The Phoenices Volume 1 - Expired

Chapter 15 - Jeremy

I woke up, my head aching and my vision fuzzy. I noticed how white and clean everything around me looked, before my vision focused on the small machine next to me. I had a couple colorful lines, jumping up and down at a pretty regular rhythm. I looked around me and down at my body, noticing the wires poking out from under my shirt and from the crooks of my elbows. I tried sitting up, when a person came into my vision from somewhere behind me, the woman trying to get me to sit down. I could see her lips moving, but I couldn't' hear anything, so I just lay my head back, letting my eyes travel to the tiled ceiling, beginning to count the number of panels in my vision before slowly drifting off once again, probably from some drug they gave me. I had several dreams that I was aware of, but I only remembered one with much clarity. I was sitting outside of my car, where it was flipped and crushed at the scene of the accident. I could see myself struggling to get out of the burning vehicle, then the explosion, which buffeted my skin with heat, but still leaving me unscathed and in perfect condition. I jumped when I heard a voice very near my ear, snapping my head around to spy the person talking.

"Are you regretting anything yet, boy?" said the raspy voice, and I felt sharp nails drag gently across the base of my neck, before running over the wrist with my new tattoo on it. I glanced down at it, but instead of seeing the usual date, my wrist read in an ominous, barely legible, deep red font, "Too late." I frantically looked around, trying to find the creature that spoke to me, when my eyes fell upon the most beautiful person I had ever seen. My gaze froze, stuck on the creature's feminine facial structure, their body fluid like liquid glass and glowing a gentle neutral toned color. The arms of the thing were not transparent, but not opaque either, I felt as though I could make out the outline of the tree trunks behind her torso, but I wasn't sure. I reached my hand out to her, just touching her long dark, kinky hair with the tips of my fingers, when she disappeared with a horrified look on her face. I turned around, hoping to catch sight of the woman again, only to come face to face with a horrific beast, peeling green-black skin, rotting teeth and breath like molded onions sauteed in expired sauerkraut. My mouth dropped open in a silent scream, my eyes widening to their extent as I scrambled away from the monster. I felt my fingertips disconnect from the ground a split second too late, and felt myself begin to plummet into a dark abyss. I snapped awake, my eyelids trying to open.

"Is he going to be okay?" I heard a familiar voice, muffled by the depth of my sleep, but it was still overwhelmingly loud after the amount of time I'd been deafened to the world. I tried to open my eyes, but I was unable to, they seemed glued shut. I tried harder, discovering that they were in fact just very very heavy, that I could open them.

"He'll be fine, just needs some rest." another voice replied, this one unrecognizable. The voice was followed shortly after by a soft clicking noise that I presumed was the door closing behind the other person. I slowly lifted my arms, reaching up to my face to run my hands down my face and pinch open my eyes. I saw Marissa and Aidan sitting in the hospital room, Aidan on the phone in the corner and Marissa sitting at the end of my bed staring at me angrily.

"What did I do why are you angry at me?" I rushedly asked, my voice slurred from the drugs they gave me and my voice scratchy from disuse, "What day is it?" I asked, sitting up straighter, my heart beginning to race, causing the heart monitor to beep faster, which only gave me more anxiety. I scanned the room, searching for my belongings bag, realizing it was on the table next to me. I turned my phone on, and upon seeing that it was still only the 11th relaxed a great deal.

"Your parents will be back in an hour or so, they went to get dinner together so yeah." Aidan piped up from the corner, "Also Reilly and Elizabeth will be here soon too, you're gonna be the most popular kid in the ER."