Author's Note: Here is Chapter One! As Always, Read/Enjoy/Review!
Chapter 1: Descent Into Darkness
" I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all."-Richard Wright.
Darkness. That's all there is. Nothing else, and I don't know how I got here. Its like I'm floating in a vast sea without anybody around to drag me back out, or even notice I'm gone.
Where am I?
Where am I?
Who am I?
Michael's POV
August 26th, 2005
I stare at the girl, her eyes, those captivating blue eyes are closed now. But I cant let her go. I wont let her go. I keep my hand on hers, ignoring Max's frantic demands for me to get out of the wreckage.
" Michael, you need to move out of the way," Max calls, and I glance over my shoulder noting the panic in his eyes, " The firemen are here."
" I'm not leaving her alone," I say, blinking against the hot tears that roll down my cheeks.
" Mike, you have to let them do their job," he says, and with a sound torn somewhere between frustration and pain he pulls me out by the back of my pants. I wobble against him, trying to push past him to get a closer look. " Mike stop, you need to be checked out by the paramedics."
" I wont leave that girl alone here Max," I rage at him, shoving my hands against his chest, barely moving him an inch, " She's someone's daughter, someone's friend. I cant leave her."
" I wont leave her," he offers, his eyes sincere as he looks over his shoulder at the small army of firemen who are working hard to cut the girl from her car, " I wont leave her. She wont be alone. But you need to let them look at you, okay?"
I give in, my knee's feeling weak as I'm led to a waiting ambulance. I stare over the shoulder of the E.M.T who straps the blood pressure cuff to my arm, and I wince only lightly when it tightens on my bruised arm. I cant take my eyes off the scene in front of me.
The nameless girls car lays on its roof, mangled almost to the point of being unrecognizable as a car. How could she still be alive? How could anyone survive something like that? And then a thought enters my racing mind. Maybe she isn't alive anymore. Maybe's she's dead. I shake my head slowly, refusing to believe that. I saw her eyes. She looked right at me. Panic, and a silent plea to help her, dancing in those big eyes. Her pulse was still beating weakly in her throat, even though her eyes had closed, and it was still beating when Max pulled me from the car.
" We've got her!" a voice yells, and I slide off the gurney, pushing through the E.M.T's who were examining me. I stumble momentarily, stopping when I see that her shirts all ready been cut away from her body, pale skin bathed in blood and bruises shining under the street lights of Los Angeles.
I watch from a distance as people swarm over her, shouting things, voices meshing together to create nothing but a buzzing in my head, as they push the gurney carrying her to one of the many ambulances on the street.
" Michael," Max says taking my arm firmly in his, but I shake free of it climbing into the back of the ambulance carrying her, " Michael!"
" I told you. I wont leave her alone," I say nodding my head for them to shut the doors.
Its been hours. Hours since we arrived at the hospital. Mind numbing hours of staring at the walls, pacing, staring at the walls again. I look down at my hands, turning them over, realizing that they are still covered in blood and dirt. I ball them tightly, a ripple of anger coursing through me when my cell phone buzzes loudly in my pocket.
Warily I pull it out and flip it open without bothering to look to see whose calling me.
" Hello," I mutter laying my head back staring up at the ceiling.
" Michael, oh thank God," Mother's voice rings through the other end and I immediately sit up cursing in my head.
" Mother," I whisper, my throat constricting.
" I just heard on the news that you were in an accident," she weeps into the phone, " Why didn't you call me to let me know you were all right?"
" Mother I'm fine, I'm at the hospital."
" At the hospital, then your not fine, I'm on my way now, where are you? I'm getting Joseph," she says, and my heart hammers roughly against my chest.
" Mother no. I'm fine. A few bumps and bruises," I say pacing again, lifting my hand to the back of my neck.
" Then why are you at the hospital? Why didn't Max take you home?" she asks. The familiar wave of emotions washes over me when I think of the reason I'm here. The innocent girl fighting for her life.
" Mother, we hit someone. A girl. A young girl. I couldn't let her be here alone," I say bracing my back to the wall, sliding down it.
" Oh Michael," her voice goes soft as I start to cry.
