And I was really planning on writing like 2 new chapters for Forget tonight because I didn't post anything last week because I was spazzing about Soul Eater.
But, sadly, I've only managed to write one chapter.
It's quite a long chapter so, hopefully, it's okay....
Anyway.
Enjoy...
Chapter 4
It was painful. Very painful. I was suffocating. Drowning. I needed to escape. I couldn’t escape.
Hayley and Jesse needed me to be there for them.
I’m not sure how much longer I can take it.
Punch.
Kick.
Blood.
Cough.
Blood.
Hayley.
Jesse.
I’ll never leave you. I promise you.
If I ever leave you, then I have no right to call you a friend.
Someone please help me.
I jerked up. Looking wildly around the room, I noticed I was still in the same place. I was still weak. My powers weren’t coming back as fast I’d hoped.
I’ve been here a week. They keep telling me I won’t be going home until I agree to do what they want.
I don’t know what to do.
I think I know need someone to help me.
“I see you’re awake.” It was the leader.
“Like it’s any of your business.” I replied, looking up at the bland, white ceiling.
“But it is. I figure, we’re not going to convince you to do what we want you to do hauled up in here.” He said, looking at me.
“Yeah, and it took you until now to notice?”
“We need to let you go, release you to the horrors of the world. Your opinion will change.”
“And you’re so sure of this?”
“Positive.”
I didn’t answer.
“So when am I able to go home?” I asked.
“Now.” He replied. I was confused. “There’s a car waiting for you outside the house. We’ll escort you to where it is and then leave you be.”
I didn’t know how to answer.
“We’ll be back before you know it.”
“And I wouldn’t want anything else.” I replied sarcastically.
Home. Should I call it that? I’ve never really felt much for the place there. Should I be nervous about going back there? I want to go back there. I’ve argued about it for what seems like weeks, but now that the opportunity is there, I’m not so sure I want to face them.
I was weak. I couldn’t move. There was darkness on the edges of my vision.
“Danny?’ A voice called out to me.
“Oh, shit. Danny, hey, are you okay?”
“Danny?”
“Can you hear me?”
The voice was growing quieter and quieter.
Wait, don’t leave me, where am I?
Hello?
Help me! I don’t know where I am; I don’t know what happened to me.
And then there was darkness.
Hayley and Jesse were walking along the beach, this was where Danny had brought them back, though never didn’t turn back himself.
Needless to say, the both were extremely worried; they didn’t know what had happened to their friend. Though, they both knew that there wasn’t much they could do about it. They didn’t have any powers like Danny had, and they knew they’d be more of a hindrance than help.
“Why do we keep coming back here?” Jesse sighed. “It’s not like he’s going to turn up.”
“He will.” Hayley answered, her eyes on the beach in front of her.
“When? Today? Tomorrow? Next year? How do you know if he’ll turn up at all?” Jesse exclaimed, he was frustrated at how things were turning out. He didn’t know what to do, and that made him anxious.
“He’ll come back.”
It was silent for a long time after that, both looking around them in earnest, hoping, but not bringing themselves to hope too much that their lost friend would come back today.
Danny’s parents hadn’t taken it too well. When they’d heard they’d come back, the first thing they did was search out Hayley and Jesse and ask where Danny had gone. They couldn’t answer, because they didn’t know. They had not seen them since. Jamie stopped to say hello every once in a while, and came to help them catch up on their missing work. But she never really did ask much about what happened. They figured she just didn’t want to know.
They wouldn’t have wanted to know either. It was a truly horrific time in their lives. A living nightmare that was bound to be repeated to them for years to come.
Then there had been the reporters. The hounding reporters from the moment that they’d come back, they’d wanted to know everything. Hayley and Jesse, of course, hadn’t said anything. They didn’t need to know. This didn’t succeed much; the reporters knew Danny was seemingly the only one that was captured that was tortured. They weren’t too sure about Danny Istari. They’d taken a guess that he’d probably suffered the same treatment.
So, now, they wanted to find out why it was only them that got tortured and not all four of them.
They’d been catching up with their lost years of schoolwork. There wasn’t long left of the semester, but they’d figure that they’d better start now than do it all after the summer holidays.
Looking up, both noticed a body fall to the ground and men walking away.
“Who’s that?” Jesse asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s go find out.” Hayley replied, already running towards the body.
“Hello, and this is Anna Buckmaster, reporting directly from the scene where it was reported Danny Smith reappeared.” A young, female reporter said, delivering the perfect grin to the camera. “No official reports have been released yet, but we expect them to come in soon.”
“That’s sad news. Can you tell us what people have been saying his condition was like upon discovery?” A male said in ‘the studio’. His name was Hank Weatherfield, with greying hair and wrinkles lining his face.
“Well, coincidentally enough, it was his friends, Hayley and Jesse were the ones to have found him. They declined to make a comment, but people who were also at the scene when they noticed Danny being left by some strange gang of people, said that he didn’t look to be in good shape. He was unconscious and not responding to any of his friends calls.”
“Right, well, it doesn’t look to be a good situation. Did anyone get a good look at this gang of people?”
“No. They had long gone by the time anyone went looking for them.”
“Has Danny’s family been informed?”
“Yes, we do know that they have been informed and are at the hospital with him now.”
