My fingernails scratched for oxygen as I fell on all fours, becoming the beast I truly was.
Hands grabbed again.
Panic swirled faster.
Nightmares sucked me deep.
Hope was dead.
Dead.
How could life be so cruel? Why take her? Why take my father, my mother, my grandfather…now her?
Goddamn you!
Goddamn you all.
Fuck life and love and every-fucking-thing.
My chest grew hotter. My brain inched closer to stroking. My lungs turned to shreds.
Another minute and I wouldn’t exist either.
I welcomed such a fate.
Hope was dead.
Her eyes were glass. Her body vacant. Her soul somewhere else.
I’ll never see her again.
Tears were poison as they blinded me.
Air was toxic as I gulped for the end.
Hope was a corpse.
Naked and alone on some mortuary table.
Ah, fuck.
Something tight with spikes and knives twined around my stomach, making me retch. Panic befriended sickness, drowning me in both.
The one girl who I needed more than anything.
The one person who stood any chance at saving me, and what had I done?
I’d never shown her an ounce of gratefulness.
I’d pushed away again and again.
I’d pushed her into the ground.
God.
What…what have I done?
Her last words howled in my head.
“You’ve gotten your wish. I’m dead to you. Just another person you used to know. A memory that will slowly fade.”
I’d done nothing to stop her.
Nothing to show her how much I needed her.
How much I loved her.
How much she meant to me from the very moment we met.
I did nothing to stop her from walking out of my life and into the arms of my enemy.
Darkness descended, fissuring through my veins and breaking apart arteries, feeding me destitution and despair.
I couldn’t handle the pressure, the pain, the pounding realisation that she’d gone.
Gone.
Fuck, she’s…gone.
No.
No
“Nooooo!”
A broken howl of something animalistic and pure monster ricocheted around the E.R. More hands clawed at me, and I fought them back. I roared, noticing the howls weren’t from a monster but from me.
My panic spilled outward. I wanted to inflict violence on anyone who came too close.
I wanted to make them suffer.
These devils of death had taken everyone I had ever loved.
They deserved to die.
I’d kill them.
I’ll—
A sharp prick pierced my arm.
And the blackness faded.
And the howling silenced.
And the loss of the girl I loved more than anything was no more.
* * * * *
“Mr. Wild?” A gentle pressure around my wrist dragged me back.
Sour thorns laced my throat as I swallowed and winced against a splitting headache.
“Don’t rush it. Let yourself wake up naturally.” The hand squeezed my wrist again. A feminine voice, sweet and concerned.
I didn’t want sweet or concerned.
I didn’t deserve it.
Wrenching my eyes open, I flinched against the brightness, grunting against a thick wash of sickness.
“That’s it. You’re okay. You’ll feel a bit woozy because of the sedation. It will pass.” She stopped touching my wrist, moving to the bedside table. Picking up a glass of water, she urged me to take it. “Here, drink this. You’re dehydrated, which is making the effects worse.”
I wanted to slap the glass from her grip, but I steeled myself against such tendencies and accepted it with a curt nod.
Throwing it back, I found it did ease the tightness around my temples and the thorns in my throat. Giving her the empty glass, I rasped, “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital. Do you remember why you came?”
My thoughts skipped backward only to slam into a wall of horror.
She’s gone.
The trembling returned, followed by the heart palpitations, and lack of air, and adrenaline, and holy fuck, she’s dead.
They’re all dead.
Everyone I’ve ever loved dies.
I fell deeper and deeper into the abyss.
“Hey, Mr. Wild.” The doctor came closer, placing her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay. Breathe. You’re okay. Just relax.”
Relax?
How the hell could I relax?
Hope is dead!
The attack grew worse. I retched, but nothing came up. I cried, but no tears came. I opened my lips to howl, but my throat was too raw to operate.
The doctor grabbed my cheeks, forcing me to look into her green eyes.
Green.
Like Hope’s.
Eyes that had closed and would never reopen.
Eyes that were milky and—
“She’s alive, Mr. Wild.” She shook me. “Are you listening to me? Hope Jacinta Murphy is alive.”
I froze, gasping for breath and heart pounding with arrhythmia. “Wh-what?”
“The nurse got it wrong. I’m so, so sorry. She’s new and doesn’t have a grasp on our filing system yet. That’s not an excuse, of course. She’s been heavily reprimanded and I assure you, it won’t happen again.”
I shook, trying to understand this upside-down reality. “So she’s…she’s not dead?”
“Not the Hope you enquired after. No.” She sighed. “A Hope Mckinnock died this morning from complications in surgery. Your Hope is still very much alive. A huge oversight and I’m once again so sorry for the distress this has caused you.”
The adrenaline in my system didn’t fade. It only shook me harder.
How was this possible?
The same hospital that’d stolen my father, mother, and grandfather had somehow granted a miracle and given Hope back to me.