Devils and Angels

xxx. amnesia

a b l u v i o n

that which has been washed away

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EVERYTHING AROUND ME WAS HAZY, blurred, smudged like pencil marks on paper. The side of my head throbbed with innumerable pain, and a thick lethargy threatened to swallow me every time my eyelids dropped.

A dizzying rush of soundwaves clogged my ears, and too bright lights hurt my eyes. Somewhere, in the distance, I could hear people's incessant worrying, their panic for someone who was in the same situation I was; someone they cared about and loved very, very much.

Somewhere else, there was a girl, whose family and friends were worried, shouting and yelling how it was their fault, how they shouldn't have let her go, how they wished they'd stepped in, how they wished she didn't have to be involved in the first place. She was a girl with a broken knee, a girl with bruises up her arms, a girl with a concussion, a girl who wouldn't wake up, a girl who wouldn't fall asleep.

Is that girl me?

In a sudden, foggy burst of consciousness, I opened my eyes again. My surroundings shifted from side to side. Two doors, two windows, four crutches. Two boys crouched by my bed, reaching for my hand, telling me that they snuck in to say sorry, to say that they weren't supposed to be in here, to say that he hasn't woken up yet, and they hate that I got hurt.

What happened to me?

Left leg. I kicked it beneath the covers sluggishly, distantly glad to find it okay. Right leg. I attempted to do the same, only to be rewarded with a sudden burst of pain in my joint that made sweat bead on my forehead and my teeth grind against each other in an attempt not to cry out.

My arms. Panicked, I peered beneath the papery covers to find my arms. Black and blue painted my upper arms, my wrists, my elbows.

I am that girl.

But what happened?

Clenching my jaw and screwing my eyes shut, I forced myself to backtrack in my mind. Waking up in here. Back a few hours. Concentration lapse. Where was I again? Still in here. Back a few hours. Still in here. Back a few hours. Concentration lapse. Where was I again?

A grey, hazy void wherein nothing was certain.

The door opened. Light filtered in through the gap. Too much light. I burrowed under the covers to avoid it. The distant voices became clearer. The anxiety in them more clarified. One person became many.

I didn't want to deal with them. I didn't feel right. I wasn't okay. I wasn't okay.

What happened?

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"She's awake." Henry pushed hair back from my eyes with trembling fingers. I knew it was Henry when his pale face popped into view, and he looked as though he hadn't slept a wink for three days. "How—How do you feel?"

"I don't—" I croaked. My throat was parched, so lustful for a liquid to moisten its surface. "Can I—have some water?"

"Sure, sure." Jessa who was stood to the side, poured out water from a jug into a cup and put it to my lips. "Here," She whispered. The cool, delicious liquid flowed over my tongue and slid down my throat like a miracle potion.

"Thank you." I squeaked, glancing around the hospital room with fuzzy vision. "Why—Why am I here? What happened?"

My friends exchanged worried, tentative glances.