i finally finished this chapter — it's a christmas miracle 😱 happy holidays my loves.
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@maino_merry on twitter
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It's been a week since the accident.
You hardly remember everything that's happened since then - even the things that happened on that fateful day are nothing more than painful blurred memories.
You remember the debut. You remember what your father said. You remember seeing the accident. You remember running towards it during the blizzard. You remember being held back by someone - but whether that someone was Erwin or a first responder is unclear in your memory. You remember how long you waited for Armin to be pulled from the wreck - and the symphony of miss, pls step back's you heard that evening. You remember him being rushed into the ER and you chasing close behind. You remembered Erwin sitting with you in the waiting room - urging you to come home but you refused. You remember... you remember everything and nothing at the same time because all the little conversations you had, all the small details of the night, all of it was lost and replaced with horrific memories about all the bad things that happened that evening.
The week that followed that night passed similarly - you retaining nothing substantial apart from everything you wished you could forget.
You were sitting in one of the chairs in the hospital room adjacent to Armin's bed. You had your knees bent and your arms wrapped around your legs - pulling them to your chest - as you sat and stared at Armin.
He was hooked up to a ventilator and so many machines it was practically overwhelming. You watched his chest eerily rise and fall with small breaths. It was robotic, like watching one of those stuffed animals that breathes with the touch of a button. And with each breath came the repetitive beep of his heart rate monitor.
Despite how irriting the continuous beeping was, you were grateful it was there because it meant Armin's heart was beating. It meant he was alive.
This beep slowly started to become your favourite meolody because it was one that reminded you Armin was still here.
You were convinced you lost him. When you drove up to the accident you felt, in your soul, that your Armin was gone. The frontside of his car was completely totalled - smashed in so hard the concave hole it left allowed you to practically see into the engine. And there was so much glass and debris - you didn't realize how many parts cars had until you saw so many of the pieces scattered on the snowy road.
And the fire... the red roaring flames. The image of them was burned into your retinas. They engulfed the car both inside and out. It was horrific, and brutal, and gave you a newfound hate for the element.
