Harry's POV:
We were all sat in my bedroom of a mucky old hotel in the middle of nowhere after a night on tour. As the rest of the guys watched a film, I could hear a slight knocking on my door, I ignored it at first but after a little while, it still hadnt stopped. I stood up from my seat on the sofa and walked over to the door, looking through the small peephole. I saw an old man, all silvery and see through. I backed away from the door slowly.
'Think Harry. Just concentrate and think.' I muttered to myself quietly before walking back to the door and looking through again. The man was still there and this time he was facing me, face all disfigured and neck twisted at an awkward angle. I turned away from the door and walked back to the boys who instantly looked at me.
'You alright Haz? You look like you've seen a ghost.' Tom giggled.
'I-I think I have...' I mumbled to them, sitting down again. They all laughed at me and so I put it out of my mind and just continued watching the film. After a few hours and a couple of movies, we all got comfortable on my bedroom, as nobody could be bothered moving to their own, and fell asleep. Me in my bed, Tom on the sofa and Danny and Dougie lay in a sleeping bag together on the floor.
Danny's POV:
I was woken in the middle of the night by a small shaking on my shoulder. I kept my eyes closed but decided to speak up and I could feel a huge puddle of warm, wet stuff leaking into my arm and leg.
'Dougie. I swear to god, if you've wet yourself, I'm going to punch you, because I'm covered in it.' I said grumpily, still not opening my eyes.
'No! No! Danny please help me!' Dougie replied. He sounded absolutely terrified and even a little ill and so I sat up, assuming that he had had a nightmare about his dad and wet the bed, as that had happened many times before. I opened my eyes but still couldn't see a thing due to all of the lights being off. I went with my idea of what had happened and spoke softly to Dougie.
'It's okay Dougie. Your dad isn't here now you're safe. Come on should we give you a bath and you can use a pair of Harry's pyjama bottoms?'
'N-No Danny! That's not what's happened! Please just get some help! It hurts Danny it hurts!' He screeched back at me. I could tell by his voice that he was crying and so I quickly stood up and turned the light on, not understanding what was happening. Once my eyes had adjusted to the light, I looked down, only to see that what I was covered in wasn't Dougie's piss, but his blood. I quickly ran over to him and knelt beside him, taking holds of his bleeding arm. It had a huge gash straight down the middle that had been made worse by smaller cuts having been made horizontally across it. He was crying his eyes out and clutching his arm tightly.
'Shit! Dougs! What the fuck happened?!' I asked worriedly.
'I don't know! Just help me Danny it really hurts!' he cried to me.
'HARRY! TOM! GET OVER HERE NOW! YOU'RE THE OLDEST AND I FUCKING NEED YOUR HELP!' I shouted to them, taking of my jacket and holding it against Dougie's arm. Harry and Tom walked tiredly over but panicked once they saw Dougie.
'Guys! I don't like blood! I'm scared of blood, please make it stop!' Dougie sobbed to us all.
'Please try and stay calm Dougie. You're losing a lot of blood, you need to try and stay calm.'
'I can't! I can't! I feel sick and like I'm gonna pass out. Guys I'm scared please help me!'
'Just breath Dougs. We'll get some help for you.' Harry said, taking off his jacket as Dougie had already bled through mine.
'Harry I'm gonna b-' he managed, before he threw up all over the bed. We all knew that he hated blood and we were lucky that he hadn't passed out yet, seeing as he had once fainted after seeing a guy on the set of casualty with make-up on that made him look like he'd cracked his head open. We hurried him over to Harry's blood and vomit free bed and sat him on it.
'Guys, I don't feel too good..' He mumbled weakly. His eyes were drooping and his head was swaying side to side. We wouldn't have been worried but we didn't know, at this point in time, whether it was Dougie's fear of blood or the amount of blood he'd lost that was making him dizzy.
'Please try to stay awake Dougs. Look, Tom is over there calling an ambulance. You're going to be fine, just try and keep your eyes open.' Harry said to him, taking off his shirt to stem the bleeding on Dougie's arm, as his hoodie had also been bled through.
'Head... Feel... Tired...' He mumbled to us, letting his eyelids drop further.
'No! Dougie, stay awake!' I said to him, slapping his face lightly. He flinched and shuffled away from us.
'Please don't hit me again daddy.. I'm already hurting...' He mumbled sadly to me. I instantly felt guilty for hitting him as I knew what his dad had done.
'I'm not your dad Dougs. I'm sorry..'
'Daddy?' He muttered weakly before passing out on the bed.
'Shit! God! Where is the fucking ambulance?!' Harry shouted, pressing down harder on Dougie's arm. Just as he said that, we heard an ambulance pull up outside and before we could even blink, the paramedics had taken Dougie and rushed him to the hospital. We followed the ambulance in a car and sat waiting in the waiting room for about 2 hours as they stiched Dougie up. After that time, we were allowed to go and see him. Te doctor stood in the room as we sat in chairs around his bed. He smiled weakly at us. The doctor allowed us all to give him a quick hug each before speaking up.
'Dougie.. How did this happen? Did you cut yourself?'
'Fuck no! I'm not depressed! Yeah I have nightmares but I'm not that bad! I don't know what happened, it was really scary. I woke up because I had a nightmare and then when I was awake, I felt my arm getting really sore and my sleeve was all wet. I assumed that I'd wet the bed again but then I looked down and I was covered in blood. I looked at my arm. Random scratches were just appearing on it aswell as the massive one that was already there but I couldnt see what was causing it. But then I heard a bang and I looked up and there was this man there and his face, it was horrible, it was all disfigured, you wouldn't recognise him if he was your own family member. And then he just went. He just kind of disappeared.' he said, in no more than a whisper. He choked up on the last couple of words and burst out crying.
'Oh Dougs... What's the matter?' Harry asked quickly, wrapping his arms around Dougie.
'He- He was just like my da-dad.' Dougie stuttered, leaning into Harry's hug,'He hurt me for no reason and then just left... That's exactly like my dad...'
'It's okay Dougs. You're safe now. We'll move onto the tourbus until we get to the next city. We'll keep you safe.' I soothed, rubbing Dougie's back as he sobbed into Harry's shoulder. We were released from the hospital later that night and as soon as we got back, Dougie just went on the tourbus whilst we went and packed up our things. We got back onto thebus to find Dougie curled up asleep on one of the huge cushions we had. Tom picked him up and lay him in his bed and Harry nestled his small teddy in beside him, knowing that Dougie's nightmares were worse if he didnt have it there. We stayed on the tourbus that night and Tommy, our manager, had managed to find us a new hotel by the next day. The following evening, we decided to research what had happened at the hotel and if anybody else had experienced the same sort of thing. We discovered that people had seen the man but had never had any interaction with him. We wondered why before we discovered who the man was. Dougie was frozen with shock when he found out. It was his dad. He'd hung himself there about 8 weeks after he'd left the Poynter family. We sat waiting for the news to hit Dougie and, soon enough, it did. He broke down in tears, sobbing out unintelligible words and phrases to us.
'W-Wha-Why d-did we ne-never g-get to-told?'
'I don't know Dougs. I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to find out, especially not like this.'
'N-No. I-It's okay.. I'm gl-glad he's gone.' He said, sitting up and wiping his eyes,'He doesn't deserve life.' We all surpressed loud gasps as he calmed down and simply went to sleep. He had no nightmares that night, and although we were shocked at the reason, we were glad that he never had to worry about his past ever again.
