Unless you have read the first installment in The Call at Night series, you won't understand many parts in this story. I suggest you go and read it to fully comprehend. :)
In life, there are things that we all know must happen. For better or for worse, no one can ever say. One of the biggest impacts on our life is change; it seemingly tears away at our very being, gnawing at our hearts like famished savages. For some people, change is a good thing. It means a fresh start, or a new outfit for your life that you can't wait to try on. Maybe you're moving to a new country, and you can't wait to take a plane for the first time of your life. But for others, moving away means the end of something amazing, the end of a chapter that spoke of promise. Moving away means starting over. Change means starting over.
This story, as misleading as the first paragraph may seem, is not about moving away. It's about something more than that, something so different that you never really think it'll happen to you until suddenly, it knocks on your front door step. This story… it could be about many things. It could be about making new friends, being different, waking up with no idea what's going on. But, like most life threatening events, it needs to be mended. And the only way for you to completely heal it is to listen to this tale of friendship, love and most of all, finding yourself in the process.
Beep.
White walls closed in around a monotonous bed, the sun shining through the half shut curtains in complete and utter contrast to the atmosphere in the room.
Beep.
Standing rigid and concerned around the bed were a group of people staring at the lump under the covers, its mere presence a heavy weight on the heart like the structure itself was crushing it.
Beep.
A pale, youthful face slept in the bed, his breathing peaceful, his movements agitated. Tufts of disheveled, fiery red hair grew out any which way, the lack of a good haircut made it resemble that of a feral cat. His freckles seemed to fade with his face like the rest of his personality, his nose wrinkling in pain and fear as he was held down by nightmares. His left hand clutched hard at the scruffy woolen blanket, his knuckles white as he held onto the warm material, seemingly for dear life.
A young girl of about seventeen– her age mirroring the boy's – stood by his side, her fingers capturing his other hand as she tried in vain not to fret over the occupant of the bed's condition. It was no use though, her deep, beautiful eyes rimmed a deep red like molten lava, the same colour reflected in the veins that popped out from the milky white of her eyes. Her silk black hair looked unkempt and frizzy, her focus never turning away from the boy she had known for so long. A pink ribbon lay on top of her head; small trickles of blood slipped down her arm like raindrops on a window, her skin beat up and bruised. Clear, hot liquid streamed from her eyes, their motions strong and purposeful.
No one seemed to understand how she felt, no matter how many times they insisted they were in the exact same boat as she. But they didn't know; no one but the young girl could even fathom just how scary it was to see the love of her life, battered and on the brink of death, in a hospital bed. Not her mom, not her best friend who was also her boyfriend's step brother, not his sister. The one person who had even an inkling of what she felt was the frail boy in the bed, reminding the girl that she was once in the same position as him, two years prior.
Around the two of them, family and friends gathered, the screaming silence only broken by the occasional sob from a middle aged woman with short hair as bright as her broken son's, her sobs racking at her chest as her green haired husband held onto her tightly, worry and tears evident in his panicked eyes. They stared out behind his crooked glasses as he looked down at his step son. The immobile and quiet figure was nothing in comparison to the livelihood and chatter that he usually gave off like a songbird in the morning. It was eerie to see him in such a state, his face pained as he struggled to take a breath.
A young couple sat off to the right, their presence known by the sounds emitting from the woman. She bunched the young male adult's deep green t shirt in her hands as she wailed into his shoulder, her family's trademark long red hair sprawled out in front of her face. The young man, whose hair was as blonde as his sunny personality, had his arms wrapped around his fiancée's shaking body, his voice whispering the faintest of reassurances into her ear. The woman couldn't hear him though; her mind was on her brother, her heart going out to him as she prayed with all her might that he would be okay.
A boy with hair as green as his birth father's stood up, walking over to the side of the bed, his face tired and filled with grief. His nose reflected the family resemblance even more, their cubed areas like a cardboard box. His beige long sleeved shirt was rolled up to the edge of his elbows, a pair of dark khaki pants hugging his waist with a black leather belt looped through them. His height usually intimidated people at first sight, his towering body like that of a menacing dinosaur's. When you looked into his eyes though, there was no small amount of compassion and gentleness that was present in those deep blue eyes, his lips curving slightly when you realized he was as kind and loving as his step brother. A man of few words, he simply rested his hand on the dark haired girl's shoulders, his other hand gently unwinding her fingers from his step brother's limp hand. She finally took her eyes off of him to look at her other best friend, staring through her tears as he guided her out into the empty, dimly lit hall.
They walked down the narrow and short hallway, the faint steps of nurses doing their rounds as they checked up on the patients who were as eager as young children on Christmas day to leave the hospital. They stopped at a couch, its seats an unwelcoming green that looked uncomfortably thin and plastic. The boy chose to stay standing, the girl leaning against the wall, propping one foot up against it and staring at her white Toms. A silence not unlike the ones from their childhood immersed between the two; and although there had rarely been a word uttered between the two as children, it had never been as uneasy as it was at that time.
The girl sighed, tucking a stray black bang behind her ear as she tried to wipe the blood off of her arm, the cut on it finally ceasing to produce the steady flow of thick red liquid it had been pouring down her arm since the accident. She glanced at the blood smeared across her palm, biting back another sigh as she pulled her arms close to her stomach in an effort to try and be as small as possible, feeling like nothing but an insignificant piece of dirt.
"Isabella. Look at me." The teen didn't look up, but the uttering of her name from her best friend brought back memories; memories of a happier time when the three of them were children. Like when they took that picture… God, how she missed that. Gentle fingers cupped her chin, pulling her face up slowly to look into her boyfriend's step brother's eyes. She couldn't stop them this time; the tears just began to flow.
