Fragile // 5sos [under MAJOR reconstruction!]

Two.

"I could hardly sleep last night. It just kept replaying in my head every time I closed my eyes." Calum groaned, rubbing his tired eyes. Everyone agreed with him; they all looked like they hadn't slept a wink. None of them did.

"I wonder if she's okay." Luke mumbled, plucking the strings on his guitar. Michael had his phone in his hands as his thumbs sped across the screen.

"Look, the news did an article on it." He exclaimed, showing his screen to the rest of the group for a split second before Ashton snatched it out of his hands. The boys all looked at him in anticipation as he cleared his throat.

"It reads, 'In the late hours of last night, a fatal crash occurred in South of Sydney near the TenPin Bowling Alley, where a young unnamed girl was hit by a large van which flipped over several times. The two drivers are on the run and have not been found. Police have released a witness description of the two men and sketches have been created to aid in memory'," he read, then paused and showed them the two sketches of the men. They looked pretty realistic. He turned the screen back and his eyes scanned the screen again. "If anyone has any information regarding this accident or these men, please report it to your local police station or call Crime Stoppers'."

None of them said anything; the heavy feeling in the air said it all. It was all too intense for them to handle, especially since none of them have experienced something so dramatic and so close to home before. 

Michael took his phone back and to lighten the mood, he connected his phone to Luke's speaker and played his favourite 'cheer up' playlist. Luke's mum brought them some junk food to cheer them up and after a while they had a little jam because Ashton had his Cajon in the boot of his car.

Back at the hospital, in the Intensive Care Unit hidden in room 14 was a small tubed girl, hardly over the age of 16 that had a very sad life.

 One of her lungs collapsed because one of her two ribs that broke punctured a hole into it. Ice sat on her broken ribs and there was a small catheter implanted in her chest to remove the air and relieve the pressure. To help with her breathing, doctors placed an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose. She could feel the sweat accumulating under the mask and wanted to take it off, but she was too exhausted to try. 

Her hands lay limply by her sides, one wrist taped and cast with pins inserted inside to realign the bone. She could see the stitches in her skin poking out from under the cast because of the bone piercing it. The other was bandaged for the bruised and bloodied knuckles, which was caused after she punched her client in the face for wanting something that he couldn't have. One of her legs were raised in the air to reduce the swelling in her ankle after twisting when she fell.

The hospital gown she wore was long, baggy and paper thin. The thin sheets covering her body didn't help. The open window sent chills down her back as the hairs on her arms raised.

She forced her swollen shut eyes open and thankfully, the lights were dim as she focused on the plain cream wall in front of her. A sterile chair was situated next to the bed, there for loved ones and friends, only it was empty. She couldn't move her head side to side because of the neck brace she still wore that was stained in her own blood because the deep cut in her lip reopened when she was put onto the stretcher at the scene. Her head ached and she felt sick to her stomach; only she knew she couldn't vomit otherwise her whole body would be sent in shock. She kept it down and swallowed all of the saliva, leaving her with a dry mouth. There was a wheeled table next to her that had an old sandwich and some jelly on it. The dairy free ice cream in the cup melted to room temperature, hinting that it had been there for quite a while. 

The machine next to the wall beeped loudly in coordination with her heart rate, which started to accelerate now that she was awake and alert. The nurses in their offices noticed that the irregular lines on monitor 14 were getting faster, so they got up and were on their way down the corridors to her room.

There was a mirror on the wall but she was too low to look into it and see the mess that she was; both eyes blue and swollen, a deep cut in her bottom lip with bruises around her neck covered by the brace she wore. Her matty brown hair was kept out of her face with a hair clip, so it wouldn't tickle her nose. She felt worse than she usually did, and the knot in her stomach was almost unbearable to handle. Her droopy eyelids shot as open as they could as she heard the door handle clicking open before a small knock sounded throughout the small room. The heartbeat monitor grew faster and louder, and the two nurses who entered felt sympathetic towards the girl. She obviously had a lot of problems, and they didn't want to make it worse for her.

"Hi, darling. My name is Melinda. You were in a car accident a few days ago and now you're in the hospital," Melinda introduced, picking up a clipboard that hung at the end of the bed. She looked up after noting the time that her patient had finally woken up. "How are you feeling?"

The girl didn't answer, she only kept her head down and didn't look at the strange woman. She was going to be in very big trouble if they found out where she was. But maybe they won't find her... The girl thought more and more about what had happened prior that lead her to end up in the hospital. Perhaps they wouldn't want to find her in case they got caught for the things that they did. But her shred of hope had vanished, just like all her positive thoughts do.

The two nurses looked at each other worriedly, but they couldn't leave until they knew she was okay.

"Are you feeling any nausea or a headache? We need to know if you have a concussion." She lightly pushed again, but the girl didn't know what that meant. A concussion could mean anything, and what if she did have it? What if she didn't? What would they do to her if they found out anything about her?

She still didn't reply, not feeling comfortable being around people she didn't know. Although that's the only thing she was always surrounded with, she felt some sort of power around here. These people didn't push her or yell for not answering. These people were different, and maybe they were helping. On the other hand, they could just be the opposite. She had no way of knowing. She was always told that the outside world was worse than where she was, and she had it good. Maybe they were right. As soon as she made outside, she ended up here, in a prison, with needles puncturing her skin with liquids going inside. For all she knows, they were the reason she was in pain and they were the reason she was knocked out cold. She didn't know these people, and she hated the admit it, but the only way she felt comfortable was when she was home, even if it was torturous for her.

The two nurses gave up after a while, realizing that there was no way this girl was going to talk to a couple of strangers. Melinda thought of an idea, where she quickly slipped out a blank piece of paper from the clipboard and placed it on the girl's bedside table with a pen.

"Here, maybe you can write it down for us, if you don't want to speak." She smiled, then the walked out of her room and shut the door. They greeted the two police officers guarding her door and continued to walk back to their office.

"One of us needs to warm up to her more, maybe then she will talk. She seems like she had a really bad time lately, she's not going to talk to some people she only just met." Melinda encouraged and the other nurse shrugged her shoulders.

"Maybe she's a mute." She suggested, and the thought went through Melinda's mind for the rest of the day. Back in the girl's room, the paper and pen were left untouched, because the girl was illiterate and did not know what the hell that lady was on about.