A River Of Emotions Chapter 5 Page 14

I couldn't do anything to help her... She was there calling for me, beckoning me, crying out to me and I did absolutely NOTHING!!!!!!!!! Well, what could I do? I knew it was over. I just wasn't ready for it though. It's so strange that sometimes the most unimaginable things happen to you and you are just not flustered as you always thought you'd be. Well, there was only so much a twenty year old could handle. You have to give me that much.

Seeing your parents die, no burn to death, in front of your own eyes with your sister crying with you isn't easy. Not at all. In a matter of hours, everything was destroyed. No, not the buildings and all the monetary assets that my college accounts teachers talked about. This was way more important that those pointless entries. Well, that was the worth of a human being. Human assets were never valued. If they were, I would have recorded an ultimate closure of the business of life.

Life comes to a standstill. Nothing seems to work out. It feels as if everything is over. Why is this happening to us? Why only us? Wait. Was there any point for these questions? I am behaving like a girlie teenager now but I really cannot help it.

Finally, I am independent. Something I had always wanted to be. No one to question me. No one to monitor me. No one to reprimand me. No one to tell me I am wrong. No one to pat me when I do something right and trust me they have been very few times... How I wish I could reverse time!

A bright flash of lightning.

Oh god, this can't be good.

Almost immediately followed by a deafening crash of thunder.

Oh, GOD, please not now. Not like this. I'm too young to die. Please, please, please, please...

I had my blanket pulled up over my head, one ear pressing down on my pillow and the other blocked by my finger. I squeezed my eyes shut, theoretically at least, because I couldn't help but sneak a peek every now and then to see the next flash of lightning.

Another roaring clap of thunder, nearly at the same time as the lightning.

No, no, I know physics. I'm NOT scared. If I see the lightning now, and hear the thunder two seconds later then- OHMYGOD DON'T LET ME DIE!

My thoughts were interrupted by more rain and thunder. I was trying to figure out how far away from me were the giant bolts of electricity satisfying their hunger by burning down trees and cursed houses. Trust me, I'm not usually scared of things like this, and I know it's not very rational for a well-educated sixteen-year-old to be afraid of death by lightning. But it was a scary night. And my horrible cold wasn't helping, because having a blocked nose makes it that much harder to stuff your face into the pillow.

"Hey, are you okay?" asked a deep male voice.

I could fantasize all I want that my knight in shining armour (preferably not metal, so as not to be human lightning arrestors) was here to rescue me, but it was just my older brother Matt. And when I say older, I mean like nine and a half years older. I opened one eye to look at him.

"Do you want to come and lie next to me?" he asked, in a bored tone. I was waiting for someone to come and call me. I was saved. Statistically, being next someone wouldn't reduce my chances of getting struck by lightning, but at least it would give me some reassurance that if I did get struck by lightning, Matt could try and save me. So I jumped at the opportunity though I didn't want to let him know that.

"See, this is why you can't keep a girlfriend for more than three months," I said, trying to mask my fear and subsequent relief, as we were walking towards his room. "No girl likes a guy who clings to his sister." Matt lightly' hit the back of my head.

Well, lightly for him, being the six foot three inch giant he is. My head could have very well gone flying into the next room. I coughed as I climbed into his bed.

"Now where the hell do I sleep?" he asked irritated.

"The floor?" I asked sheepishly.

Matt sighed as he pulled an extra bed sheet out of his closet and spread it on the cold, hard ground. This wasn't like five years ago, when the fire at the company killed our parents. Back then, Matt and I would both fit on his single cot, when I'd have nightmares about the fire and he'd sleep, exhausted from his studies and the two jobs he had to work to keep things running around here and pay the rent for our crappy apartment.

Thanks to last night's rain, it was cool in the morning. But everything was wet and slushy. It as if the whole town had a cold. Speaking of colds, my cold had gotten much worse over the night, as I sniffed and sneezed my way through the morning.

