AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Mrs. C is downstairs. Maybe she has some idea? Let me know if I can help.”
“Call me if anything changes with Bennet. I want to be here if…if…” He doesn't finish the sentence, but the sentiment is definitely received.
I enter the room with the tray and walk into a very tense atmosphere. The room is loud with activity, the bustle of movement as Micah and Dr. Franks adjust machines and administer medications, I’m not sure exactly what they’re doing. But no one speaks, their postures stiff and facial expressions grim. It feels like all of the air has been sucked out of the room.
Six crosses the room and comes to stand beside me, nuzzling into my side, her tears wetting my shirt.
“Did anything happen?”
“He had another seizure. A smaller one this time, or at least less intense.”
Shit.
We're losing him.
Six
Things go from terrible to worse. And then to unfathomable.
Sometime after Dr. Franks places electrodes on Bennet's head and confirms multiple rolling seizures, the machines go crazy again. The beeping and alarms pierce my brain, despite Micah turning the volume down or off on the various machines. There are only three making sounds, but it feels like a dozen. Two dozen.
Then the worst sound of all burrows into my brain.
Flatline.
A terrible screaming, throaty and pained, replaces the sound of the flat tone of death. I didn't think there could be a worse sound.
The air leaves my body, replaced by an overwhelming urge to vomit. My heart ceases beating, and I can't catch a breath. I'm primed to die with him, to follow him to wherever our consciousness goes next. If I didn't have the other four, I feel positive that my entire body would fail right along with his. Alas, it holds on.
As Micah and Dr. Franks explode into action, I realize that the terrible screaming is coming from me. My body is being held off the ground by strong, tattooed arms and pulled against a hard chest. His tears soak through the shoulder of my shirt where they fall in hot, fat drops.
I watch through a tunnel as a pair of large, sticky pads are applied to Bennet's chest. My body heaves with his as each surge of electricity arches his back off the bed.
The bruising on his chest is almost healed. His body shows almost no signs of the trauma that he was put through just days ago. The proof that the treatment worked, at least on some level, feels like a cruel joke.
I lose count of how many times they shock him. It feels endless and violent, yet when they stop, it feels like not enough.
This can't be it.
There is discussion happening all around me, but the words don't sink in. Their voices reverberate in my head, bouncing off my eardrums and muffling through cotton-like static.
All I can hear is the empty and never-ending tone of the heart monitor. Even after they shut it off and unhook the ventilator, I still hear it. It echoes through my brain as they take the tube out of his mouth and remove all the electrodes.
Scrambling out of Luis’ arms, my feet carry me to Bennet the moment they finish removing the wires and tubes. Crawling into the bed, I finally do what I've been wanting to do for days, and lay my head on his chest. Sobs are wracking my body as I lose myself to heartbreak.
I don't know how long I lay there, grief pouring out of me in sobs and screams and snot. Eventually, I succumb to sheer exhaustion and stare, unmoving and unseeing, out the window at the fading colors of the sunrise.
Undeterred by my heartache, the sun does rise. Birds fly by. The wind rustles the trees. The sky doesn't even have the compassion to cry with me, not that I have anything left to cry. My mouth is dry and my eyes burn. There is no moisture left to turn into tears. There is only pain.
Thump.
Pain…and madness?
Thump.
Sitting up, I stare down at Bennet's chest. There's no movement, no signs of life.
I'm hallucinating. I have to be.
