Both of their eyes are closed

part 7

The hospital feels cold and unwelcome. The smell is sterile and strong. Luke is in this very building, unconscious. He feels so close, yet so distant at the same time.

"Luke Hemmings," Ashton says up at the front desk.

"Yes you'll find him in the I.C.U. three floors up, you'll have to check in at the desk there." The nurse sounds exhausted. It is getting late though, there's no telling how long she's been here.

"Okay, thank you," Ashton says with a smile, despite the fact that the nurse didn't even look away from her screen and dismissed him so abruptly.

He always been kind like that.

Calum rests his arm on your shoulder and rubs your arm in an attempt to comfort you. You pile on to the empty elevator.

Your stomach burns with nerves, the flame growing hotter and hotter with each floor that the elevator rises. Floor three. The doors open to a floor that looks very different from the ground floor. No chairs or plants or pictures. Everything is white. It's almost blinding.

Ashton once again does all of the talking, you don't pay attention to most of it but somewhere in there you hear the word "sister" which reminds you that only family members are allowed to see him for now. Ashton's lying to get you in.

A minute goes by, then two. There is a waiting room down the hall, and your legs are aching. The four of you enter the room and sit down in the farthest corner. Five minutes, six minutes.

You begin to notice the people around you. And older woman with an oxygen tank sits across the room from you. She stares blankly at the floor in front of her, ignoring the magazine in her lap.

A few seats away from you there is a couple, they can't be any older than thirty. The woman sobs quietly while the man paces back and fourth, every once and a while kneeling in front of her and speaking gently to her, but you can't hear what he says.

At the other corner in the room you see a man. He appears to be in his forties. He is resting his elbows on his knees, and his head in his hands. Next to him is a little blonde boy, no more than five, and an older boy. You can't tell how old the older boy is, maybe twenty. He wears a hat and sunglasses. His legs are thin and his black jeans are tight. The older boy talks to the younger one.

They are the only voices in the room at the moment, so you decide to daze off to the deep sound of the older one's voice, and the soft smooth sound of the younger boy's.

"How much do you love her?" the little boy asks.

"I love her very much, with all my heart," the older one responds.

"Do you think she's going to be okay?"

"I hope so Smith. She's a fighter, she's too stubborn to die."

I turn my attention back to my own thoughts. About twenty minutes goes by and a nurse pokes her head in the room.

"Luke Hemmings?"

"That's your que," Ashton whispers. You slowly stand, and none of the boys follow. She leads you back down the hall the way you came, and takes you through a few twists and turns, and finally you come to a big glass door.

Multiple beds line the walls of the large room. The nurse slides her ID, opens the door and you are brought to the desk at the center of the room.

You look around for Luke, but most of the curtains are closed. The nurses talk and exchange papers as you continue to look at the people around the room.

There is and old man with numerous tubes and machines connected to him.

There is a young child with bloodied bandages on a stump where an arm must have once been.

There is a girl, young, nineteen maybe. Her blonde hair, messed up and dirty, falls in all directions on her pillow. There are no wounds on her, but there is a large tube pumping fluid into her abdomen.

The nurse who lead you in walks out, and the one who was behind the desk leads you over to a bed in the back of the room. Your heart beats so hard that you can feel the blood rushing through every part of you.

The world is going in slow motion as she lifts her gloved hand up to the curtain and pulls it back.