"Hey Rudolph," commented Matt as I woke up and went to have breakfast. The cold was so bad that it took me five whole seconds to realize the reference he'd just made to Rudolph to Red Nosed Reindeer. I just scowled at him. Then I looked at my watch.

"Oh shit, it's eleven and I'm late for sch-"

"Relax, it's a Sunday," reminded Matt, as he kept a bowl of steaming hot milk in front of me, and handed me the box of cereal. He and I had a working system of division of labour; we had a chart of chores. On weekdays, I would be in charge of food, and on weekends Matt would either try and miserably fail at cooking or we'd go to the nearby restaurant for dinner.

Halfway through breakfast I felt I'd throw up if I ate anymore, so I stopped eating.

Matt looked worried. He felt my forehead and said, "You feel really warm, Sarah, why don't you go back to bed?"

"Yeah, okay," I mumbled and went to my room. My blanket wasn't there. I'd taken it to Matt's room last night. I went to his room, and then felt too tired to go back. So I just crashed on his bed, and tried to sleep.

I had a very fitful sleep. In fact most of the time, I was in that state where you're half asleep and everything feels hazy like you're in a dream. I felt cold, and yet sweaty at the same time. I vaguely saw Matt coming and sitting next to me, and asking me to swallow a tablet. I went back to my uneasy sleep, where I saw my mom. She was stroking my hair. Then I saw my dad yelling at Matt in the hall. I wanted to get up and stop him, but I couldn't move. Then the apartment caught fire. My parents disappeared, like smoke dissolving in the air. But I saw my brother burning, and so was I. I could smell my singed hair. I wanted to get up; I wanted to scream for help.

Then I woke up gasping. I felt as if there wasn't enough air in the room.

Matt was seemed to show up from nowhere. "God, you're burning up." I heard him say, as his figure came in and out of focus. In the middle of all my coughing I heard him say, "Okay, that's it, we're going to the hospital."

When I came to, the first thing I noticed was the smell. Everything smelt clean, the air was cold and crisp, with only a faint smell of disinfectant and rubbing alcohol. There was something ticklish under my nose. I tried to move my head to shake it away, but it was still there. I tried to move my right arm to remove whatever it was, but something pulled at my hand, and there was a sharp pain there. I hissed, and opened my eyes to find myself staring a plain white ceiling.

"You really had me terrified for a while there," said Matt, his face lighting up as he saw me awake.

"What happened?" I asked hoarsely.

"What happened? I thought you were bloody dying! You couldn't breathe properly! God, I was so freaked out, and your temperature was like, whoa! So I called Chase and we got you to the hospital. But you were so-"

"Okay, Matt got your point," I croaked. Chase was his best friend. He was practically family. He was a runaway. From what he told us, his parents would fight every night and his older sister would always be out getting drunk. So one day, when he was seventeen, he just left everything and ran. Matt and Chase ran a workshop together. They'd decided that four years of higher studies was enough for them, and so began this joint venture' after they got their bachelor's degrees.

"They say you have pneumonia."

"Where is Chase, anyway?" I asked Matt.

"You know Sasha, she and her mom run the diner-" Matt continued talking about Chase's whereabouts, but I couldn't pay attention to him. Something was wrong with me. It started out as a little pain in the back of my head, but kept increasing in magnitude, until I felt as if someone was repeatedly showing a knife up my head. I wanted to yell, and rip the bed and bite into the pillows, but my whole body was stiff. I suddenly felt my throat close up. It was too much, I felt like I would explode any second.

Matt was asking me what's wrong. He could see the pain on my face; he couldn't figure what was happening. He was begging me to talk to him.

Just then, for second, I managed to suck in a breath. As if to let him know everything that was wrong, I let out a scream. I arched my back off the bed trying to breathe, but it just wasn't happening.

I heard Matt yell out for help, and his panicked face was the last thing I saw before blacking out again.

_________________________________________________________