Burn ▹ Ashton Irwin

thirty

The next moments after that seemed to go in slow motion. Nothimg seemed real anymore; the drugs in my pockets, the scratches on my arms, the red stains that had dried onto my finger tips. I was in a panicked daze as I hurried up down the hall to get to Luke's apartment. We had made it back from Cody's rather quickly without getting caught, but now we had a much worse problem on our hands.

I could hear Luke, Calum, and Michael all yelling different orders and commands at one another from infront of me, but all their voices were just muffled sounds in the back of my head. I stumbled and leaned against the wall for support, staring at Ashton's still body that was being carried by his friends. His eyes were shut and he didn't move; he just laid there.

Blood was dripping everywhere - his throbbing wound was creating a trail of red droplets on the floor that will need to be cleaned up soon. Luke held Ashton by the shoulders and Michael and Calum had each of his feet, carrying him to the safety of Luke's home. I was too weak to do anything. The only thing I could do was process the fact that Ashton had been shot, he was bleeding from the stomach, and he still hasn't opened his eyes yet.

When we finally crashed into Luke's apartment, everything finally became reality to me. It was easy to see that Ashton was literally dying infront of my eyes, and I had to do whatever it took to help him, even if I had no idea what to do.

"Alright," Luke ordered, carrying Ashton over to his kitchen table. Ashton groaned something but wouldn't fully open his mouth, or even open his eyes. Blood was already starting to stain the floor inside. "Put him here."

Michael shoved everything off the table and they gently set Ashton down ontop. Already, the blood was dripping onto the wood, forming little pools of red that resembled what Ashton looked like right now. At this moment, he was a blur to me and all I could see was that crimson. The crimson that stained his shirt and spilled out of his mouth with everytime he coughed.

Luke immediately ran over to his room and came back out a few moments later, carrying an armfull of white towels. "We need to stop the bleeding," he said to all of us.

"Ashton. Hey," he said, shaking Ashton by the head to wake him up. Ashton groaned and spit out more blood, just missing Luke's eyes by a few inches. Luke didn't even seem to notice that he just spat blood on him on accident, he went straight to work and propped Ashton up, sliding his shirt off his body.

I gasped and turned away when I looked at Ashton's exposed torso. It was so bad, it didn't even look like he was shot, but something way worse. Not only did removing his shirt increase the flow of the little red rivers trailing down his sides, but it showed us all the deep shades of blue, purple, and maybe even black that marked the deep cuts and gashes that marked his skin. "What the Hell is that?" I shouted, covering my hands over my mouth.

"Fuck. I don't even know," Luke replied, carefully pressing a towel down on the wounds. Ashton let out a scream and shut his eyes even tighter, squirming under Luke's grip and struggling to break free.

"Stop moving." Luke said loudly while Ashton gasped for air again. Michael held him down by the ankles and Calum went to search for some bandages. The first thing that had to be done, though, was to get the blood to stop pouring out of his body. I didn't know how long that was going to take, if I was being completely honest.

I felt like I was standing by in an operation room with professional doctors and a patient that was on the verge of death. Luke, Michael, and Calum kept shouting things to each other, shouting things to Ashton to get him to wake up and stay with them, I just stood there and watched. I prayed a little bit, begging for Ashton to be okay, but overall I was too shocked to step in and help.

"Okay Ashton," Luke applied more pressure to Ashton's stomach and leaned down next to his face. Calum came back into the kitchen with a roll of banages in one hand, a trash can in the other. "I'm going to flip you over now, alright? And you're gonna get rid of all the blood in your mouth, got it?"