1. Ryan

I can't breathe.

Something is constricting my chest and it's almost impossible to take a breath. I begin to cough and sputter like I'm dying. Something is down my throat and I begin to resist it on reflex. I'm choking and I can't breathe. My body is itching like crazy and I can barely see anything. Everything is completely wrong. I can't think about anything except that I'm fighting for air and I can't get any. With every cough my ribs scream in agony but there's nothing I can do about it because I can barely move. I don't even feel connected to my body.

Suddenly, voices fill my ears. They're shouting and saying something that I can't understand. I try to signal that I'm in distress but I'm suddenly tired and too weak to move or say anything. Before I know what's happening, hands are upon me and they're removing whatever is down my throat. It hurts as the alien object scratches against the inside of my throat but I'm grateful. I can finally breathe.

I cough a few more times and soon I'm lightheaded. The entire ordeal has left me nauseated and hot all over. I can feel the sweat on my brow but I don't care. I just want to lay where I am and never move again.

The voices are still saying something and I am able to make out a few words:

"He's awake but..."

"Ryan it's…"

"Hang on…"

"Oh my god…"

"…so he's okay now?"

"…most likely…disoriented…"

I want to know who is talking and what they are talking about but now they are sounding so very far away…

I force myself to try and focus on what I could last remember but it was all so blurry. I remember seeing Troy, my best friend, and he was laughing. I think we were in the car but… I can't remember anything else. I don't have the strength to do so. An abrupt sleepiness comes over me and soon the blurry images in front of me fade away into darkness. It's a comfortable darkness that I'm familiar with and I'm almost certain that as the pain subsides, a smile flickers across my lips.

♥ ♦ ♣ ♠

I can hear screaming.

It's muffled and I'm in the dark but it pierces through me like a sharp blade. Someone's in trouble but I can't figure out who it is. I'm so lost and nothing is making sense. Blindly, I move forward but I run into a wall. I run to my left but I run into another wall. All the while, I can still hear the muffled screaming which is now turning into heavy sobs.

But abruptly, I can't breathe again. My air supply has left and I'm choking. I'm trying to gasp for air but the oxygen won't come to me. I'm dying and I don't even know why. It's all a daze and then….

"NO!"

I'm suddenly alert of my entire body and I feel like I've just been set ablaze from the inside. The room I'm in is unfamiliar but I force myself to try and remember why I'm there. Slowly, my heartbeat begins to slow as the fragmented memories of why I'm here come back to me.

"Ryan?!" Sharpay is suddenly at my bedside looking at me with frantic eyes. "What's wrong? Are you in pain? Do you need me to get the doctor?"

I shake my head feebly and it hurts to do so. "I just had a nightmare."

"Are you sure?" She asks me, concern evident in the tone of her voice. "Because if I find out that you're lying to me Ryan Evans I swear I'm going to kill you myself."

My body does ache horribly and my head is throbbing from a major headache but I don't want her to worry. For the past two weeks, I have been drifting in and out of consciousness and every time I'm awake I learn more about what happened to me.

Apparently, I was in some type of car accident and Troy was in the car too but I don't remember any of that. Actually, I don't remember anything from that night. The doctors told me that it was just a small degree of amnesia and that only time would tell if I would get back those lost memories. However, it was time that I didn't want to have to go through.

"Ry, you sure you're okay?"

I toss a glance in Sharpay's direction and give a curt nod, trying not to wince in pain.

She looks at me for a moment as though unsure of whether to believe me or not. Finally, she returns the nod with one of her own and turns to go sit back in her chair.

"Sharpay?" I hate how raspy my voice is. I can barely recognize it as my own. "Where's Troy?"

There's a dead silence in the room that fills the room with a tight tension. Finally, she breaks the silence. "He's here in the hospital to Ry. He's trying to recover just like you."

I know she's lying because the silence had lasted too long before she responded. "So he's awake then?"

"No," she sounds uncomfortable and unsure of herself which scares me because Sharpay is never unsure of herself. "Ry, he's not doing as well as you are."

"What do you mean?" I feel pathetic for asking the question because it sounds so Lifetime but I can't help it. "What happened?"

"Troy's in a coma, Ryan."

The news hits me like a ton of bricks and suddenly I don't feel so good. Troy's in a coma and I'm awake talking to my sister. There's something wrong with this picture. I try to remember what happened to us that night that put him in a coma and me in such pain but I still can't remember anything. Quite frankly, it scares the shit out of me that I can't remember what happened.

Why?

Because that means that I can be the reason for what happened. I can be the reason my best friend is lying unconscious in the next room like some vegetable. Those few precious hours have drastically changed my world and I have no clue why or how to get them back.

TBC...