Collide

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE - STAY

The gunshots echoed through my mind over and over again as I was frozen into place. I couldn't move an inch, frightened by the idea of what I could find if I came in the house. The sound of a window shattering into a million pieces got me out of my trance, and I immediately barged into the house once I found the use of my legs back.

I felt like my heart stopped beating at the horrifying sight before my eyes. My mother was in a pool of blood on the floor, unconscious, while my father, visibly badly injured as well, tried to reanimate her by practicing CPR on her. I looked in the distance, only to see one of the men who broke into our home watching the disastrous scene he caused from afar. One of the men I saw in my vision earlier that day. He disappeared by the window they shattered a split second after I caught a glimpse of him. Instinctively, I ran after them, only to see them cowardly running away with a bag over their shoulder.

"H—Hayley!" my father's weak voice called after me, and I ran back into the living room with them. Everything was blurry around me because of the many tears that pooled my eyes. "C—Call 911," he whimpered, breathless, as he stopped practicing CPR on my still unconscious mother.

"W-wait! What about mom? Mom! Mom answer me!" I knelt on the ground next to her, and immediately, her blood stained my jeans. "Mom!" I cried at that point, but nothing seemed to wake her up. I couldn't even feel her pulse anymore.

"H—Hayley, the phone," my father whispered in agony as he was holding his side tightly. He was loosing a considerable amount of blood. There was blood all around me, pools of blood, and it terrified me.

I stood up and ran to the kitchen, leaving bloody footprints behind me, and grabbed the phone quickly from its hook. I dialed 911 the fastest way possible, but my shaking hands seemed to be a huge obstacle for the realization of this simple task, "D—Dad, you need to talk to me!" I yelled from the kitchen. I couldn't stop the tears from falling from my eyes, nor could I stop panic from invading my being more and more as time flew by.

"I'm here, sweetie," my father answered in a weak voice, and I wept some more at this very sound.

"911, what's your emergency?" the lady asked at the other end of the phone.

"Y—you need to come over there, my m-m-mother and father were shot by some guys th—they're loosing a lot of blood and my mother has been unconscious for the past ten minutes, please come, please ma'am you need to save them, please," I cried in agony as my whole body was shaking at that point. I gave the address of the house to the woman I had on the phone, I took a couple of clean dish towels and I ran back to the living room where both of my parents were.

It was time for me to use what I learned at med school to try to keep my parents alive before the ambulance got there.

"Dad, you need to apply this on your wound okay?" I asked him as I put the towel over his wound on his right side, earning a wince of pain from him. "I—I need to take care of mom."

"Hayley," my father breathed, catching my wrist as I was about to go check on my mother. I sat right back next to him, and for the first time since I got into the house, I looked at him right in his tearful eyes. His face was pale and he was fighting to keep his eyes open. The sight of him in that state caused my blood to run cold, and a cold sweat to run down back. "Y—Your m—mother," he whispered, wincing in pain, "g—gone."

"Mom? Mom is gone? MOM IS DEAD?" I yelled, as I got out of his hold harshly to run to the cold body of my mother that was lying there, in the middle of the living room. "Mom, please wake up," I pleaded helplessly, shaking her with force. "Mom no, n—no—no, you can't leave me, I need you! MOM!"