"Why did this have to happen?" Isabella whispered, her voice hoarse from crying and her lips trembling as though the hospital's temperature had dropped to the negatives, her white shorts and pink v-neck t-shirt doing nothing to protect her from the immense cold she was feeling right now. "This wasn't supposed to happen, Ferb! Not again, not with our roles switched! We were… We had plans tonight… What about all those blueprints sitting under that box under his bed, or how you and him were going to throw Gretchen a surprise party for her birthday! What about –"
"Isabella, listen to me!" Ferb grabbed her shoulders, his eyes hard and determined as he tried to calm the ever growing hysterics the girl was in. "Phineas is going to get out of this, he always does! I know that hospitals don't sit well with you, you we're in one for over a month after what happened in the other dimension, but this is my step brother! If anyone can pull through a desperate situation, it's him. This is no different than what happened to you, and you're fine!"
Isabella stared at him, his words resurfacing a memory from two years previous, her mind going back to the day she had first woken up.
Isabella sat upright, a scream lodged in her throat as she realized she was no longer in the other dimension, her first hint the soft bed she slept on. As she scanned herself, she quickly came to realize that she was in the hospital, IVs and breathing tubes stuck up her nose, various stitches on her knee and a thick cast around the other. She brought her hand up to her face; sure enough, there was more thread on her face holding together the cut she had received from her captor, the certifiably insane doctors making her list of people she would never again talk to.
She looked to her left, the sky as dark as coal with twinkling stars, and she smiled as she realized she had truly been brought back to her dimension, her heart warming. She sighed in content, her back resting against her pillow as she turned to look at her right, her eyes widening in shock as she caught her breath.
Though it was probably past midnight and darker than the night sky itself in her room, the familiar blue eyes Isabella had become so obsessed with stared at her silently, a feat for the lips that were attached to her best friend's head. She looked back into them, her pupils slowly adjusting to the blackness as she slowly started to make out the triangular head, the boy she had fallen in love with not moving, his voice slightly ajar as she saw tears form at the bottom of his eyes.
"Izzy…" She nodded, her cheeks a faint pink as she waved her hand weakly, the smallest of grins appearing on her face. It seemed to snap the frozen boy back into reality, the chair falling out from behind him as he jumped up and made it to her side in two steps, his hands encircling her waist as he sat onto the bed and hugged her in such a gentle way, yet so tightly she could feel his very presence in her soul. Their bodies molded together as she rested her hands on his back, her chin on his shoulder as she let out a shudder. Her own tears fell down onto his back.
"Phineas…" She whispered, her voice cracking. He pulled back, his arms never losing contact as he brought his face close to hers, their lips so close they brushed against one another when one of them spoke.
"I've done a lot of dangerous things, Isabella Garcia-Shapiro," Phineas Flynn muttered, his eyes glancing down at her lips. "I've run away from a T-Rex, fought as a superhero, and fallen out of a flying haunted house. Out of all those things that should've scared me, nothing's terrified me more than this whole ordeal. Please, don't… I can't stand you getting hurt, Izz…" Isabella pressed her lips to his in that moment, the fourteen year olds holding each other closely as their tears mixed together, an unspoken promise between them in that single kiss. When they pulled away, the dark haired girl stared at the boy she had never given up on, her lips curved upwards as she wiped his face free of tears.
"I promise, neither of us will ever be in here again."
Two years ago, she had given her word to the boy she wanted to spend the rest of her life with that they would never come back here for each other again. She had broken her promise today, the accident crushing those words from way back when. She looked at Ferb, who stared at her in curiosity.
"You don't understand, Ferb." She whispered, her voice heavy as she looked through bleary eyes, the watered version of her best friend looking back at her. "The doctors told him I would be fine. That I would recover because Candace got me here at the right time. Phineas… the doctor said it would take a miracle…" Unable to control her emotions any longer, she flung her arms around her best friend's shoulders, her weight on him as she sobbed into his shoulder, his sleeve soaked in seconds.
Ferb didn't mind, his arms wrapping around his other best friend as he wished over and over again that Gretchen, his girlfriend, hadn't taken a summer course in France. He rubbed Isabella's back, trying in vain to quiet her as her thought of things that would help ease her pain. He knew it would be fruitless; there was only one person who could help her, and he was the very person who was hurting her.
The boy looked up, as did the girl, at the doctor who had moments ago cleared his throat. Ferb kept Isabella in his grasp, shielding her away from any pain that was almost sure to come. He also needed her around to help ease the loss of his dearest friend in his world, his step brother who had pulled him out of his shell years ago. The two words the doctor uttered weren't what either teenager was expecting though.
"He's awake."
It took a mere half second before the Mexican-Jewish girl grabbed her British friend's frozen hand, tugging him down the hall and into the room where their best friend lay. When she saw the boy who had only moments ago been dying awake and sitting upright, she did a double take before rushing forward into the room.
"Phineas, I –!"
The deep blue eyes she had remembered registered confusion, his eyebrows furrowed as he looked at her in deep concentration. She stopped short, her eyes going to his family in surprise. They looked both happy and filled with grief at the same time. Candace gave her a pitiful look, one that immediately sent alarms off in Isabella's head.
"Phineas?" She asked slowly, her eyes moving back to her boyfriend. He stared at her blankly.
"Do I know you?"
I'd like to take this time to apologize for not posting or updating this story for a year now. I know I let a lot of people down and I really am trying to make ammends. But please understand that a lot of stuff went on in my life and I had some very low moments when I just felt like my writing was no good.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy this :)
