Chapter Text
Augi
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I can't scrub it from my mind.
No matter how hard I try, I can't wipe it clean.
No matter how long I starve myself,
no matter how long I sleep,
no matter how many old photo albums I go through, I can't forget it.
Carsen's limp body in the passenger seat as I desperately tried to dial 911 with hands that shook and wobbled like wild forest fires in the Alaskan moonlight, the memory remained.
Etched into the back of my skull like a tattoo I never wanted, a tattoo of guilt and regret and again that was just as permanent as my fresh burn scars, a reminder of my irreversible mistake.
Now, I was rolling into the back of an ambulance, eyes blurry with tears and smoke as I tried to yell for my friend with the sound never even reaching my throat, then everything fuzzy as it all faded to black.
The beeping and mechanical whirring of the machines round hit me first, the came the flood of pain all across my body, which made me uncomfortably aware of my surroundings. I tried to pry open my swollen ans scarred eyelids, sticky with dried blood and pus, but to no avail.
Nerves along my back buzzed, a feeling so subtle and faint in my unmoving body, a corpse with a mind still intact, the vessel of a soul long absent of the light that once made it human; yet here I was.
Still.
Silent.
Stuck to a hospital bed with the sickening smell of my own blood constantly creeping into my nostrils.
Mumbling in the distance were two nurses, one female, with a rich yet kind voice, and one male, whose tone stayed mostly unchanged through his murmured words. Yet, both voices had one tone in common: concern laced with strands of pity.
The pain was starting to get unbearable now; as I could feel every inch of skin on my body slowly peeling away in flakes.
The voices got louder, before seemingly agreeing on something.
I didn't know what.
My pounding head couldn't register any of the words they were saying--- it was as if all of the words spilling from their lips were being muddied into a puddle of noise that sounded like nothing to me.
The female nurse ended her conversation with that male one, then i heard her footsteps coming closer to my bed. The sound of the curtain whizzed back, and the rhythmic pattern in her walking faltered, her voice suddenly booming in my ears.
"Oh, poor thing.." Her words sounded sweet as honey, full of sympathy, and maybe a hint of disgust.
Cold hands wrapped around my raw and wounded forearm, a bitter chill that bit and tore at my exposed flesh, latex sticking to the surface. The icy fingers gently felt around, before reaching a piece of plastic that had been embedded in my muscle.
They twisted at the device, pulling my skin with it excruciatingly. It felt like decades before they finally left my arm, tucking it gently back under the thin blanket.
The nurse took a few steps away from my bed and opened the curtain, stopping at the dividing line between my room and the rest of the facility.
"It'll be okay, hun. All of this will be over soon"
I heard the sound of the curtain swish closed as I was left alone in the room.
Isolated, In agony.
A few devices around me beeped intermittently, as if waiting.
Soon, a whirring from one of the taller machines came in, along with a warm pulse, trickling up my wrist, into my hand, my fingertips. The feeling is pleasant, completely numbing my aching muscles and eviscerating the burning sensation in my skin.
It spread all throughout my torso, leaking into my appendages.
I felt nothing.
I thought nothing.
The only thing that mattered right now was that the agony was stopping, replaced with a light tingly sensation that made me feel like my veins were being filled with bubbling water. The comforting feeling flowed up through my neck, then into my head.
I finally felt free.
All my memories and thoughts melded together into a clump of nothingness until I could no longer process them at all. My senses shut down one by one,
sight,
smell,
taste,
sound,
then touch.
The final thread of life holding me to the hospital snapped as everything became incomprehensible,
then nothing at all.