Sam and Colby: The House

52 *Colby's POV*

*Colby's point of view*

I rolled over, reaching out to pull Nessa back against my chest, but my hand met an empty bed.

                I jolted upright and basically fell out of the bed trying to get up and run out of the room toward the bathroom, praying to god that she was okay. My heart dropped into my toes when I saw the bathroom door open and the light turned off, completely empty. I ran over to the guest room and threw the door open, then flicked on the lights.

                "Bro, the fuck are you doing?" Reggie asked.

                "Dude, it's fucking... it's 3:30 in the morning. What are you on?" Kevin asked.

                "It's three... it's three thirty?" I asked, hoping I'd misheard him.

                "Yeah, so why the hell are you in here blinding us with the lights?" asked Reggie.

                "It's 3am. It's three in the morning, she's... she's in the attic," I realized. But there was no way she would have gone up there herself. Right?

                "What the hell are you talking about?" asked Kevin. I didn't stop to answer, but booked it to the stairs and sprinted down.

                "Sam! Sam, please tell me you're not down here and you're upstairs with her," I yelled into the house.

                "Bro, what? What time is it? Upstairs with who?" I heard Sam ask from the couch.

                "Fuck!" I screamed. No one else would be willing to go up there with her alone at this time of night.

                "Shut up," Jake moaned from his couch.

                "No! Nessa's gone!" I yelled.

                "Gone? What do you mean gone?" Devyn asked.

                "I don't, I don't know, please come up to the attic with me. It's 3am and she's just missing, she's up there. I know it," I pleaded.

                "I'm coming," Sam said. His feet loudly dropped onto the floor and I turned to sprint up the stairs, his footsteps echoing behind me. I ran to Augusta's room, noticing for the first time that the caution tape I'd definitely hung back up was neatly rolled off to the side.

                "No, no, she's up there. She's up there and she's alone, Sam, what do we do?" I asked. Tears of desperation began to gather in my eyes.

                "Wait, the hatch is closed. Can you even close it from the inside?" Sam asked.

                "No! You can't!" I yelled.

                "Oh, fuck," Sam said. I ran over to the hatch and yanked it open.

                "Vanessa!" I screamed into the darkness. "Do you have your phone? Please tell me you have your phone. We need a light."

                "Yeah, yeah, it's right here," Sam said, quickly tossing it to me. He turned on the room's light and I turned on his phone's flashlight and started up the ladder, climbing as fast as I could. I ran into the empty room and shined my light around, Sam right behind me.

                "Vanessa! Where are you?" I yelled. With every second that there was no answer, my heart rate shot up. I ran back and forth between all of the rooms, throwing the doors open and quickly scanning the room with my light before moving on to the next one, until all that was left was the room with the meat hooks.

                I ran over to it and hesitated for a split second. Vanessa was more important than anything to me right now. I shoved the door open and let out a loud scream.

                "Vanessa! Baby, no, what happened!" I screamed, sliding across the hard floor on my knees over to her.

                "Oh fuck!" Sam yelled from behind me. I threw Sam's phone at him.

                "Call a fucking ambulance RIGHT now!" I screamed.

                Nessa was laying on the floor, curled up into a ball, crying hysterically. There was a puddle of blood in front of and under her. A big, big puddle.

                "Nessa, please, say something," I pleaded, the tears that I'd been able to contain earlier now freely flowing out. "Baby, please," I whispered.

                She didn't respond, just kept loudly bawling and screaming, her words indecipherable. Sam was behind me, talking into his phone. But I couldn't hear what he was saying. In fact, I couldn't hear anything. My ears were filled with ringing, loud enough to even drown out Nessa's loud sobs. I wrapped my arms around her and lifted her up, seeing a long cut from under her chest down to her belly button.

                "What the fuck...," I whispered. I suddenly noticed that her hair had been cut, too. It was just a couple inches, but it was uneven and lopsided. "Sam, I, I can't lose her. Help me. Help her," I yelled, my ears starting to work again, filled with the sound of Vanessa screaming and crying.

                "There's an ambulance coming, we need to get her downstairs," Sam said. "Come on, let's go."

                We ran back to the hatch and Sam and I carefully carried her down the ladder, and then sprinted down the stairs.

                "Who the fuck is screaming?" Reggie asked, running down the stairs behind us. "Oh my go—Nessa? What the fuck!" Reggie yelled. Suddenly everyone was up, crowding around me cradling Nessa in my arms.

                It was what felt like an eternity until the ambulance showed up. I hopped into the back of it with her and we sped off to the hospital.

"What the hell happened to her?" the paramedic in the ambulance asked, applying pressure to her giant cut while another one soaked up all of the blood with some cotton pads.

                "I don't, I don't know. I just went up to the attic and she was crying and...wait, she's not crying anymore. Why isn't she crying? Is she okay? She can't die. That can't happen, please, no, she can't—,"

                "Son, sit down. Right on this bench, okay? We injected her with some medicine so she'd fall asleep and not have to feel the pain anymore. We're going to need to take her directly into surgery," said the first paramedic.

                "Ryan, her small intestine. It's exposed, fully. I think it's punctured," whispered the second paramedic, not wanting me to hear. I bent over and plugged my ears and shut my eyes, not wanting to hear or see anything more. I couldn't help her. I couldn't do anything, and nothing was worse than watching the love of my life dying right in front of me.