A Twist of Fate SERIES (Pentatonix)

(30) Don't Try to Make Me Feel Better

you ever appalled at how incredibly horrible your writing can be at times? yeah. pre-editing, this chapter was one of those instances. but now it's all rewritten and polished for your enjoyment! :)

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( MITCH )

A new feeling settles deep within my stomach and spreads all the way up into my chest. I try to inhale, but find that it's impossible to do so. It's like an elephant is sitting on me, impeding my ability to breathe. My vision blurs and my ears ring; I can't even hear my own heartbeat.

I'm unable to register much, but suddenly I feel hands on my shoulders, pushing me down onto the floor. I comply, falling limply until my blurred vision is staring up at the white-tiled ceiling, and I wonder if this is what death feels like. If this is what my parents felt right before they slipped away, if this is what Scott or Avi could have felt if they succumbed, if this is what I had felt back in October when I was lifeless for a couple of minutes.

I willingly let my eyelids slide shut, but not even a moment later my ears are filled with voices screaming my name, and then a pair of lips are on mine, breathing air back into my lungs. Footsteps sound all around me, people shouting and demanding a doctor and an oxygen tank.

All I can recognize at the moment is darkness, voices, and somebody's lips on mine, their air filling my lungs. Suddenly they're gone, though, and I feel something else press against my face—an oxygen mask. In mere seconds, my lungs are circulating air again, and I can feel (and hear) my heart pounding in my chest. My eyes slowly blink open to see six faces peering down at me, worry shining in them.

"Holy shit," Ben breathes, and then he's crying, leaning back as he gasps for air. He scrubs his hands down his face, his shoulders shaking as the tears fall.

"Sir, please don't move," someone who I assume is a nurse tells me firmly, reaching over to up my oxygen levels. I comply, too exhausted to even think about moving anyways.

Kirstie's holding onto my hand, pressing it against her face as her tears fall onto it. Nicole kneels by my feet, her head in her hands, and Kevin's eyes are glued on the oxygen tank beside me while the nurse hurries away. I can see Jonathan leaning up against the wall behind Nicole, as far away from me as possible. More tears surface in my eyes when I remember what he had just told me.

Both of my parents are dead.

As if hearing that both Scott and Avi were shot wasn't traumatizing enough. And, though I may be thirty-two, I'm still now considered an orphan. The two sets of loving hands that always fed me, clothed me, bathed me, held me when I was younger are cold now, and they'll never be warm again. The two loving voices that always talked to me, soothed me, sang to me, encouraged me, motivated me are quiet now, and they'll never be loud again. Those beautiful vocal cords that told me to ignore the bullies and to follow my dreams, that supported me throughout every obstacle and change in my life, that screamed along to every song at our concerts, are now forever silent.

And if it weren't for the oxygen tank forcing air into my lungs, I would willingly stop breathing again. And if it weren't for my heart's desire to continuously beat, I would willingly tell it to stop. I let my eyes slide shut again, despite Kevin telling me not to. Keeping them open was already exhausting enough, never mind with the news that the two people who have always loved me unconditionally can no longer do so in the flesh.

I fall asleep shortly thereafter.

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