COLLAPSED ᵀᵂᴰ¹ ✔

68. open up your eyes

She was definitely high but she couldn't remember taking any drugs. All she saw when she concentrated was a face. It was a man, he looked angry but somehow she knew he wasn't mad at her. There was despair in his painfully beautiful blue eyes and somehow all she wanted to do was reach out, touch him, tell him she was fine. She lifted her hands and his face dissolved before her eyes like smoke. Her gaze went to her hands and the beast inside of her awoke again when she saw the red sticky blood on her fingers.

A scream left her throat and she stumbled backwards, wiping her hands at her shirt but that didn't help because her shirt was covered in blood as well.

Everywhere she looked she could see it, on the walls, the floor, in her hair, on her jeans.

Everywhere.

She screamed again, tears streaming down her face. She was locked in a nightmare. This wasn't the heavenly blissful numbness she remembered. This was hell.

She fell down on her knees, hugging herself as she cried. She was locked up in some sort of cruel joke and her mind did not seem the know the way out. Past, present, all of her memories, they seemed to be one big mess. She couldn't get a grip on anything.

The music changed and at first she barely noticed it, the panic to raw and real but slowly the words reached her and settled within. This wasn't just any song. The words were so familiar that it hurt. Her mother's song...

Hot tears crawled down her cheeks and she wrapped her arms around herself, rocking back and forth as she sang along, the words pouring out of her, as if it'd been yesterday that she last heard them.

"For the first time you can open your eyes
And see the world without your sorrow
Where no one knows the pain you left behind"

Something warm wrapped itself around her hand. Slowly she opened her eyes and looked down. A small, pale hand was tangled in her own. A soft voice singing along with her own.

"And all the peace you could never find
Is waiting there to hold and keep you
Welcome to the first day of your life
Just open up your eyes, eyes"

A sudden light shone down on her, so bright that she winced and closed her eyes. Her tears were still streaming down her cheeks as the vision slowly died away, the drugs that had captured her let her go. And for a second she doubted if she truly wanted to leave but then those painful blue eyes appeared before her again and this time she remembered the person they belonged to.

Just as broken, just as damaged as herself but would he ever go back to that life? Would he ever give up like that and give in to the blissful silence that only drugs could provide?

She knew the answer.

And that was all she needed to let go of the vision. She ignored the shreds that were still clinging onto her and walked straight into the light, towards the soft and small voice that kept on singing and the warm hand that was holding hers.

Quinn opened her eyes, blinked a few times to get used to the light, then frowned upon seeing what appeared to be a hospital room.

Carefully she turned her head to the right, pain flaming through her back when she did. The memory of the car accident flashed bright as day through her head and a sudden panic held her in a tight grip. But it faded as soon as it came when she saw who was seated beside her, still singing, her eyes focused on their entangled hands.

"Welcome to the first day of your life
Just open up your eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes"

'Beth?' She stammered, her throat dry and voice hoarse and soft. But the teenager heard her and looked up, her eyes wide, a smile forming on her face. 'You're alive,' Quinn mumbled, feeling a tear escape the corner of her eyes.