All At Once

Chapter III

Wednesday, 9th of July (9:00am)

I feel weightless. Like floating above water. Wave after wave makes my body dance in curves. I tried to make my vision clearer but all I can see is a blur of a beautiful green eyes staring to me.

"My baby Natty's awake. Good morning. How are you feeling?" a deep voice startles me but then I feel relieve when I realize that I know it so well. Husky and familiar.

My head's spinning so fast that I almost didn't recognize him. "Will? Oh, please don't tell me we're in a hospital right now."

He look at me as if what I'm saying is not funny. "I thought you passed out. But the doctor said that you had trauma. And it's been three days since that incident."

I'm searching for information of what he's talking about. Incident. But, my brain's so empty that I stupidly ask him, "What? What incident?"

"You knew what happened. I don't want you to relive it again. So, are you hungry? I can buy some foods in the cafeteria."

"Okay."

While he's going to close the door, I call out to him, "And Will?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you... again. For everything."

"No problem. I'll be right back in a bit."

I heard the doors close and hint of smile on his face. But, my mind shifts into what exactly happened three days ago. I close my eyes and that's when images begin to flow. 

Matthew in Will's house. Will gagged. Matthew attempting to shot Will in the forehead. Matthew pressing the gun to his temple. 

And all of a sudden, I'm in a different yet a familiar comforting place. Home. My childhood home. A flash of burning red hair pass in front of me and I realize, it's Andy. My older sister. She turns around to face me and says, "I'm sorry, Natsy. To disappoint you. Don't call me Andy anymore, okay?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm not a sister of yours. Mom and Dad told me just last night that they took me from an orphanage so technically, you don't have a sister. You don't have a sister named Andy. She's dead."

"No, you're not. You're my best friend. You'll still gonna be my sister no matter what. Remember our pinky promise?"

"I don't care about that again. About every promise we have for each other. It doesn't matter anymore 'cause Andy's dead. And so does Andrea. Take care of yourself, Little Natsy."

Just like that, she was gone. Gone. A strange word to look at. More like a burst of colorful fireworks in the sky after the countdown in New Year's. Pretty visible at first then gone for a second.

Time stilled.The gun slip from her hands and she falls to the ground. And all I can do is to cry myself out calling Mom and Dad. Then, the police came and tried to question me but I just shiver and didn't say a thing. I've been in a hospital too after that. I don't know what happened to me in there. Everytime I wake up, there's a doctor interrogating me but I didn't say a word until my parents came into the room and that make me find the way to my old self anymore. A week after that, I've been released and we move into a new house. I ask my parents a million questions about Andy and they'll just stare with each other and change the subject instead.

Then, a ghostly form of Andy appeared at the back of my mind saying, "I'm sorry, Natsy. Take care of yourself, okay? Pinky promise."

I jolt awake and I'm sweating from head to toe. I realize too that I'm screaming. Probably from fright during the moment Andy and Matthew press the trigger of the gun that blowed their heads off. Finally, Will came back and he's saying something to me but I couldn't hear a word out of it. Then, a needle is being press into my skin. Tranquilizer.