expire

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A scream echoed menacingly through my mind; my conscious was forever haunted by that gruesome memory. I could see it all too clearly now; my sisters thrown forward at the moment of impact, their screams twisted into gurgles as their seat belts choked their wind pipes. How my mother turned round to see how they were, her arms flailing behind to try to stop them from crashing into the front seats of the car. How terrifying it must have been for them, to actually see it all happen. I guess I was lucky in that way; how I got knocked out.

Now I can see the collision; how the truck smashed into the car, into me; how the vehicle behind knocked into us, sending my body flying through the front window.

I will never ever be able to forget that.

The bed is warm, with piles of blankets and cushions strewn everywhere; tubes are inserted into the skin of my arms, legs and neck. One is stuck down my throat, dribbling some fluid I can't taste. Everywhere is stiff, enveloped in starch white plaster; moving is impossible. I know that much, at least.

As I look down at me, at my body, I feel nothing. The tiny part of me that is still alive in that old hollow of a human feels pain, and somewhere inside me recognises that. But that is the only reason why my body...why I'm, still here. Why they bother with the medication, I don't know. I knew that the doctors knew that I was gone. From what I'd heard, my sisters and mum were alright; suffering, but alive. But I couldn't go see them yet. Not whilst I was still here.

The part of me that was still inside my body, trapped in the bed, took a long, shallow breath;  knowing that those last few moments would be my last. In that body, anyway. Besides, where was the other part of me? The other part of my conscious? Where were my family? How were they? And why did the doctors and nurses keep me alive with all this medication?

Why wouldn't they just let me die?

From above the hospital bed, I listened in to myself, my thoughts, all scrambled and confused. They echoed in my head like footsteps would down a hallway, each one louder than the last. But that was a question I had been asking myself : Why didn't they just let me die? Who was I now, looking over my fragile body, strapped down with cotton sheets and duvets, smothered in plasters and swathed in an oversized hospital gown.

I was starting to freak myself out now.

And then the footsteps became louder, clearer, and from above I followed the sound to it's source; as I glided through the wall separating this room from the corridor I spotted a nurse shuffling along, my mum and sisters in tow. I could feel my whole face light up at the sight of them, and I floated down to ground level and ran to them. “Mum! Maggie, Alice! You're all okay....I was so worried...” But they just walked straight through me, as if I didn't exist. I just stared after them, feelings of shock and rejection swirling through me, my bare feet losing purchase on the cool floor as I rose upwards again. Unknowingly, I drifted back through the wall and found myself facing me again...or what was left of me. My subtle breaths gave away the fact that even I was losing myself. I could no longer reach the part of me that I had thought was still inside my human body. I could feel myself coming apart.

“Ivy....my little baby. I'm so sorry,” a hoarse whisper escaped my Mother's thin lips, and for the first time I noticed her scars, three of them, searing her face into two different sides, slicing all the way from her forehead to just left of her dry lips. Crystalline tears oozed thickly from the corners of her eyes, and I flinched as they welled up in the scar below her right eye, before spilling down her sallow cheeks. Two pairs of tiny hands clutched my already stone-cold one, and I glanced up to find Maggie and Alice silently weeping, and I felt so awful. To have caused this hurt and pain, to have been the trigger to all these needless tears.

Then the nurse pattered out, and I knelt down on the bed, half expecting to fall through it. But I didn't, and through the sheets I could feel the solidness of the plaster cast, but also the depth of the wounds and injuries. If I concentrated hard enough, I could feel each pathetic beat of my heart, each movement I made, and I could also see internally; I could see the cracked ribs, the broken bones and the mashed up cartilage. I could see how damaged I was.

“Ivy...don't go,”

Maggie's whimper replayed over and over until everyone had gone.