The Wrong Way Around [Phan]

Chapter 28

Dan's Pov

Everything seemed to be going in fast forward, yet it all still seemed like a dream.

No, not a dream. A nightmare.

A horrible nightmare, that I couldn't wake up from no matter how hard I tried or no matter how terrifying it got. And that was the worst part.

Whatever happened right now, there was nothing I could do about it. If Phil didn't make it through this, I knew I would blame myself.

For not just making him eat more, therefore preventing him from going into his room when it went off.

For not finding that thing earlier.

For not doing a better job of protecting him.

For not being a good person.

The thoughts plagued my mind as the paramedics rushed me and Phil into the hospital.

"Do I... know you?" asked one of the nurses as I walked in, still carrying Phil.

I immediately recognized him as the nurse who had been in my hospital room when I woke up the day Phil "died."

"Yeah, you do," I responded bluntly as I pushed past him. He ran a bit to keep up.

"Could you remind me where I know you from, exactly, please?"

I sighed, then stopped abruptly, making Rory nearly run into me. I stood there, in the middle of the hospital, and asked him, "what do you want?"

"Well, uh," he started, not seeming to know what exactly he wanted to say. "It's just, last I remembered, that man you're holding in your arms there... died," he finished lamely.

I decided I liked this guy.

"Yep. He's okay now, though."

"Right, okay then..." he said, not asking questions, and acting as though this was completely normal.

"You act as though that's something you hear everyday," I told him.

"Yeah, I've... um, I know someone who had something similar happen..." he said, a distant look in his eyes, as though he were remembering something. "Oh! Your friend!" he exclaimed, focus returning to his eyes. "Where's he going?"

"No idea. Apparently he breathed in a whole bunch of poisonous gas and might not make it."

Rory's expression suddenly changed, to a combination of shock and... was that guilt? I chose to ignore it, hoping I had been wrong, while Rory offered to get a stretcher and take Phil wherever he had to go himself.

Still unable to think straight, I placed Phil's heavy, unconscious body into Rory's now outstretched arms. Slightly startled, he carried my boyfriend over to a stretcher and began pushing it down the long hallway of the hospital.

"Oh yeah," he said, turning around just before the first corner. "If you just wait there for a bit, I'll get someone to come update you on his condition in a while."

Almost zombie-like, I turned away from them and made my way back to the waiting room.

After barely half an hour, I fell asleep in my chair.

Too soon, I felt someone shaking me by the shoulder and woke up to find a doctor staring down at me, glasses perched on the end of his short but pointy nose.

"I have news for you about..." he paused to look down at the clipboard clutched in his left hand. "... Phil Lester?"