Behind The Mask

Chapter 45

Sometimes something happens so quickly and unexpectedly that your mind doesn't quite have time to process it. It's almost like your mind shuts down and start thinking about stupid things. For instance, once when I was about nine years old, another car sped into my mom and me, hitting my side of the car. Luckily I was in the back and my mom wasn't going very fast. We got out of the car without any bruises. The window didn't even break. I remember my mom complaining later that night that she had whiplash. I found the word whiplash funny for some reason. Almost like it should not have been a word. But that wasn't the funniest thing at the time.

When I was nine I was obsessed with two things. Anything to do with dinosaurs, and the song Titanium by David Guetta, which could have been because my mom loved the song as well. My mom still burned mixed CD's back then, and she would always put that song first and last on every album she made. I remember that I looked up towards my left hand side. I could see the car coming for us, but I froze. I could not say a word. But I knew I was going to die. I have no idea why I even had a concept of death at that age, but I knew the car would hit us and this was my last moment. And all I can remember thinking was how glad I was that Titanium would be the last song I would be hearing as I die.

Both me and my mom survived and I have never played that song since. But I have wondered, had it really been my time to die, would I have seen my life flash in front of me like the movies make it out to be? Or would I have seen what I could have been, had I lived longer? Do seconds come to a halt and a ghost of your life, past, present, and future visit you at that moment? Or is a stupid thought the one you make your last bow with? A thought so insignificant as being thankful for a certain song playing?

"Are you shot?" I ask E.J. as I pat down his body, touching him everywhere I can, rubbing my fingers against each other with every pat I give him to make sure my fingers aren't wet and sticky from his blood.

He doesn't answer, but looks at me with tears streaming down his face, his entire body trembling and shaking uncontrollably. Looking down at my hands, I see I am doing the same.

The ringing in my ears are unbearable, but I wish it was worse so that I could block out the screaming and crying around me, and the sound of sirens somewhere outside coming closer. I notice that the music had died down and there is more light in the club than what there was before the shots were fired.

"Where's Grace?" I ask, but E.J. has already answered my question by grabbing me by the hand and starting to pull me towards the stage, pushing past people, and stepping past bodies covered in blood, making it almost impossible to decide which ones were still alive and who was merely injured. My eyes, like his, focussed on the stage where Grace is crouching, and Will is sitting in a pile, screaming Cameron's name over and over again.

The beautiful pink dress is covered in red liquid that has been displaced onto both Will and Grace, her white blouse with its frills, hanging damp against her as if she held Cameron against her. The blotches of blood everywhere on Grace's shit almost looks like flowers against the white, and Will's bloody hands seemed to have found his face at some point, leaving red streaks over his forehead and right cheek.

Someone who has been shot doesn't look like in the movies, where they are lying there almost peacefully, speaking to the loved ones surrounding them. Cameron's face is scrunched up in pain, his breathing loud and erratically coming out is small coughs as his eyes frantically jump around, almost like he is looking for someone but they are moving very fast in front of him.

"Holy fuck," are the only words I get out as I let go of E.J's hand, almost falling down next to Will, instinctively wrapping my arms around him, making him grab onto me, pulling the shirt I am wearing in his hands so tightly that it feels like it might rip off my body.