Grey Testament ✓

Twenty-Eight | I Can Be Alone

SOTC: Lose Control by MEDUZA, Becky Hill, and Good Boys

I burst through the doors of the hospital, panting.

"Ma'am— Ma'am, do you know where Sabrina Versailles is?" I cried at the receptionist of the front desk I ran crazily to.

"What's your na—" she began.

"DAPHNE!"

The receptionist's head and mine whipped to Mom, who ran down a lone hallway as fast as her heels could go to me.

"MOM!" I collided into her, immediately pulling away. "Mommy, where's Sabrina?"

Mom's seizing hands tried to cover her face. "The EMTs pulled her away and I don't know where she went and—" A choke broke her off before she wept, "They're cutting my baby's stomach open."

Remain calm, Daphne. Remain calm, Daphne. Remain calm, Daphne.

"Ma'am!"

The sound came from a nurse in red who ran in the middle of us out of breath, whipping her head to us both. "Is this your daughter, Mrs. Versailles?"

Mom didn't even answer the question. "What is the news?" she asked, clasping onto his arm. "WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MY BABY?"

I stood there frozen, my eyes glued to the nurse.

"I don't know," she said quickly in her high voice. "But I've been sent here to fetch you. Mr. Versailles and Dr. Fox need you to answer some questions in a room I'll guide you to. But your daughter can't come with." She looked at me. "There's a darker hall two lefts from the one by the secretary desk if you want quiet."

"Miss—" Mom's head whipped back at me then her. "Miss, I can't. I can't leave her alone." Her hands cupped her face, thick amounts of water pricking her eyes.

"I can't leave another one alone," she whispered.

"No, mom, it's ok!" I touched her face, looking at the nurse. "You two can go. I can be alone."

I can be alone.

The nurse nodded, muttering something to her as she led her away from me. Mom lifted her face from her hands, eyes wide like a doe's as she sauntered backwards away from me. Like a child drifting on a boat in the ocean away from me, staring at me in shock mixed with the horror that they're going away and never seeing you again.

I can be alone.

I did what the nurse instructed me to, going into the hallway by the secretary's desk. Air entered through my nose in a cold breeze into my lungs and out as I weaved through the hall's two lefts.

I can be alone.

Stopping, I found myself in a mostly dark hallway with a dim light fixed on the ceiling. But it was getting brighter and stretching out to both ends of my vision as it continued to blur from the watery substance pricking my eyes. No, Daphne, stop crying.

I can be alone.

I can be alone.

One steady breath turned jagged upon me breathing through my mouth. Cold breath froze itself through my tongue to encompass the insides of my mouth to be burned by another breath that went quicker. And another much faster than the last and one much faster than that one.

I can be alone.

I can be alone.

I can't be alone.

I wailed out, covering my face with my hands and slamming my back against the wall. Every hyperventilation rained hell-slicing knives throughout my being. Congestion slashed violently up and down my throat like a violent storm, threatening to suffocate me. I dug my fingers into my ears as if they could stop the noise shaking my every body part from my blood vessels to my electrified heart twisting like an abused rag doll.

My sister might die. Dad and Mom are in a whole other room. Rosalina and Hallie were begged by me that I could do this on my own as soon as Rosalina sped me to the hospital. But I needed someone here with me right now. Right the hell now.

Suddenly, I whipped out my phone with shaky hands. Blinking back tears as humanly possible, I dialed his number with my pointer finger and held it to my ear by a shaky hand, crying out.

Boooooop!

"Hello?" said a deep, gravely voice.

"KOLZYN!" I shrieked in incoherent tones. "Kolzyn, get to the hospital right now! Sabrina's going to labor and I'm in an empty hallway and I'm scared!" I breathed in another choke for air. "Just get to the hospital right now!"

Silence overtook the other end of the line.

"Kolzyn!" I hoarsely rasped, bending over on myself. "Kolzyn, I need you."

"I'll be there," he said.

Then he hung up.

"Come back," I squeaked, nearly suffocating. "Come back, come back!" But all I saw on my phone was my wallpaper.

I let out a weak, prolonged scream. My body fell onto the floor sideways. I clawed at the ground savagely as if I could grip it. Before my eyes flashed a sickeningly blue room with IVs everywhere and Sabrina's cold, dead lifeless eyes that made Mono Lake weep with a baby that never left her stomach. I'm sorry, the doctors would say to our parents. Then Dad would fall to his knees and vanish in a cloud of ashes and Mom would weep her eyes out until she was a tsunami assassinating us all.

Suddenly, the doctor's hand clasped my shoulder. I started screaming at him not to tell me the news that my sister is dead and so is a child that I once resented, but suddenly his voice was too real— and too familiar— to be in my thoughts.

"Shh, Daphne," Kolzyn whispered as he rubbed it. "You're going to be alright."

Teaser: One character's backstory is revealed