Chapter 11: Out of the game
Vlad blinked, and he was dead hovering in the air, in the corridor.
He'd blacked out, and then – he hadn't stayed unconscious. He was dead again there. He could see the hospital staff rushing in the room right next to him, trying to keep someone you know who you felt it it's obvious you know how alive.
"clear!" violent shock
He could see his parents, standing right outside the door too, his mother keeping a shaking hand on his father's arm, as if to keep him with her, to force him to stay. There were chairs in the corridor, they should sit down.
He didn't know how he'd ended up in the corridor, hovering in the air like a non-corporeal spirit like a ghost.
He didn't know why no one looked at him – not his parents, who were staring helplessly into the room, not the orderly who kept an eye on them and seemed to agree that they should sit down even if they weren't paying the young man any attention.
It was almost as if they couldn't see Vlad hovering abnormally in the air.
as if
Vlad wanted to speak up, to ask – but when he opened his mouth, when he tried to reach out, he realized: he couldn't feel his body.
the movements the muscles the low constant invading pain that had been his reality in the latest months the simple fact of existing not even the only thing he'd had left during the last week the spatial awareness he'd been struggling with as everything else whimsically disappeared
he was conscious but there was nothing else to prove he was still real
it reminded him
of the first hours after the accident of waking up inside himself and unable to feel the world to move to call for help powerless stuck in his own corpse
but even then
he'd been aware of the pain of his body of his corpse
That was why they weren't reacting to him, wasn't it? Because as far as they knew, he wasn't there at all. There was no body floating in the air, no disembodied sight to be terrified of.
Vlad wasn't here, at all.
"clear!" shock
He wasn't here because Vlad Masters was over there, in the room, with the doctor and the nurses and the flatlining heart monitor. He didn't need to look over to check, to see his corpse body laying on his bed no on the floor he'd been on the floor when he'd blacked out even if he didn't know why even f he shouldn't have been to know.
he didn't want to look to see to verify to validate this knowledge
Right now, he was outside his body.
He didn't need to look, and yet. He turned around, only vaguely aware of the world around him, cut off from feeling any of it.
Doctor Jimenez and the nurses hid most of the view, and their almost frantic – not quite, more professional than that, but the rhythm was there, betraying their fears and desperation – work with the defibrillator drew away from the little he could see of himself, but he instinctively knew where to look, still.
a macabre awareness of his remains perhaps
There was a limp arm on the hospital's light blue linoleum he'd almost broken a tooth falling against it the other day and it had torn one of his pimples and that time too it hadn't made sense for him to end up there and its fingers were dark red and black, dead like a necrosed corpse's.
His fingers.
He was here, but Vlad Masters was there and the hospital staff was trying to resuscitate him, again.
He hadn't woken up outside his body, before.
Clearly, something was different this time.
Maybe... Maybe that was it.
Maybe he was dead, now. For real.
Jack's fault
Vlad Masters was dead, and he... He couldn't feel. He could see and hear – but others couldn't see him, couldn't hear him.
Maybe they hadn't managed to find ghosts during their outings because ghosts were constantly, by no choice of their own, out of reach. They were there, true – he was, after all – but no one could realize that. Not on their own, not enough to see anything, to hear anything.
maybe he'd be alone forever now
it wouldn't even be much different from his daily life lately since aside from this visit he hadn't seen anyone who actually knew him
he'd miss talking to the doctors
He was only sorry that his parents had to see this. He'd rather...
Vlad froze. Something reverberated – not in his chest, not really, because he couldn't feel it inside himself, not where he expected his chest to be – and he'd felt it, somewhere he couldn't quite describe. Like a ripple on the other end of a pond.
He looked around him – his mother had started dabbing her wet eyes with a handkerchief, his father's grip on his cane was white-knuckled, the orderly had finally gotten them to sit down, the staff in his room was as focused as before, so what...?
Nothing had changed, and yet...
"Clear!"
Another ripple. Stronger, harsher.
"We got something! Don't let it go. Brown, keep an eye on the monitor for me."
Again. Stronger again. Unpleasant. Vlad knew that feeling, that sensation. It felt like...
"banzai!"
He'd been shocked before – the other times he'd flatlined, the small electric shock when he'd been learning how to wire and that had taught him to be more prudent the accident burning green and acidic death in his face down his lungs choking him.
"Clear!"
"banzai!"
A hard impact, alternating with the cardiac massage they were delivering to his body, back there. The pounding reverberated, too – not quite as powerful, he hadn't felt it until now, but it was present, dull against his ribcage.
Vlad found himself staring down, at his non-existent chest – at where his chest would be, if he hadn't been out of his body, if his body hadn't been lying on the floor a dozen feet away.
"Clear!"
The same impact, again – stronger, harsh, painful this time. Expected, and yet.
"banzai!"
This time, though.
A bright light, white and cold and absolutely encompassing blinded him from where he'd been staring – his chest, where the defibrillator's pads had to be, over there, where his corpse laid in the staff's hands.