Dreamer ~ A Daniel Seavey Fanfiction

Chapter 5

HARPER'S POV

I'm not looking in a mirror, but I can see myself, lying in a hospital bed, barely hanging on to life. I don't know how long I've been here, but it's terrifying. The world is quiet here, and so empty. I can't make my body move. I don't even know if I'm able to breathe. I don't even know if I am breathing. Am I real or a shadow? Girl or ghost?

I hear a doctor talking about "pulling the plug." On what, I would like to know. I want to ask him. But I can't. I can't show the smallest sign that I'm here, that I'm still alive.

But then again...am I?

A doorknob creaks, and I hear someone else's voice. This one is sort of familiar.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I was just-" The voice pauses. "Oh my God. Harper?"

Ghost me looks away from my body, and Daniel Seavey, the gorgeous blue-eyed boy, is standing in the doorway.

"You know this girl?" The doctor stands, and I feel invisible. Maybe I am.

"Yeah, she, um...she goes to my school. It was her birthday a few weeks ago." Daniel shifts his eyes away from hospital me to the doctor's face. "What happened?"

"She was involved in a car crash with two others, her parents."

"Did they survive?"

My heart stops, and I find myself torn between wanting them to live and wanting them to be gone from my life forever.

"They survived," the doctor said, and my heart slows down. I notice the heart rate monitor hasn't changed with my heartbeat at all - it kept the same dull, steady beat since the moment I found myself in here. "But they've been arrested for their third DUI each, along with reckless endangerment, drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence. They're going to be locked up for a long time."

I feel myself sigh in relief. Then, Daniel asks, "Domestic violence? Who did they-?" He stops. "Oh my God. They didn't..."

The doctor nods. "They beat her. Nurses found bruises and shallow puncture wounds on her torso."

Daniel inhales sharply. "That's awful."

"You can talk to her, if you want," the doctor says, moving past Daniel in the doorway. "We're going to be pulling her plug in a few days, but this might help."

"'Pulling her plug'?" Daniel repeats. "What? Why?"

The doctor sighs. "She's given us multiple scares before, and we've had to shock her back to life at least twice. Her organs keep failing, and it's taking a lot for us to keep her alive. But I think it's putting her through more pain than anything. There's no family left to decide what we should do, so it'll be up to the hospital board. Unless something changes, we'll be removing her from life support on Monday."

"That's the day after tomorrow!" Daniel says incredulously, and my ghost heart skips. "Isn't there anything else you can do?"

"I'm sorry, son," the doctor says sympathetically. "But it's up to Harper now." He gestures toward my dead-looking body. "Talk to her. It might help more than you think." Then, he leaves the room, and it's just my body, Daniel, and me, the ghost.

"Okay then," Daniel says to himself. He wheels over the chair the doctor was sitting in, and sits right between the me on the bed and the me that's a ghost. "Um...hey, Harper. It's Daniel, from fifth period? No, no that's stupid..."

He gets up and walks around a little, and I instinctively back up and give him room, even thought he's not going to bump into me anyway. He rubs a hand over his face, and then comes back over to the hospital bed, sits down on the edge, and takes my hand in his.

"Okay, Harper, here's the deal..." Daniel sighs, and ghost me sits on the other side of the bed. "You're in the hospital, and they're going to remove you from life support in a little less than forty-eight hours - unless you just suddenly wake up or start doing a whole lot better than you are right now, so if you could just do me a huge favor and do one of those things, that would be great."

I can't help myself from giggling, and Daniel looks up and turns his head to look in the hallway. When we both look back to my body, my face is the same, except for the fact that I have a small smile playing on my lips. I stare in disbelief. Daniel sees it too, but he must mistake it for wishful thinking, because he just shakes his head and tries to talk to hospital me again. "Please Harper? Please wake up?"

The heartbeat monitor just beeps in response.

I want to let him know I'm here. I want to scream. But instead I sit in silence, hoping that I just wake up and ghost me goes back into my body and I'm one person again. But nothing happens.

Daniel sighs like I'm breaking his heart, and he seems to lose hope. "Just try to keep fighting, okay?" He kisses my hand and lays is across my stomach. Then he slowly gets up and heads toward the door.

"I'm trying Daniel," I whisper. "I'm fighting."

Daniel stops dead cold. He turns around, and looks around the room. He can't see me, but I'm there. He can't hear me, but I spoke. Then, he shakes his head again, mutters something, and disappears from view.

I want to shake myself awake. I want to chase Daniel down the hall and make him come back. I want to be myself again.

Wake up, Harper. Wake up. Wake up...

~