Fading Away ✅

Chapter Forty-three

Blaze's POV

The only sound filling the white, quiet space is the dull rhythm of beeps. The only window to the side is half open only allowing a little stream of sunlight in. Snow had quickly bade goodbye upon the arrival of March but everything around me still feels cold and bleak.

The television mounted on the wall mumbles out a show into oblivion. A glass of water sits untouched on the edge of the side table overflowing with cards and flowers. Ninety percent of people this came from are strangers.

Suddenly, the beeping stops.

Everything looks and feels empty

Everything looks and feels fake

The glass of water along with the flowers and cards suddenly disappear and I jostle awake.

This is the nightmare that has been haunting me during these last two weeks. The beeping sound always stops before I wake up.

Fortunately, the real world is different and the familiar beeping invades my ears.

I move sluggishly to the bed where Belle lays looking calm and peaceful. I ran my fingers around her scalp shifting back a lock of her hair that covers her pale face. It had been two weeks since she slipped into a coma and there had been no signs of improvement.
And two weeks of asking myself the same question.

Who is Alexa Magnus?

Except this time, I am not the only one wondering that.

The two weeks had passed in a blur I still sometimes wonder if this is my nightmare.
Everything happened so fast and all at the same time, we are all left confused and disturbed

One minute, Belle is in a coma, the next, Carson's reported himself to the police for spreading nudes that were in his possession. He told the police he sent the nudes of Belle to a teacher who had requested them.
When asked how the teacher knew her nudes were with him, he said he had no idea. That, the teacher had told him to meet him in his class after school.
Carson had been baffled. The teacher didn't report him nor confiscate it. Rather, he had granted him a deal – send him the nudes and in turn, he would make sure he passed his class that Carson was greatly failing.
If not, he threatened to either report him to the authorities which could cause a strain on his records, or fail him.
Carson had accepted his deal after a few days.
In his testimony, he stated that he needed a football scholarship to his dream school and he couldn't afford to lose what he hadn't attained yet.

The teacher's name I later found out is Riz Letterman. He is a tall, lean brunette who looks to be in his early forties.
He is an English teacher at the school Carson attends and Belle used to attend.

He was called in for questioning and he denied everything adding that he needs a picture to spark his memory of who Belle is.

Carson continued to state that he was right. He didn't back down from his claim. He told the police it was time the truth came out and everyone needed to know who Riz was but unfortunately, there was no evidence to back his statement and all the charges pressed had been dropped. He had long deleted the nudes after everything had happened and Riz couldn't be searched because there was no evidence to suspect him.

I believe Carson.

Why?
I don't know but that gut feeling of fear I felt when Belle run out of the school is what I feel except this time it's not fear–it's anger.

Everything doesn't make sense–yet. The only person that can provide answers to our many questions and who can make everything right is in a comatose state.

She felt she could not share her secret with anyone and it had led her to end her life.

She was going to wake up.