lights on // shawn mendes au

chapter one

Getting sent to the hospital with a sprained ankle wasn't exactly the best way to start your first day at school off with. I had planned this year down to the tiniest detail, making sure that my year in 11th grade would pass by smoothly. I had signed up for extra calculus classes to raise my grade, and I had spent the summer attending writing classes to become better at writing short stories for this year's English class.

Precisely a week ago, I turned sixteen. My two nearest friends had surprised me with a small birthday party, which included childish games and a stupid round of beer pong. I had never been the partying type, and I had to admit that I hadn't even tasted alcohol before my party. Losing control over myself had never really been an interest of mine, however I did have a few hobbies. Photography and soccer being two of them.

I had played soccer since I was five, and I really enjoyed the adrenalin it gave me. I loved the intensity and the brutality you could lure out of someone, funnily enough, and I had always been the one to cause our team's penalty shots. But as much as I liked soccer, photography had always been my biggest passion. The way you could create something special, send out a message and use your creativity in multiple ways «just» by clicking that one little button had always fascinated me. For as long as I could remember I'd had a camera in my hands, and documenting the little- but meaningful things in life had always been my favorite thing to do.

One of my bedroom walls were covered in grey, cluttered shelves holding my most precious belongings: photo albums. I had one for each year that went by, and they were all filled with pictures, handwritten notes, postcards and a few pages that were ripped out of my diary. It was a genius way to preserve memories.

I lived with my parents and my little brother, Mike, in Pickering, Ontario. My family and I had always had a good and stable relationship, and we were all really close. Wednesday night had ever since I was a kid been a family evening consisting of the four of us gathering around the dinner table. My mom used to cook a delicious roast, my dad was always up for a round of board games, and my brother and I were constantly trying to calm our parents down when my dad wanted to play monopoly before doing the dishes.

Sadly, due to my little incident, family night was cancelled this evening.

«Here's your crutches Ms. Newfield. Be careful with you ankle in the next few days, and it'll be healthy again in about a week», the nurse told me, handing me a pair of silver colored rod lookalikes. I thanked her politely and looked over at my mum who was sitting next to me on the dreadful, orange couch, giving her a little smile.

«Honey, why don't you take a stroll down the corridor to test your crutches whilst I'm filling out your papers?», she said, nodding her head at the hall behind us and shaking the nurse's hand.

I nodded as a response and pulled myself and my tired body up from the couch, leaning carefully against the metallic sticks. I took a few steps, awkwardly stumbling down the white painted hall. The corridor had red doors on each side, most likely leading into laboratoriums or pasient rooms. Empty wheelchairs were placed against the walls, and a snack machine and a coffee maker stood next to a pair of abandoned armchairs with a table in-between. I stepped toward the coffee table, leaning gently agains the wall behind it. My ankle was sending a rush of pain through my body, and the constant feeling of it beating as intensively as a heart was massive. It felt like it was competing with the rhythm of my raising pulse.

As I was leaning toward the wall, a silent but pure sound was crawling it's way into my ears. There was something unusual about it that caught my attention. The sound itself was familiar, but the voice however, was not: someone was singing.

I took a tight grip around my crutches and started to wander slowly down the corridor. I passed several more red doors, wheelchairs and a couple of doctors with pasient tucked gently into sheets in hospital beds. Physicians were walking past me, sending me warm smiles and brief hello's, and nurses were wheeling around medical equipment such as antiseptic, bandages, syringes and medical cups.