DarkWing (Final Editing in Progress)

Chapter 3 - No Place Like Home

I remember every single detail about the next minute. The tears. The screaming. The chaos. That sound. That horrible, long, flat, piercing sound. I remember it all. Everytime I close my eyes, I remember it all.

"MOM!!!!! NO!!! I NEED HELP IN HERE!!! GET A DOCTOR!!! GET ANYBODY!!! PLEASE!!! MOMMY STAY WITH ME!!! STAY WITH ME DAMNIT!!!" All of a sudden, I felt a force pulling me away from my mother's bed. A nurse had come up behind me and started dragging me away.

"Sir! I need you to leave this room and give the doctors space!" I fought her but she pulled me into the hallway kicking and screaming, and then a flood of those blue-green uniforms filled the room. The nurse then forced me to sit and propped my back up against the wall right across from the room and ran in to join the others.

I watched everything through that open doorway. Doctors yelling at each other, opening drawers, pulling out random pieces of equipment.

"Clear!" one of the doctors yelled. I cringed as I watched my mother's limp lifeless body jerk violently. It was a sight that no person should have to witness. Another doctor put his hand on her wrist and shook his head.

"Clear!" but this time, I looked away. I couldn't bear the sight of it again. When I looked back through the doorway, the other doctor was shaking his head again. All of a sudden, the room that was once filled with unruly chaos was now filled with a grim silence. "I'm calling it..." whispered the doctor holding the defibrillator. He looked at his watch, "Time of death. 12:12pm."

"I'm so sorry for your loss." I don't know how long I sat where the nurse had first left me.

"It'll... It'll be okay." It felt like days.

"I know what it's like to lose someone." So many people passed me.

"She's in a better place." Each one just felt the need to say something.

"No one should have to go through this." I know they all had good intentions.

"You'll see her again sometime." But nothing they said or did could change the way I felt.

"Death is just a part of life." Nothing I could say or do could've explained the way I felt.

"She's watching over you." One thought echoed in my head. One thought alone.

"This is all my fault!!!" I screamed. I didn't mean to. It just happened. I looked down the empty hallways, first to my right, then my left. No one was there. I picked myself up off the ground, grabbed the briefcase that I had left there that morning, and hobbled down the hallway to the elevators. I clicked the call elevator button and then had a strange feeling that someone was watching me. I turned around to find a woman sitting there at the help desk, staring back at me. We stared silently for a second, then I thought of something to say.

"Do you have the time..." I whispered in a quiet, husky voice.

"It's 6:48pm," she said. I nodded at her, then turned back around. The elevator doors opened, but something felt wrong, something was missing. I walked into the elevator and turned around and made eye contact one last time with that nurse. She smiled and said to me, "You know. It's not your fault." I smiled back at her and said thank you, and as the doors closed, I realized what was missing. She wasn't typing.

I walked out of the hospital and called a cab. "Where would you like to go, sir?" asked the driver. I honestly didn't know. All I knew is I wanted to get away.

"Take me to the airport." When I walked into the airport, I was at a loss. I didn't even want to go there, I just told the driver to take me to the first place I thought of. But then I started thinking, "I have no place to stay, no reason to stay. I should just go home."

"Ok sir, here are your tickets, your flight leaves at 11pm." I grabbed my tickets and glanced the clock on the wall. It was 7:26pm. I had time. I followed the sea of people into the airport.

"It's for your own good. I think it would be smart for you to come back next week." That man's words echoed in my head. I walked into an airport bathroom and splashed some water on my face.

"I'm a wreck," I said to myself. Then I stepped back from the mirror, and began fixing myself.

There wasn't much I could do outside of tucking my shirt in, but as soon as I looked socially acceptable, I walked out and made my way to my gate. "Maybe I should stay..." I thought to myself as I started rubbing my arm. "But nothing has happened so far... It's been almost a whole day... Maybe that injection thing was just a failed experiment..."

"It's for your own good. I think it would be smart for you to come back next week." It wouldn't stop. I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop recreating that moment in my head over and over again. Everything about it was burned into my memory. 

"He was so serious..." I thought to myself. "Those eyes... His words... So intense... So heavy... Maybe I shoul-"

"Now boarding seats 40 through 60, economy class." Suddenly my mind returned to reality. I looked down at my ticket. Seat 53 C. It was my turn to board the plane, but I began to have doubts.

"The man... He knew what he was talking about... I should stay..." But I didn't want to stay. This was the last place I wanted to be. I closed my eyes, and buried my face into my hands. I wanted to go home. I wanted to get away.

Then I saw my mom's face. I saw that smile. I saw it fade. I saw her limp body jump and jerk. Then I heard that noise again. It filled my mind, overcame every single last crevice, that horrible, long, flat, piercing sound. I started hitting myself, beating my fists against my skull, anything to make the noise stop. "All of this. All of this for nothing," I said to myself. "I failed. And now... Now I'm here. Now what." I didn't know what to do. I fell back into my warring thoughts.

"Last call for flight 463 to Ithaca, New York." I was the only one left in the waiting area. Everyone else had boarded the plane, and here I was, still debating with myself. But I was out of time, and I had to make a decision. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out a quarter.

"Heads, I get on the flight. Tails, I stay here." I closed my eyes and I flipped the coin into the air. Soon, I heard the quiet thud as the coin hit the ground. I opened my eyes, grabbed my briefcase, stood up, and said to myself "I've sat here long enough." To this day, I don't know whether the coin landed on heads or tails.