Hear Death Speak [On Hold]

Awakening

The first thing I know, I am looking up at a bright-lit ceiling. Not only that, each light appears to be rising, one after the other. The next thing I know, I am actually rolling down a hospital hallway. Everything is fuzzy the way I'm looking at it, as I am lying down on the rolling bed. I can barely feel any of my limbs, especially from the waist down. I would attempt to look down and all around to see if either of my arms and legs were still intact, but I am just not able to at the moment.

"Can you hear us?" a male voice speaks out. It then repeats itself, "Young man, can you hear us?"

As blurry as everything above appears to be, I am still able to see a large figure upside looking directly upon me. "You've been in a horrendous accident. Just hang in there, you're gonna be alright."

In all honesty, he isn't wrong. That being said though, it does not make him right either. I was going to live, that was for sure, but I was not really going to be alright.

The next thing that I know, I am lying down on a bed in a slightly dim hospital room, and it takes me about seven seconds to realize something. The limbs of my right side appear to be (and feel) just fine, but that is more than I can say for my right-hand side. Not only does my right arm appear to be (and, there I say, feel) almost entirely broken, My right leg itself is not even visible. I cannot feel it — even if I try to. It's as if it is entirely gone. I try looking down to my bottom half. But do to apparently having on a neck-brace, I am damn near unable to.

It is obviously quiet within the room; too quiet, to be honest. I look around in said room, using only my two eyes. I then lightly call out, "Hello?"

From the sound of it (or lack thereof), there is no response.

"Hello?" I call out again.

Suddenly, a male nurse then enters the room from the right-hand side. "Hello," he immediately greets to me, "you're awake."

"Yeah ..." I think out loud, "I guess I am."

"How are you doing?"

I hesitate. "I really don't know, to be honest."

The nurse then adds, "I'm'onna let your folks know, would that be okay?

Without hesitating, I slowly answer, "Yeah — definitely."

Just as soon as the nurse exits the room, something immediately hits me; and I do not mean that literally. What I mean is that I could have just pushed the alarm button to get someone outside of the room's attention. On the other hand, perhaps I would likely have been unable to.

Another thing I should mention is that the nurse seems somewhat exuberant; it was almost as if he was coming onto me.

As soon as time has passed, my parents finally enter the room themselves. Both of them are middle-aged, and they blatantly look it: Dad has dark hair with grey highlights and a stubble while mom (despite not having highlights in her long blonde hair, at least that are visible) is on more of the chunky side; not that she is obese or anything, she's just on the plump scale.

At the same moment they came in, my mom and dad look as concerned as you can probably imagine. The minute they walk up to my bed, they each take a seat; dad goes and grabs a chair that just so happens to be sitting right across from me against the wall in front of the bed, while mom just simply sits down on the left-hand side of the foot of said bed. She then softly whimpers, "Baby."

As I gasp and take one quick breath, Dad leans in towards me. "It's okay, son." He then asks, "Are you in any pain at all?"

It's actually quite funny for him to ask me such a thing, since I in fact feel hardly anything whatsoever. This leads me to give him the simplest of answers, "No."

Dad then nods. "That's, that's good. That being said, do you remember anything?"

That's actually an interesting question. Because, come to think of it, I really cannot. Quite honestly, I am actually in need of a reminder. "No," I murmur with with few deep breaths, "what happened?"

Mom and Dad then look at each other. Mom then looks down onto me. "Do you — really not remember ... anything?"

I immediately begin panting as I cannot help but wonder, what exactly is it they're trying to tell me? "No," I cough out, "I can't remember a thing."

From the look of it, my dad begins taking a deep breath, "Joshua, son, you've been in a horrific accident."

As soon as I am told this, I am honestly not entirely surprised. That being said though, I still have yet to know what exactly happened and why I'm in the position I am in at the moment. I then immediately ask, "What do you mean?"

To which, Dad looks right over at my mom. Whom which, looks right down onto me. "You were in a car crash."

Yeah, to be perfectly honest, I was not quite prepared to be informed that. I then struggle to respond, "Wha —" I then gasp for a small breath of air, "was there anybody with me?"

Mom and dad take another quick look at each other. As such, it appears that mom is trying whole-hardheartedly not to cry.

"What?" I ask desperately, "What's wrong?"

Dad then immediately sighs before finally facing me. "Do you remember Danielle?"

Suddenly, it hits me. As soon as I am asked that question, one memory of mine is now finally jogged. Yes, I most certainly do remember Danielle. She is my high school sweetheart, having blonde hair and eyes as blue as diamonds. "Yeah," I murmur to them, "I remember ... She was there with me, wasn't she, in the car, when it happened."

About two seconds later, my dad drops his head and quickly looks down as if he is trying severely hard to hold back tears himself. Withing three more seconds, he looks right back up at me and whispers, "I'm so sorry, Joshua, I'm so — terribly sorry."

My heart immediately stops. I cannot think of anything else to say except the following, as I quietly whimper, "Oh god ..." I then repeat it louder, "Oh god."

Dad then sighs, "And if that's not bad enough (and we already know it is), your leg, your right leg, had to be amputated.

'No way', I convince myself, 'he is flat-out lying, that cannot be true.' But since I have no way to be certain for this, I have no other choice but to sit up and lean in forward. As much as it hurts my neck a tad bit to do so, I am flabbergasted to find out that my right leg is in fact offically gone. I then loudly whimper, "Jesus Christ."

"Easy" Dad immediately says to me as he quickly stands up from his seat.

"Honey," Mom speaks out, "Lie down, please."

"Easy," Dad repeats, pushing my left shoulder back down onto the pillow.

Seconds after my heavy breathing, the nurse from earlier immediately returns. "Is everything okay in here?"

Both Mom and Dad then look over at him.

"Yeah," Dad murmurs hesitantly.

Mom then adds, "Everything's ... okay."

The nurse then adds the following, "There's a few other young people in the waiting room, do you want me to bring them in?"

Honestly, I'm not quite sure what he means by 'other young people.' Is he referring to fellow piers, or does he mean my five younger siblings? The answer finally comes (both literally and figuratively) as the next person to enter the room is my sister, Marty. Then, about 2-3 seconds later, my two brothers, Brandon and Lucas, come into the picture.

As she stand no more than fifteen inches away from me, Marty then greets softly me, "Hi, big brother."

I, of course, then respond to her, with a slow breath, "Hi, sis." After said response, I begin feeling a trail of tears coming about.