Ch. 7

Alone





Dawns gray sparkles of light shimmered through the hospital window, and played upon my sleeping face. I twitched my nose and peaked my eyes open. I got the sudden feeling that I was alone, and managed to sit up, the feeling of sadness rolling over me. I shivered and I pulled my knees up to my chest. But then I saw Page’s brunet hair glitter in the dim light. I smiled, I’m not alone, Page is here.

A cough worked it’s way up my throat and I hurried to turned my face into the pillow and muffled it. I slowly raised my head, feeling weak and dead, I never expected to see eyes staring back at me. My breathe caught in my mouth, as I scooted back in the hospital bed. Then I realized who it was. “David…?” I whispered to him, but he didn’t move, so I don’t think he heard me. The sudden pain of being alone again stabbed into my stomach and I cried out with agony, as my hand grabbed my pillow for support.

“Kylie?!” David jumped up from his chair in the dark corner and rushed over to me, grabbing my shoulders. But I wasn’t listening to him. I lifted my hand up from the pillow as I felt something warm and thick touch my skin.

“Oh God David…” I choked out. David followed my gaze to my hand and looked at it in disbelief. Our eyes met, and the red, sticky liquid started to slide down my arm. I glanced at the pillow, and in the spot where I had coughed it, a stain of red stared back at me. I started to gasp for air, as another cough started to come up in my throat. I didn’t want to cough, NO GO BACK DOWN!

David snatched a tissue from the nightstand and placed it over my mouth as the blood spilled out of my mouth. “Kylie we need to get a doctor now.” He said, looking at the tissue he held in his hand. The blood has easily soaked the thin piece of cloth, and bled through to his hand. But for the third time in the last ten minutes, the feeling of being alone shot through me like a razor.

I reeled back again, clutching my stomach with my bloody hand. I cried out and Page stirred in her hair, but still did not wake up. David watched me with worried eyes as I fell off the bed in pain. He made his way around to the other side of the bed, and picked me up off the floor. “David, something is wrong, terribly wrong.” I said, grinding my teeth against the feeling that shot through my body.

Suddenly I shot my head up. “Oh my God, Candice.”

“What?!” David asked in total confusion, trying to catch me as I started to run from the room. I got to the door and tried to open it, but the blood on my hand slipped off the handle. I groaned, I was wasting valuable time here!! I hurried up and took my left hand, opening the door with that hand instead. I heard David waking up Page and I stopped in the middle of the hall way, WHERE WAS I?!

I closed my eyes and focused. Where are you Candice? Where are you Candice? I asked myself over and over again. When I opened my eyes, I saw Candice standing in front of me. She was 5 years old and wearing her favorite sun dress. She giggled an eerie ghost kind of giggle and started to run away from me. So I followed. I could hear Page yelling at me to stop, but I didn’t really hear her. I have to find Candice. I have to find Candice.

Suddenly my sister stopped running and turned to face me. Her child face started to fade, as she smiled and waved, disappearing into thin air. I looked around, and scanned the area to where my imaginary sister had taken me. This wasn’t Candice’s hallway…..this was….DAD’S hallway! OH NO! I sprinted up to his door and threw it open, my Father was not there. The monitor that recorded his heart beat was unplugged and all the lights in the room were turned off.

* * * * * * *

“PAGE!” David’s voice cut through my dream like a knife. I shot up from my chair and looked around in confusion.

“What? What happened?” I looked around and finally focused on David.

“It’s Kylie! COME ON!” He grabbed my arm and started to drag me out of the room. As we passed the door, I noticed blood on the handle. I glanced up at David in horror. We raced out to the hallway, and saw Kylie sprinting down the hallway like she knew where she was going, like she was following someone.

“Kylie! NO! Stop!” I yelled out to her. She didn’t hesitate the least little bit, she just kept running. It didn’t help any that Kylie was in track either, and because she IS in track, she can run twice as fast as David or I ever could.

We chased after her, our shoes patting against the ugly linoleum floor. Kylie was always twenty steps ahead of us, and each time she turned a corner, we almost lost her. My brown hair tumbled in my eyes and I could barely see in front of me.

David suddenly stopped running and I almost ran into him. Kylie was standing in the doorway of a dark room. Her hand went up over her mouth, as she uttered a sob and fell to her knees. The florescent lights from the hallway shone onto her silky red hair. David took a step forward, as if to go to her, but I held fast to his shoulder.

“No…I think she needs to go through this alone…” David looked back at me like I was crazy, but turned back to look at Kylie sobbing in the doorway of her fathers empty room. As my senses finally started to kick in, I realized I smelled smoke. I looked around, and my eyes suddenly fell on Kylie, she was still wearing the cloths from when she was inside her burning house.

“How did she know to come to her dad’s room? How did she know that he wasn’t here anymore?” David’s voice ripped through my flashbacks of the fire, and I looked at him. I shrugged.

“Fatherly Daughterly bond? Maybe she felt it… I know whenever you had gotten scared when we were little, I used to always be able to feel it.” The look on David’s face was classic when I mentioned him being “scared” when he was little. “But seriously, I think it’s just a father daughter thing.”

“I wonder when he died.” David commented, turning away from watching Kylie weep. “I mean, I never heard about it, nobody ever came in to tell us, and where is Kylie’s Mom? Shouldn’t she be here to be with her daughter?”

“David, what if Kylie’s Dad isn’t dead. Stop thinking that way!” I felt the urge to swing a punch out at him, but I didn’t. “He probably just got transferred or something. And she’s probably with Candice, I mean… why wouldn’t she be?” David shook his head.

“But Mrs. Madison hasn’t even shown up in the room, like doesn’t even care that her other daughter is in there suffering too, not just Candice. I mean, you think a mother would want to be here for her daughter, when she finds this.” David pointed to Kylie and the empty room she seemed to be swallowed up in. “Now you tell me Page, who’s going to help her through this? Who’s going to be there for her when she can’t sleep at night?”

“That is not our problem to worry about David.” I replied, looking at Kylie, who was still on the floor crying for everything she had left, and for everything she no longer has at all. “Why don’t you help her through it David, why don’t you be there for her when she can’t sleep.”

“Because that is NOT my place, Page. It’s not my spot to be trying to pull her through this.” David crossed his arms, refusing to look back at a girl he called his friend.

“Then if you won’t help her, I will. She needs her sister, she needs a mother. And she may not have a mother right now, so we have to give her all she has left, which is Candice, and our FULL support, damnit David. We may not have to pick her up every time she falls, but we can at least give her this one nudge forward. She’s so lost right now David, and you’re not helping at all.” I started to brush past him.

“I thought you told me to leave her alone when I tried to go in there to comfort her, and now you go in to do the very thing you ordered me not too.” His voice was cold, and had a hint of jealousy in it.


“No, I said not to rush in on her. You can’t just go in right away and try to get her away from it all, she needs to realize what’s happening around her, otherwise she’ll be one of those traumatized patients who have to go into mental hospitals.”

David still didn’t turn around, like he was afraid to look at her, afraid of what he’d see. But who am I kidding, David isn’t afraid of anything… I mean, he doesn’t flinch when he sees a spider before killing it…no way. He doesn’t make somebody else walk across the dark room to turn on the light… no way. And of course David isn’t afraid to show somebody that he cares, because David’s not afraid of anything….what a load of shit.

Jack the Ripper