Brittany
For the passed two-and-a-half weeks, I had been going into the infirmary to visit Jon Luke, even though he never really said anything back. I'll be the first to admit, I snuck over to the dining pavilion and borrowed a magic cup thing and got a bit tipsy. It was the only way I could sleep. Of course, when I slept, I only thought about Jon Luke. I dreamed about him proposing to me. I dreamed about our wedding day. I dreamed about him waking up and not remembering who any of us were. That one was the worse. He totally flipped out and ran away.
This particular evening, I skipped camp fire to see him. I walked into the door and noticed he hadn't changed a bit. His beard had started to come in under his oxygen mask and his hair was a bit longer. "You should grow this out," I remembered telling him way back what seemed like eons ago. I sat down next to his bed and ran my thumbs on the back of his hand. His knuckles were thrashed and his skin was pale. Even after the constant fluids the medics were giving him, it hadn't regained it's color yet. I looked down at his legs; I guess they never felt the need to take his uniform pants and his boots off.
I could see that the blood on his bandages was turning black. The nurses should have been coming in soon to change them. I could never watch when they did that. The double-tapered diamond puncture in his shoulder and on his thigh on the other side of the bed. Then there was the one that put him there in the first place: the dime sized hole with the eight or nine-inch incision that ran through it on his stomach. His head was turned so that his nose was pointing to my side of the bed. Sometimes I would see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye, but when I turn to see, his eyes were closed and still relying on the machine for breathing.
I was running my fingers through his hair with one hand as I hugged his forearm with my other when one of the nurses walked into the infirmary. I couldn't see her until she came around to the other side of the bed. She was average height with long brown hair that was put up in a ponytail. She wasn't wearing normal scrubs like any other hospital, she was just wearing a normal CHB shirt and some denim shorts.
"You don't mind if I change his bandages, do you? It looks like it's time for that again," she said to me.
"No no. Go ahead," I replied, spinning sideways on the stool I was sitting on so I didn't have to look while she swapped out his bandages.
I looked around the room to see all the other injured campers who were still in there recovering after the war. Most of them either recovered from their injuries or passed away. Only a select few remained. I looked at the empty bed next to Jon Luke's on the other side and noticed an unused syringe sitting on the table at its foot. I decided to stand up and start passing down the lane in the middle of the room.
The nurse finished re-bandaging him and sat on the bed behind her. "So. . . it's my understanding that you two aren't dating, Right?"
"He knows I love him, but we're not technically together, no," I answered her.
She just nodded as she double checked her work. "You know, I was there when he and those two other guys that I see come in here, were giving my cabin the escort to that tunnel. He looked so confident and collected about everything that was going on. Like he really knew what he was doing. I think that inspired me and gave me more confidence during the fight."
"Yeah, he's good at that kind of thing," I replied, glancing over at her briefly.
"I'd hate to see him suffer like this for the rest of his life."
"What are you trying to say?" I asked her, hostility slipping into my voice.
"Well, some states have these laws in place for patients with terminal illnesses and injuries. It's an option called 'Doctor Assisted Sui'- Ah!"
I didn't let her finish her sentence. I grabbed the syringe off the table and pushed her backwards onto the mattress. I pinned her down with my knee in her stomach and my free hand pushing down on her throat, hovering the syringe over her left eye. "Don't! Don't even finish! We are not killing him while he is out cold. I don't want to hear anyone ever mention that again. You understand me, Bitch!?"
She was clinging onto my wrist with both hands as she choked.
"Huh? Well, do you?" I yelled at her with the needle about an inch away from her eye.
She nodded frantically with terror in her eyes. Then I stood up and watched her run out of the infirmary, coughing up a lung. I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the syringe in my hand: nothing inside. Then I looked over Jon Luke again. Blood was already starting to leak from his stitching into the bandaging. He was so big that the doctors couldn't center him on the mattress when they took him off the stretcher. That meant that there was room on the side for me to slide onto the bed next to him. I draped his arm behind my back and rested my head on his shoulder. He was cold to the touch.
"You need to hurry up and wake up. Before I get out-voted," I found myself telling him. "I'm pissed at you for a lot of things, but I still love you."