CHAPTER 62

Fire. That's all Miguel felt as he woke up. An inferno raging around him roared around his ears. He could hear it burning around him, occasionally licking him and scalding him with its claws. The sheer heat of the fire, even when it wasn't singeing Miguel, was unreal. It was like he was in hell, the fire preparing to swallow him up. Miguel had no clue how long the car had been on fire for as he didn't know how long he had been out, but he knew that at any moment, the car could explode in a massive fireball of flames. As he coughed and choked on the ghastly smoke that was enveloping him and burning his eyes, he was forced to close his eyes. He couldn't move. His whole body screamed in pain. His burning arms and legs, some of them possibly broken from the impact of the crash. His eyes that were being clawed at by the smoke. His mouth. His nose. His lungs. He was done.

"Sir! SIR! This is the fire department! We're going to get you out of here!"

As soon as Miguel heard this, his eyes snapped open again. Hearing the sounds of other human beings had reawakened his brain and almost as soon as he did, he had one thought… Emily!

Miguel frantically turned his head, ignoring the agonising pain as he felt fire stab at the side of his neck, trying desperately to look at the passenger's seat beside him, where Emily had been sitting. Thankfully, the car that had t-boned them had crashed into Miguel's side so though he had taken the brunt of the impact, she would be okay. But wait… where was she? Miguel eventually managed to squint through the smoke but to his shock, Emily wasn't there. That's when he realised… the firemen and paramedics had probably taken her out of the car already and brought her to safety! She was safe. She was okay. In that moment, that was all that really mattered to Miguel. If one of them were to make it out of this situation, let it be her.

Miguel then summoned all of his weakened strength to reach into his shirt and he managed to pull out the gold cross that was around his neck. It was his yaya's necklace, and he had worn it everywhere since her death. He took it into his left hand and smiled faintly. He had worn it everyday to try and feel closer to her, but he guessed he didn't really need it anymore. He would hopefully be seeing her pretty soon anyway. With that thought and a faint smile on his face, Miguel lay back and let death overtake him…

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Miguel awoke in a white room. Well, it was actually just big, concrete bricks painted white. He felt strange; sluggish and slow and dizzy and everything else. He blinked a couple of times to try and clear some of the haze out of his eyes. For some reason, his brain wasn't acting as quickly as it normally did. Was anyone else here with him?

"Am I dead? Is this heaven?" He thought to himself. If he was, he was definitely going to suggest a much more pleasant welcome into the afterlife; a bed in a white concrete room wasn't cutting it for him, and he was usually pretty relaxed about that kind of stuff. That's when he realised it wasn't heaven, but a hospital. Elation burst through him. He was alive! Somehow, him and Emily had escaped death by the skins of their teeth.

Suddenly, he heard a loud bang as his hospital room door swung open, and he heard two sets of footsteps walk into his hospital room. He heard their voices and immediately realised it was none other than Mary and George.

Hearing their voices, Miguel was re-energised, and he tried to look up and talk to them, but to his horror, he couldn't move. He didn't feel like he was paralysed before thankfully though. He just felt so weak he could barely lift his head up, let alone the rest of his body, and his throat was so dry he couldn't say anything.

So he was forced to just lie there, listening to Mary and George talking.

"Oh, my God, how are we going to tell him?" He heard Mary murmur, concerned, to George.

"I don't know. Let's wait for him to wake up first and I guess just figure it out then. If he even wakes up." George replied glumly. Miguel's ears twitched. They were talking about him. But tell him what?

"He's going to wake up, George." Mary stated firmly.

"I don't know. The doctor said he inhaled a lot of smoke and his lungs were apparently severely damaged." George murmured.

"Sure, but at least this time, there was no spine damage. He'll be just fine." Mary stated. George chuckled mirthlessly and shook his head.

"Even if he's physically okay, he's going to be far from just fine." George stated.

"What do you mean?" Mary asked.

"Well, he's going to blame himself. You know, for what happened. For what happened to her. He's going to wish it was him, and I wouldn't put it past him to try and join her."

"No, he wouldn't." Mary said, quietly.

"Mary, he tried before, remember?" George shot back. The two then lapsed into silence and that gave Miguel time to think. What the hell were they talking about? Miguel stumbled upon their words for several minutes before it hit him… 'her' was Emily! But what had happened to Emily?! Clearly it wasn't something good given how Mary and George were talking about it. Was she okay? Did something happen to her in the hospital?

Miguel quickly went into a panic and though he still couldn't move, he made a croak loud enough for Mary and George to finally hear him. The couple spun around and when they saw him, his eyes wide open, they shot to their feet.

