Elixir

Chapter 3 - Death

I woke up and couldn’t see anything for a minute because it was so bright. “Did I fall asleep?” I wondered. Then I remembered everything. “Why did I faint? Where am I? What happened to Alex? How did everyone react?” I asked myself in my mind trying to remember anything after I hit the floor. Then I could see.

            I looked around and saw that I was in a little claustrophobic room that was very bright, so I had to squint. I was in I small metal bed tilted upward with a tiny dresser next to it. My first thought was that I was in the nurse’s office since I had never been there before because normally I felt bad when I woke up, and had never gotten sick at school before. Then I realized I was in a hospital, when I noticed that my mom was asleep in a chair next to me. “Mom,” I said, but she didn’t move. “Mom!” I almost shouted, becoming afraid that there was something dreadfully wrong with me if I was in a hospital. She awoke jerking upward as if from a deep sleep. “Where am I?” I asked looking out of the glass doors of my small room.

            “You’re in the hospital honey.” She replied. For some reason, I grew angry at her. Perhaps it was from all the bad things that had happened, but adrenaline was pounding its way through my veins and I said, “Well, I figured that much Mom! Why am I in here?”  I looked straight at her. “Calm down Violet,” she soothed, “you fainted in class so I took you to the hospital. The doctors have run some tests on you, and they should be back with the results any minute.” I began to calm down, taking in slow breaths. My heart stopped pounding in my chest, and I was able to try and think rationally. “How long have I been in here?” I asked, showing her that I had calmed myself.

            “You have been here overnight, and it is now…” She looked at her watch, “10:00.” “10:00!" How had I been asleep over night? And the best question was why did I faint in the first place? Had I not eaten? Maybe that was it; I heard that if you don’t eat enough than sometimes you faint, or maybe… I didn’t know, but I hoped that there wasn’t anything wrong with me. People were probably saying that I was a freak or did it on purpose to avoid Latin class.

            My mom and I had just had minor small talk waiting for the doctor. She asked me if I was feeling alright, if I was nauseous, and what was the last thing I remembered. When the doctor finally came in about thirty minutes later, my mom had almost fallen asleep. When the doctor came in, I was surprised at how young he looked. His hair was brown and shaggy, and along with his droopy brown eyes that looked the color of chocolate, he reminded me of a dog. “Hello Violet,” he began, “my name is Dr. Croswell, and we have your test results back.” I looked at him awaiting the results with a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. The pain had gone, but I figured that that had something to do with medicine and pain killers. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but you have been diagnosed with leukemia, and we will put you on chemo therapy immediately.” By the look on his face, I knew I was going to die.

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            I wasn’t very scared about dying ironically, but I was more worried about my parents. What would happen to them after I died? I had heard that many parents get divorced after their child dies, and I didn’t want that to happen to them, and what would happen to Katie? Katie. What would happen to her if I died? She’s my gravity. She’s my annoying little sister that I blame on whenever something goes wrong. She’s the one that I turn to if I’ve had a bad day or am really sad or angry. I was the person that covered up for her if she made a mess so mom didn’t get angry. I’m the one that if she had a bad dream in the middle of the night would come to calm her down and have her sleep with me. I’m the one that took care of her when she was sick and mom was at work. I’m the one who made her breakfast most mornings and took her too school.

            What would happen to her after I died? Would she be different from going through a dramatic experience? There was no way to know.

            My family wasn’t very religious, so I wondered what would happen after I died. I was never baptized so would I go to hell? In Greek mythology you go to the underworld, and if u do something really bad u stay in a place equivalent to hell for the rest of eternity. But if you do nothing at all, you just stand still, doing absolutely nothing for the rest of eternity, but if you are a hero or do something really good in life, than you live gloriously for the rest of eternity.

            But my worst thought was what if when you die, you just die? There’s blackness, darkness, nothingness, a black void that will never be filled, will keep expanding until it sucks in everything alive. What if that is the destiny of our souls when our bodies are being decomposed in the soil, being eaten at by animals and insects, all of our beauty, all of our hopes and dreams, only to be eaten at by bugs, and our souls to be taken by the interminable darkness.

            Katie and my dad came in not very long afterwards. Apparently, my dad had called the school to tell Katie that I was okay, and she refused to do anything until she saw me. So my dad picked her up from school and drove her over here. I didn’t want to ask if she knew that she I had cancer.

            When she came in, I knew just by looking at her that she knew. Her face was red, and puffy. She came running to me, and nearly leaped when she got onto the bed. “Why does this have to happen?” She asked to nobody in particular. She was sulking into my nightgown (that I really wanted to take off because it made me look stupid,) and I began to cry too. But the difference was, was that I wasn’t crying because I had cancer, but more because this was probably the worst day in eternity, and my little sister was already breaking down and I wasn’t even very sick yet.

            We stayed like that, Katie crying on me, I was crying, hugging her, and my parents were both in different corners of the room crying silently to themselves. I felt like I was causing my entire family pain.

            Unexpectedly, a nurse entered the room and said that I had some visitors. “Who would come in to see me other than my family?” I thought. Just then, Daisy and Dianna both came in crying, rushing to me each holding at least 3 different kinds of stuffed animals, all labeled with get well soon. “Oh god,” I said, trying to force myself to smile, “I really don’t need any more stuffed animals.” “Yes you do!” Said Daisy, who rarely spoke unless she had too or it was about something really important. “You can never have too many stuffed animals.” She said giving them to me, then deciding against it, putting them on the dresser.

            Then another unexpected person walked in. It was Alex.