. I guess I'm still rattled from the accident." I respond nervously, hoping that she would buy the excuse that I had given her.

"I heard about the accident, it was unfortunate. Well I hope that you get better Scarlett." the nurse replies as she was holding onto her clipboard with both hands and turned the corner to finish her rounds.

The recent events that took place in the past few weeks transcended the most challenging events that I faced in my life to this date. I don't know if what I saw is a simple mind trick or the effect of hallucination and I'm not willing to accept it or not wish to believe in it. I'm only looking for a logical explanation for why the recent events in my life took place. I could still remember it clearly the bandage on Dr. Shire's, no, that woman's arm and the lie that she told me.

"It's nothing. I just had a difficult time with one of my patients."

Before the officers died they told me that the killer left no traces behind, no fingerprints or any form of DNA, the killer was like a phantom but even a phantom isn’t invincible and there is always a clue or evidence left behind and in this case I was the clue, I was the evidence, all because I still remember her face.