Reality Beyond the Walls

Chapter One- Sebastian

- Sebastian -

My eyelids feel like they are holding a ton of bricks on top of them. I use my fingers to hold them open, but nothing is working. This is so unsafe. I have already been busted on multiple accounts for unsafe driving, and this is worse. It isn’t my fault that Mrs. Whiterman is the most boring history teacher I have ever had. Her whiney voice making out sophisticated words have given me a migraine, but here I am, still alive. My eyes continue to close and I begin to nod...

I am jerked awake at the sound of a car horn, which happens to be my own, though I haven't touched it. I blink then look around my car: the music volume is wailing up and down and lights flash across the dashboard. Well that isn’t normal. I look away from the lights on the dashboard, trying to focus, keep myself awake when the overhead lights start blinking. Then the turn signals. Then the back-up lights and the headlights. This isn't happening. I know it's not. I must be really tired, that's all. With a heavy yawn that makes my eyes water and a chuckle, I think, I should probably transfer classes so this doesn’t happen again. It's only when my steering wheel finds a mind of its own and begins steering against my will that I know I can't be hallucinating. I yank at the wheel trying to turn it left, away from the ditch it's heading towards, yet it resists, and I find myself in a head-on collision course with a tree.

I am too scared to think about the girly sounds emitting from me when I scream. I frantically look around the road, hoping for a way out or someone to call the police or to get me out, maybe a reason why this is happening. But there are no cars, no people. It only just registers that there haven't been any since I left the grocery store--something incredibly rare, especially for now. My thoughts are interrupted and my hope of a rescue is gone when the front of my car smashes into the tree. I hear the sickening crunch of metal and shattering glass before me as I am thrown this way and that as the car slides, even despite the useless seatbelt. The windshield, now sporting a lattice of cracks and sharp ridges rains broken pieces all over my body. I try to cry out, shout for help that I know isn't there, but I realize I can’t breathe even before I know how useless it is. Something is choking me and the edges of my vision are turning black. Am I dying? Oh, dear God, please don’t let me die.

And I saw nothing after that.

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I wake up to a sharp throbbing, like someone is repeatedly stabbing me in the leg. My eyes are crusty around the edges but finally able to open, and I look down to find myself laying across the center console with my legs through the sunroof.

Odd. I don’t even remember that happening…. And how long have I been out? The thought scares me. I've been knocked unconscious and have no idea how long it's been. With much difficulty, I pull my legs from the sunroof with the speed of a man that hasn't moved in a hundred years and find the source of pain in my leg: a shard of glass the length of my palm, sticking straight out of my leg. The cut is seeping dark crimson liquid that has already stained all up and down my legs. My brain hasn't received any more signs of distress from the rest of my body yet, clearly not firing on all cylinders, and I don't even want to know what other injuries there are.

I don't dare touch the glass, so I carefully roll over onto my stomach and begin searching for my cellphone, pawing through glass, various tree branches and crushed metal framework, finally touching the familiar smooth surface with a hand jammed under the passenger seat. I pull it out and tried to dial 911, but my ear is met with a flat, whining tone of a line dead. I grunt in frustration and toss my phone behind me, looking out the jagged edge of the window for any signs of help. There are yet again no cars, none at all, no people or any signs of civilization anywhere close by. My phone is dead, my car is smashed to bits and the engine is smoking up something awful. I am trapped without any form of transportation to get to the closest hospital... whichever direction that might be in. I obviously can't walk, not with injuries like this, but it's looking more and more as if this is my only option. I push myself back onto the driver's seat, hardly noticing that glass that buries itself into my thighs where I sit compared to everything else. I gently rock my head back to meet the headrest, closing my eyes once more against the glaring sun and try to remember my sleep-deprived drive to where I am now.

I remember a sign stating boldly ONE MILE: MELGRASS CITY HOSPITAL, which, by my reckoning, had been not so long ago that I can't remember it (who remembers road sign?), so the hospital must be not so far away as I can't make it there by sundown. I puff out a breath of air... A mile on this leg? But it's my only shot.

I crawl from my seat slowly and push open the door, which immediately drops off the hinges. Once out of the car and struggling to regain my balance on the heated, blackened pavement of the relatively new street, I examine the damage. There isn’t a dent, not a single mark, on the tree. Wouldn’t this much damage in the car have done something to the tree… like it would have fallen over possibly?? Something isn't right. I slide a hand under my seat, feel around for a bit and slip the gun I keep there into the back of my jeans, cover it with my short and begin my agonizing journey down the street.

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It is like being stung by thousands of bees, then stabbed with a knife a couple times, and somewhere in there it was like an elephant was pinning my leg on the floor that would not budge, the walk from my not-so-much-a-car-anymore to the hospital. The sun is just beginning to make a final dip behind the treeline and make way for the light of the moon tonight as I find myself at the massive, haven-like doors of the... Empty hospital. There are no ambulances coming in, none going out, no stiff and close-to-lifeless security guards or policemen outside. I keep as much weight off my foot as possible as I make my way closer to the doors.

"Hello?" I call out and receive no answer.

It's almost as if the two men materialize from thin air as I am hobbling forward, reaching out to grip the door handle, wondering how I am ever going to get it open. I see them and jump back, clutching my racing heart and the bloodstained gash in my leg. They wear white suits, gleaming in the orange light. MCPD is printed in fat blue lettering across the front: Melgrass City Police Department. Thick glasses cover their eyes and thick helmets cover their heads. They wear gloves, even in the heat of summer. The only amount of skin I see is their chins and a part of their jaw, stretching up just enough to reveal the hard, no-nonsense line of their mouth and nostrils flaring in and out with each heavy breath. Each carries a stick in his hand, a metal pole as thick around as my wrist that give off no impression of kindness.

I gulp and take a few steps back, careful to feel gingerly where I set my foot as I make my retreat. Even from this safe distance away, I still have to tilt my head up to see their face. They say nothing, make no move to help me as the fingers holding the gash in my leg become sticky with blood that is flowing freely now from my hike.

 “Excuse me," I say as though they haven't seen me. "Could you help me. Please?” I say it again, louder, when my leg begins to throb and my vision becomes clouded. The two men say nothing, show no change in expression. They turn their heads the other way, however, and I follow their gaze to see a young woman coming through the front door in my direction. Next to the woman limping in was another girl in the weird uniforms. She stared me down before whispering something one of the men who turned away from me.

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first chapter done! the prologue doesn't count ;)

if you've seen my story before, I took it down and started over. it is a little different, but the same story!

xoxo, BX