“That’s good. We’ll be back with you shortly, Anna, to get an update on this dreadful situation.”
“See you then.”
“That was Anna Buckmaster, reporting live from the scene at Ovid Hospital.” Finished the reporter before continuing with his daily news.
“Danny?” It was a voice in the distance. “Hey, is he going to be okay?”
“Yes. We’ve done all we can for him at the moment, it’s just up to him when he wakes up.” Someone else replied. Who were they? Where am I?
It was silent again. My eyelids were heavy, I couldn’t move. My body felt three times the weight that I remembered it to be. Every part of my body ached.
I groaned.
“Danny?” the voice called again. It was a female.
“Hey? Danny? Can you hear me?”
I groaned again, struggling to open my eyes.
“Hey, I think he’s waking up.”
“Hey, don’t struggle. Take your time,” another voice added.
“Who’s there?” I asked, finally opening my eyes, my vision blurred. I blinked a few times in an attempt to clear my sight.
“It’s us. Hayley and Jesse.” The girl, Hayley replied.
I didn’t reply, instead focusing on getting my sight back to normal.
Looking around properly I noticed that Hayley and Jesse weren’t the only ones in the room; Jamie, Maggie and Jim were also here. I smiled. I didn’t know what else to do.
The atmosphere was tense, no one really knowing what to say or what to do.
“So, Danny, what happened back there? With you and Danny Istari?” Jesse asked, curiosity shining in his eyes.
“Nothing much.” I replied.
“You do know you were gone for like, a week, right?” Jesse retorted.
“I wasn’t with him.”
“So, where were you?” Hayley asked, looking at me sceptically.
“Nowhere special.” I replied. I didn’t really want to tell them of what had really happened. I’m pretty sure Hayley and Jesse in particular would believe me without hesitation. Jamie probably, too. But I couldn’t say anything in front of Maggie and Jim. They’d send me straight to the local nut house.
“So, you weren’t with him?” She asked dangerously.
“No.” I replied sharply. “Will you give it a rest, please?”
She gave no reply.
It was then that I became aware of the ache in my body. I groaned.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Jamie asked, jumping to my side.
“Just fine.” I replied, gripping onto my side to get rid of the pain, but it didn’t work.
“Do you need me to get a doctor?” Jamie asked.
“No.” I replied. “It’s fine.”
“It doesn’t look fine,” Jesse added.
“Please, just leave me alone.” I groaned.
“I’m going to get a doctor.” Hayley said defiantly.
No one listened to me. Was this the kind of life I’d led before?
A doctor came rushing in soon after, closely followed by Hayley.
“Danny? Can you hear me?” He asked.
I groaned in response.
“Where does it hurt?”
Stupid question.
“All over?”
I groaned. I’m hoping he took that as a yes.
“Is it getting worse?”
“What do you think?’ I gasped sarcastically.
“That’s good, you can speak.”
He walked away and did something I couldn’t see, and then suddenly the pain starting ebbing away slowly.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“Better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I replied, closing my eyes slightly.
“So, how have you been coping?” The doctor asked.
“Considering I wake up for about five minutes, and then suddenly, I’m covered in pain. Not so good.” I bit back sarcastically.
“And what about stuff that happened before you vanished again?”
I got the reference.
I looked at Jamie.
She got it too.
I didn’t look to Maggie or Jim. I didn’t want to see their looks of disappointment.
I didn’t look at Hayley or Jesse. I didn’t want to see their curiosity.
“Fine.”
“Just fine? You haven’t felt anything at all? No rebound effects?”
“I haven’t really had the time to really think about what happened.” I replied, and it was true. I hadn’t really just had the time to crave weed, I’d hardly even thought about it.
“That’s good. You’re mind has been occupied with something else.”
And with that he walked out.
“Do I want to know what you guys were just talking about?” Hayley asked.
“Not really.” I replied, looking down at the bedclothes. I could feel the heat and shame rising to my face. I don’t regret what I’d done, but that doesn’t mean to say I can’t be embarrassed about it…
It was an uncomfortable silence for a while after that.
“So, when do I get to leave?” I asked, looking up at everyone in the room.
“Uh, they weren’t sure sweetie, they wanted to see how you were doing first.” Maggie replied.
Well, great. I’m going to be here forever then, considering the episode I just had.
“Uh, okay.”
“Hey, Danny, can I ask you something?” Jamie asked quietly.
“As long as it’s not harmful to me.”
“Have you had any of your memories back?”
“Um. No, not really.”
“Not really meaning?”
“I can remember what happened when I was there. That’s come back. Nothing else.”
There was silence.
It took me a while when I was with the Resistance to figure out that what I was seeing flashes of was what happened to me the first time I was there. When I tried to look back further, the wall was there again, but this time, there was a long jagged crack running down it.
I don’t really think that I lost my memories normally. Something tells me there was something else involved in this too. But, why would any of my enemies want to get rid of my memories, if what’s in my memories is what they want?
I don’t understand it at all.
So, hopefully it's not that bad. I don't really know where I'm going with this at the moment. I know how I want it to end, and I know some vague ideas for the middle, just not how to connect it all to get there...
I'll figure it all out soon.
Maybe I'll get some major inspiration soon....
Anyway...
Night!
