Don't Let Go (BxB) {COMPLETED} ✔️

CHAPTER 10- Heaven Is Way Too White. And Smelly.

OCTAVEUS
I OPENED my eyes to white. I took a deep breath, finding oxygen came easily through a slight burning sensation in my chest and throat. I closed my eyes, then opened them again, trying to refocus them. My vision slowly came into focus enough that I could see, and I looked around. I was lying in a twin bed with white sheets and white feather pillows. There was a white curtain suspended on a bar from the ceiling surrounding the small area around my bed, which was made up of a small white wooden nightstand with a roll of bandages sitting on the surface and a grey plastic chair next to the bed. A large mirror was positioned right at the foot of my bed, and guess what color the frame was? White. All of the bright colors started to make my eyes hurt. I tried to move my arms but I couldn't feel the rest of my body. It took me a second to realize that I wasn't alone in the small area behind the curtain.
    "Anna. . ." I said, my voice sounded hoarse and unusually quiet.
   Anna lifted her head from her arms and leapt up from her place in the chair. She immediately ran to me and threw her arms around me, her shoulders shaking. I didn't need to see her to know that she was crying. She finally pulled away from the hug and studied my face, her hands cradling my head. Her long golden-blonde hair hung loose around her shoulders. Her maroon eyes were teary with relief and fear.
   She stared at me for a moment before whispering, "I thought we lost you." I stared into her eyes, not knowing what to say. Luckily, I didn't have to say anything. She threw her arms around me again started crying. Feeling started to return to my arms and shoulders as I let her hug me and run her fingers through my hair. She pulled her face out of my shoulder and gently pulled her arms out from under my shoulders, then said, "Do you want to sit up?"
   I nodded and pushed myself into a sitting position (with Anna's help), but stopped dead when I saw my reflection in the mirror. I wasn't wearing a shirt, but that didn't matter; my chest was completely wrapped in white bandages, making up for my lack of a shirt. There wasn't anything covering my bare stomach, but I didn't care at the moment. My right shoulder was covered with white bandages as well, along with my neck and most of my left arm. But what scared me most was how sickly I looked. My black hair was messier than it's ever been before, and my eyes were dull and completely devoid of light. There were tons of new scars on my arms and a long scar running down the left side of my face from between my eyebrows on my forehead to just below my left eye. Despite all the bandages, my torso looked unnaturally thin, and I could see my ribs through them. (Or at least, unnaturally thin for me.)
   Anna saw me looking at myself in the mirror and laid her hand on my shoulder. "You've been half conscious for five days," she said to me quietly. I looked at her standing next to my bed. "We couldn't get you to eat anything, but we managed to get you to drink a little bit each day. When your dad first left the den and told us to wait for him in the infirmary, we'd suspected something had happened but we didn't know what. Then he came back with Theo, carrying you. . ." She paused to wipe tears from her eyes, then continued. "We could barely even recognize you. You were unconscious and covered in blood, and when Theo told us that you'd been attacked by a werewolf and gotten bitten in the neck, we all thought that you wouldn't survive. Callie and the other doctors and nurses had gotten your wounds bandaged, but you were still losing so much blood, she had to change the bandages almost as soon as she put them on. Eventually, she'd told us that she most likely would have to just end your misery or you'd die of blood loss anyway, but she'd tried everything they could to keep you alive and nothing seemed to be working. She could barely see your chest through the blood to stitch the wound shut, but after she'd done that and seen how deep the wound in your neck was, she said that she couldn't stitch it shut or she'd risk infection too deep in your body to fix. She and the other doctors that were there had told us to go back to the den and they'd try to keep you alive for as long as they could, but they couldn't make any promises on us ever seeing you healthy again. . ." She trailed off and started crying again.
   By now, the feeling had returned to my chest and neck, and pain throbbed through the wounds. I put my own pain aside and pulled Anna into a hug. She wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my not-bandaged shoulder. I stroked her golden-blonde hair and whispered to her as she cried into my shoulder.
   Suddenly the white curtain around my bed opened and Mom walked in. Anna jumped and backed away from me, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. Dad walked in after Mom and went over to comfort Anna as Mom immediately said, "Oh, my baby!", hugged me, and started crying. What is with girls and being so emotional? I thought as my mother hugged me and cried into my hair. I could now feel my entire body, and I wished that I couldn't. The throb in my neck and chest now felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing me. I winced, holding back cries. Mom pulled back and studied my face.
   She must've seen the pain in my eyes, because she lightly touched my neck and said, "Does it hurt?"
   I nodded, clenching my jaw to refrain from crying, which only made the pain worse. Mom turned and looked back at Dad and, after a silent conversation, got up from my side and switched places with him. Mom and Anna walked out of the curtained area, Anna glancing back at me once before she closed the curtain behind her.
   As soon as Mom and Anna left, Dad knelt by my bed and gently pulled me into a hug, and this time it was my turn to cry. The pain in my neck and all the worry from Anna and Mom just overwhelmed me and I started to cry. (So much for girls being the most emotional beings on the planet.) Dad rubbed my back gently, comforting me in French as I cried silently into his shoulder. He didn't try to get me to stop or tell me to man up, just let me be upset and was there for me.
   As the pain-- both physical and mental-- began to decline, I tried to steady my breathing. I pulled away from him and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, my ears flicked back. I hate crying, even if I'm alone and no one notices, but especially when someone is there and sees. I sniffed and Dad stood on his knees on the floor.
   "Do you remember anything from that night?" He asked me quietly.
   "It's fuzzy, I can't remember everything," I said after pausing for a moment to think. I hated how raspy my voice sounded.
   "What do you remember?"
   I was silent for a second, then quietly said, "Pain."
   Dad sat back on his legs, a dark look replacing the normal cheerful light in his eyes. He sat like that for a few seconds, staring at the ground, then looked back at me, his eyes teary, and said, "I'm so sorry, Octaveus. No one your age should ever have to endure what you've gone through. I'm so sorry." He got up and walked through the curtain, leaving me to ponder alone.