Downfall [Punk Niall Horan]

59

I had been in this dark place before in another life, my life, yet it seemed as if it happened decades ago but in the same exact place and time. Why I was reincarnated to keep living out the most grueling moment of a person's life, I did not know. Maybe I was destined to live through this traumatic experience again and again for some unknown reason. This had to have a purpose, I had to learn something earth shattering and bare through it while simultaneously finding sunshine among the darkness. And if that wasn't strong, then I don't know what is.

But, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself.

***********

My eyelids fluttered tightly against the fake, sterile light of what I only knew would turn out to be a hospital. A sickly cleansing smell flooded my nose before my body was even fully awake. Before I even opened my eyes to look down at my arm, I could already feel the needle of an IV embedded beneath my most likely pale skin where the blue veins stood out starkly.

I felt the emptiness, the wide expanse digging into my stomach that something wasn't right, before I even allowed my heart to start beating in a normal rhythm again. Before the sunlight from the open window was allowed to touch my fragile skin, I already knew that it could not warm my body no matter how many rays it emitted.

When I turned the faucet of living on again, everything flooded back into me in a soul grabbing and breath taking way. This caused me to sit straight up in bed because I had to find Niall and Harry, they had to be okay. Even though something in my heart told me they weren't.

My sore muscles didn't respond properly as I tried to rip the thin, uncomfortable hospital bed sheets off of me. I hated the solid white color, it tried to disguise its self as something pure and angelic, but there was no telling how many dying souls had tarnished its fibers and the room that it was in.

Once a bit of feeling resurfaced in my arms, I moved to rip the IV from my arm and the heart monitors from my exposed chest. My bare feet hit the cold floor, and I just crumpled because my legs were beat to hell and back. Faintly, I could hear the erratic beating of the heart monitor that I had taken off signaling a flat line, but I pushed it to the back of my mind as I focused on pulling myself up by using the bed.

Finally, I managed to stand on my feet, and even though I was very wobbly, I threw myself at the door frame and latched onto it for dear life, ignoring the look of curious onlookers that were scattered around the opening. My head and vision swam, but I gulped and pushed myself off the door frame and then used the wall to inch myself to the room next door.

"Niall," I called weakly, peering into the room briefly, "Harry." My heart sunk into the pit of my stomach when I realized that nobody was in the room. I struggled to grasp a full breath and pushed myself down to the next door, gasping for a sliver of oxygen.

"Harry, Niall!" I cried more loudly now, losing another piece of myself when I found that the next room was empty as well. I pushed myself down the hallway, checking every door and losing my sanity each time I found an empty room looking back at me. Hot tears pooled in the corner of my eyes, and rage flooded my weary system, giving me the extra strength to do what I did next.

I heard footsteps pounding down the hall, and I almost certainly knew they were for me. I turned to the vacated office in the middle of the hallways intersections, and I pushed everything off the desktop and ripped it with all of my stored up anger and fear. Sobs racked through my body as my knees gave out and I dropped into the middle of the floor, into the middle of the mess I made and just screamed.

That was it. They were both gone from me forever, and I didn't even get to say goodbye. I didn't get the chance to appreciate them enough like they deserved so much.