MORTAL ✰ ISAAC LAHEY

[CHAPTER 16]

NOTE: OK THIS IS REALLY EMOTIONALLY HARROWING AND I THOUGHT I'D MENTION THAT IN CASE YOU MIGHT CRY IN A PUBLIC PLACE OR SOMETHING WHILE READING THIS!!

The I.C.U.

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"I'M SO GLAD they let me see you," he began, "But I'm looking at you through a glass window and I shouldn't be."

Stiles Stilinski was shaking. His skin was crawling as he stood several inches away from a glass that separated him and one of his oldest friends. Those several inches felt like the fine line between life and death; in a way, they were.

"This feels so surreal," he said after a pause. A heavy, dutiful pause. "It feels wrong."

Stiles had felt so restless he could barely sit still any longer. He had constantly shifted from sitting in the Emergency Room chairs, aggressively running his fingers over his short hair, interrogating the front desk nurses on call, and pacing on the tiled floor with fervor, and muttering incoherent words under his breath. He had felt so useless—the entire situation couldn't be controlled.

It was like a chess match, but all the pieces were in the hands of someone else and he was just one of the many pawns being controlled. His friends were the pawns being sacrificed in a game no one ever wanted to play.

"We shouldn't be having this one sided conversation—you should be able to respond to me," the words tumbled out of his mouth as his chest ached. After hours of time torturing him, he became the second person to see Skye. "You shouldn't be lying there, unresponsive, and you definitely shouldn't be in the ICU of a hospital."

Mrs. McCall had practically begged him to join her when Skye was allowed family visitors. She refused to let the doctors keep Stiles away and told them she would allow for some non-family visitors in case the worst would happen.

When another nurse had led the two to the floor of the ICU, they were told it was a waiting game. The nurse tried to skip over the details of the crash and Skye's injuries, but Mrs. McCall wanted to know the full story.

By the time they got to the room, they had barely learned anything, but they were told that they had to stay on the outside of the room, but they could monitor Skye through a glass window. It was at the sight of Skye that Mrs. McCall broke down again, and she merely cried for ten minutes as Stiles stared ahead.

She didn't utter a single word, but the heartbroken look on her face said it all. What she felt was pure pain, and it was the only thing she felt. She was choking on it as tears ran down her face and as she wrapped her arms around herself tightly. She never looked away, even when several nurses and doctors spoke quietly to her and tried to coax her into taking a seat elsewhere and resting for a little bit.

After a while, a few of the nurses slowly held onto her and took her away from her place beside the window. They tried to ease her pain by taking her sights off of the hell that was watching someone you love slowly slip away, but the damage was done—the sight would never leave her mind. Every time she blinked, the image would appear from the darkest parts of her mind and it would taunt her.

Things like that haunt people. They find a way to take root in the dark corners inside and they grow stronger until they take over. Sometimes it goes unnoticed, but often, the emptiness grows and grows like a tumor.

It festers and makes a home in the hearts of both the brave and the cowardly. It knows no bounds, and once it takes root, it will spread into veins and then there's no going back.

There's no going back to the person you were before. There's no return trip, even if you didn't ask to board this train. You are changed now.