All the dark places

Chapter 8: Luciferous

I open my eyes to find myself still drenched in darkness, almost as if my eyes are still closed. I rub my eyes so hard that I'm afraid I might gouge them. My legs tremble as I forge on, trying to find an exit. I have been walking for hours by now but it feels like I'm walking on a never ending road, like a treadmill. Thinking of treadmills send a wave of memories come flooding in like a tsunami, rocking my head here and there. The darkness around me starts to dissolve like a drop of black ink falling in clean water. My body goes light, my feet rise and a pit in my stomach opens up.

                 I have to hold on to my stomach to stop my organs from flying out and then I have to cover my mouth as I start to feel puke rise up my food pipe. But it stops before gets thing nasty and I prop myself up, sniffing the air soon followed by me twitching my nose. "God, what the hell is this stench?!" I whisper to myself before I locate 100 something adults drenched in sweat either mumbling along with their friends or listening to music. I would rather stay trapped in the darkness please. A person walks right through me and I almost call him out but then I see it is me and besides what would I say to him, "Excuse me, mister. Aren't you gonna apologize that you walked right through me. Totally not considering that you look like me," I laugh hysterically at my own joke despite it not even being funny. 

   I finally wipe tears from my eyes and move towards myself, ignoring the question why am I even here. I stand right in front of myself who is running on a treadmill with a girl who has tied up her hair in a pony-tail. I wonder who she is and I almost speak something before she exclaims, "I seriously don't know why they call these stupid machines-" She releases her hands from the side stand and lifts up her fingers and motions air commas saying, "-Treadmills. Honestly, they should be called 'DREAD'mills in my opinion." She starts laughing so hard that my other version has to step down from his machine and has to hold her but he fails to do so and they both fall, the whole of the gym staring at them.

                         "What does this have to do with anything, though?!" I think to myself just before it comes hitting me like a truck: That woman over there making terrible puns is my wife, Carla.

                The gym starts to spin around like its on a very fast carousel. Before I know it, the gym starts to dissolve like before and that pit in my stomach opens up. My wife, the other me and the random strangers all dissolve. The next place where I find myself standing is at the emergency entrance of a huge hospital. The bright red sign that states 'C-R-I-H' hurts my eyes and I look away. I turn to face the road that leads to this entrance and see hundreds of cars lined up in a uniform way at the parking lot. Ironically, I find it to be peaceful as a cold breeze brushes through my hair and the distant muttering goes mute as the automatic door closes. I inhale to enjoy this one moment of peace before anything strange happens and just then a car comes come screeching until it reaches a halt right in front of me. The door opens and out emerges are tiny strands of red colored hair, then eyes the color of the deepest part of the ocean, then a messy uniform. The other me falls out of the car directly on the road, looking here and there to check if someone noticed him. Luckily no one does and he starts to run-walk into the hospital. I tag along with him (me?), he rushes down a few hallways, taking twists here and there. 

                           I try my best to run together but a wailing sound distracts me. I slow down my footsteps until they come to a stop and see a whole family muttering and panicking. My curiosity gets the better of me as I walk to them and try to hear what has happened. A doctor approaches to a family of 4: a pretty buffed up middle aged man who seems to be the dad,  a blonde teenager who has just kept her phone in her pocket, another teenager who resembles the blonde keeps his novel on the waiting bench, and a kid who's drooling and laying on the ground.