Chase Me || Calum Hood

0.2

Delilah;

Highway hypnosis: it's a mental state that occurs when you arrive somewhere, but you have no recollection of your journey.

For instance, every Thursday I'd drive down to the local supermarkets and back; it was a regular, consistent event that'd I'd been doing for years, yet I realized one day that I seemed to have no memory of my drive there. I knew I'd been: the bags of shopping were evidence enough, but by the time I'd have closed the front door, I wouldn't be able to tell you a thing about going there. It was always strange to me. I thought it only occurred in places of patterns; a specific route that you took without fail...

Somehow, I'd arrived at the hospital, in the middle of the night. Alone. It was some form of it, that I knew; the only other possible explanation would be that it was shock. I was pretty fazed out, either way.

When I walked in the doors, there were a couple doctors hurrying around the trauma pit: one treating a screaming child, another with a young man whose leg was torn open from his knee right down to his ankle. The sight of blood usually made me weak, but I couldn't have been less moved by anything.

I could hear voices, but they were blurred and all strung together; a chorus of harmonies that I couldn't compose. There was no blood on me, but all I could feel was red, whatever that meant. It ached, but the longer I stood there, the more that ache started to burn. All I could think was, maybe it was death.

Before I could even shake or tremble or move, a hand latched onto my wrist. It was a doctor. I think he was asking if I was hurt. I couldn't even speak.

Turning around, my eyes scanned the building, and even though I'd never been there before, I was searching for something familiar. Something that would offer me even a fraction of comfort. But all I found were terrified faces - those of which belonged to people with shattered hearts. There was fear everywhere, on every single patient; except one...

He came wheeled in, minutes after I had arrived, wearing all the red that was burning to my soul. Lying on a gurney, a medic straddled him - compressing down onto his chest in an attempt to get his heart starting. There wasn't any fear on his face, because he wasn't breathing. Because there had been so much damage done to him since I saw him 40 minutes ago.

But if there was, would it be fear of the pain, or of surviving it? Of his bloodied reflection, or of having to see mine again? If his heart started again, if he wasn't afraid, would he fight? Or would he fade into the darkness where the terror wouldn't exist? It left me wondering. 

What would you do if you weren't afraid? Would you love someone, or would you let them go?

--two-

19th May, 2017.