Death Lives

Chapter 3

    Beep, beep, beep.
    I knew the sounds, I knew where I was before I even opened my eyes. I had spent enough time in here through the years, when grandma passed, when my best friend attempted to o.d., and when my brother was a hit by a car and I was ten walking with him from the 7-11 to cross the street and they had him on life support till my parents showed. The steady beep of my heart rhythm brought back so many horrid memories that I had pushed deep down and tried to forget came swirling back to the front of my memories.
The tube under my nose continuously blasting me with oxygen that smell like stale maple bars, just confirmed my theory. Slowly I opened my eyes, thankfully the lights had been turned down and the world outside the window was dark. For a moment confusion settled over me as I tried to figure out why I was in hospital hooked up to machines. The door to my room was slightly ajar and I could hear what sounded like a cart being pushed down the hall, it's wheel locked into place and the sound of metal on metal. Scraping and squealing as whoever pushed down the hall outside seemed to ignore the sound completely.
     The sound of the metal as is scrape across more metal, the sound of the tires locking, metal on metal. My hand flew to my mouth as I tried to contain the pain threatening to leave my body vocally. Glass littering the ground, the twisted remain of my parents van. Everyone was gone in the blink of an eye, my mom, my dad, my kids. All gone.
     A tear slipped down my face as I replayed the accident in my head, remembering the sounds of the crash. Watching helplessly as the semi hurdled through the red light and smashing into them. I closed my eyes, if only I had taken my car, if only we had stayed home. A knock on the door startled me, I rubbed the back of hand across my face in attempt to mask the fact that I had been crying as she walked in.
    Her bright smile made me want to strangle her as she came in with a clipboard.
    "Ms. Wallace, I'm Dr. Ruby." She stated in her all to friendly tone. "Do you know why your here?"
     "Not really." I grumbled looking toward the darkened window, all I saw the distorted figure of myself in a white hospital gown and white sheet. I scoffed at the image I saw, surrounded in white, covered in a white blanket that odds are my family was also covered in somewhere deep in building resting on a metal gurney.
    "You went into cardiac arrest earlier today, luckily someone saw you and was able to preform cpr." She said as she checked the machine next to me, I rolled my eyes at her response.
    "He should of just let me die." I told her not bothering to look back to her.
    "Why would you say that? You're quite lucky, the paramedics had been called out for deadly collision when he saw you collapse." She replied simply.
     "Yeah, that deadly collision was my entire family." I told her flatly as I whipped my head to glare over at her.
    "Oh god, I'm sorry, my condolences." She stated, covering her mouth slightly realizing the mistake she had made. "I didn't realize."
     "How could you of? Why else would someone who is otherwise healthy randomly go into cardiac arrest on the side of the street?" I snapped, she recoiled as if I had slapped her. I looked back at the dark pane of the window and ignored her as she apologized again and scanned over charts and other crap.
     All I wanted was to go home, get away from the hospital, but home really wasn't home anymore. What was I supposed to do now? How could leave here knowing that they laying cold on steel table somewhere in this fore shaken building, knowing that they would never walk again. Knowing I wouldn't hear my kids laughter, my parents voices, nothing. A warm tear rushed down my cheek again as I continued to stare at my reflection in the night covered window.
      Eventually I heard her quickly make her exit, good. I didn't want anyone around anyway, I wanted to be alone. Whoever it was that kept me alive, they need to choke on roll, I should of died with them. My kids had asked me to ride along in the van with them but I didn't want to be inconvenienced to have to go all the way back to my parents house instead of just going straight home from dinner.
Dinner, I rolled my eyes again, I barely talked to my kids about what was going on with them, just more focused on the things I had to do tomorrow at work. Proud about standing up for myself in my division when one of the senior executives tried to bully me into doing his work on top of mine. I should of been more in tune to with what my daughter was watching or what game my son was playing. How stupid could I be.
    I slid down in the bed and rolled to my side looking at the window, the moonlight shimmered and glimmer in little droplets against the darkened pane. Slowly trickling down the smooth glass surface, much like the tears that fell with abandonment, not stopping, not getting worse just there. My body curled into itself, as I clutched the blanket close to myself, trying to ward off the pain and anger. Death, fate, destiny? Whatever caused this could go fuck itself.
Genuinely evil people walked the earth, people who thrived on hurting others, people who took pleasure in seeing pain inflicted on those they deemed less worthy of themselves. Yet my innocent family was ripped from me, people who actually care about one another, people who were just living their lives and here I was left to go on... with what? Some how be thankful, that somehow it wasn't my time to go? Let me call bs on that.