"MIGUEL! YOU'RE AWAKE!" Mary exclaimed. Miguel's head felt too heavy to be able to move, but he forced himself to anyways, ignoring the shattering pain he was feeling. Before he slumped back down onto his hospital bed, he NEEDED to find out what had happened to Emily. But he couldn't ask yet. His throat was bone dry to the extent that he couldn't utter a single word. Somehow, Miguel managed to croak enough that George realised that Miguel needed water, and as Mary hammered on the nurse call button in Miguel's hospital room, George got him the water and Miguel poured it down his throat gratefully. Immediately, Miguel felt a massive relief all over his body. His limbs seemed to wake up, his throat seemed to loosen, and he could finally talk. Just barely louder than a whisper, but still he could talk.

George and Mary then both came back over to Miguel and stood over him, relief etched across both of their faces.

"Oh man, it's so good to see you awake." George remarked.

"Yeah, your mom's going to be so happy to see you." Mary added. "She just went home to shower but she should be back in like less than half an hour."

"What… what…" Miguel tried to speak but his sentence kept trailing off as he ran out of energy.

"What happened to you?" George said. "I'm not going to lie, it wasn't great. Your car got t-boned by some jackass who probably wasn't looking where he was going. It rolled down a hill and eventually lit on fire before emergency services could get to you. You inhaled a lot of smoke in the fire and were unconscious by the time the firemen got to you. You've been out nearly 2 days."

Miguel shrugged off the dump of information he had just been given as he had a more pressing question.

"No… what… what…" Miguel croaked again, unable to complete the sentence.

"What? What's going on? You need more water?" Mary asked. Miguel shook his head and summoned all of his strength to finish his sentence.

"What happened to Emily?" Miguel uttered in barely a whisper. As soon as he did, Mary and George looked at each other, extremely nervously, and this set Miguel on edge.

"Did we mention your mom and Johnny are on their way so you should get to see them soon?" Mary stated. Miguel scowled at them.

"Guys… don't." Miguel growled, his heart starting to pound now. Emily was clearly not in a great state if they were so obviously avoiding Miguel's question. "What happened to her?"

Mary and George looked at each other once more and the two silently nodded, before turning to Miguel and taking a deep, shaky breath.

"Miguel… okay here goes." George began, abnormally quietly and solemnly. "When you got hit off the road, you were on a quiet, empty road. It took a while for firemen to get the call and get there. Because of this, when they arrived, your truck was already on fire. They only had time to pull you out of the driver's seat before the whole truck went up in flames and exploded. They couldn't pull her out in time. She's gone. I'm really sorry…"

His mind and body went numb. He started hyperventilating. This could NOT be happening. No way Emily could be dead. After all of the loss, pain and suffering he had already faced in his life, this had to be a mistake. There was no way God sent this at him as well. And Emily was the last person in the world who deserved to die.

Miguel shook his head furiously.

"No, no, you're lying." He snapped, tears threatening to fill his eyes. "You're lying! That's not true! She's not dead! You're lying to me!"

Mary and George looked at them, tears in both of their eyes. When Miguel saw the utterly heartbroken and shattered looks on their faces, he realised that they weren't lying. That this wasn't just some sick joke. This was reality. But it was a reality Miguel wasn't ready to accept yet.

"No, no, no, no, no. That's… that's impossible." Miguel stammered. "I woke up at one point during the fire. I looked beside me and I SAW that she wasn't there! She wasn't in the seat beside me! She must have been carried out by the firefighters!"

Mary and George sighed and shook their heads.

"Miguel, I'm really sorry but that's impossible." George murmured. "The firemen only carried out one body. And don't you think that if she had managed to climb out before they got there, she would have been found in the past 2 days?"

"So she could be injured nearby!" Miguel exclaimed indignantly. Mary slowly shook her head.

"No, she can't be. The firefighters searched everywhere within a mile radius of the accident. There's absolutely no sign of her. The firefighters said that their verdict is that she probably died in the explosion."

"But I saw…" Miguel started, but George shook his head.

"Look, Miguel, trust me, we want Emily to be alive just as much as you do. But the fact is there was a lot of smoke. You probably were still shellshocked from the impact of the accident. Your mind was playing tricks on you." George said softly.

Miguel thought for a moment… could George be right? Could Emily seriously be gone? Would he seriously never see her gorgeous face again? Their relationship sliced short by cruel fate, a fate that destined for them to never see each other again. His heart was screaming in pain but his brain was still numb. It was an inexplicable feeling. Miguel didn't even notice the various nurses walk into the room and do numerous physical checks on him. He complied with whatever they told him to do but didn't say a word. He remained completely mentally numb. The one fact that prevented him from completely breaking down and sobbing at that time was the fact that he knew Emily was in a better place now…