All I did was blink.
Blink. Desk at school. Blink. Hospital bed.
The room was darker than I expected, which confused me. Having seen my fair share of hospitals, I can tell you even when they try to make them dark, they are still obnoxiously bright and noisy. But there was no trace of artificial light bleeding in from the hallway. No faint glow from streetlights outside. Just shadows that continued to grow longer and stretch closer to me, threatening to consume the room I was in.
I sat up and pulled the thin sheet to my chin, then immediately regretted it when I got a whiff of the musty smelling bedding. I realized then I didn't smell antiseptic. Didn't hear the whir of machines monitoring me or any other patients. No intercom or phones ringing. No TV noise from the waiting area. Just...quiet. It was all eerily silent and not the normal sterile environment I was used to when visiting the hospital.
As I scanned my surroundings in the dimming light, I realized I wasn't in a typical patient room. The hospital had obviously been typical at one point, with the dead fluorescent bulbs overhead and a cheesy poster denoting the horrors of smoking hanging haphazardly on the door. But the graffiti on the walls and the broken cabinets told a different story. This place had been abandoned for some time. I felt like I had woken up in some post-apocalyptic video game. I was half-betting some brain-craving corpse would shamble through the door at any second.
Chills danced across my skin. Where on earth was I? After a few minutes, I gathered the courage to find out. I wanted to call for someone, but every horror movie I'd ever seen told me this would be a bad idea. I always threw popcorn at the screen when the horror movie girl left the safety of the house, but now I understood her urge to go explore. Whatever waited outside was bound to come in and find me eventually. With that thought, I slid off the bed and onto my weak and shaky legs and made my way to the door.
I opened it just a crack, but I didn't hear or see anything in the hallway. In fact, the hospital was so devoid of any noise, my breathing felt obnoxiously loud to me. I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle the sound and ventured out of the room. Between the nervous shaking of my knees and the strange weakness in my muscles, it took me much longer than I'd like to admit, but I finally made it into the hallway and stumbled onward until I reached the waiting area. Papers were strewn everywhere, chairs overturned, and graffiti covered the walls, but I didn't take the time to read any of it. It all looked like the scribblings of a madman.
A faint breeze blew through my hair, and I turned to find the source. The air came from the pedestrian overpass I usually traversed to get to my neurologist. Below was one of the busiest streets of the downtown area, but I saw no sign of headlights as I slowly made my way to the bridge. The fragile barriers closing me into this familiar building made me feel even more naked and vulnerable than when I'd woken up, but I had to see what was beyond them. Curiosity propelled me forward. Glass littered the walkway; most of the windows had been broken, which meant I had to take care not to slice open my bare feet with each step.
My heart felt like it had been ripped from my chest when I finally looked out at the city below. It looked like a warzone. The parking garage across the street was barely more than a charred husk, though it must have been empty at the time. Very few cars lined the streets. Some were flipped over and obviously burned. Others were smashed into poles or other cars. The wind stirred the debris below and I shivered as the breeze blew through my hair, whipping strands across my cheeks.
How had this happened? I was staring down at my city. My home. But it was like the jagged glass stubbornly hanging on the frame had formed a window to hell. "This can't be real," I whispered to myself. I was startled by the sound of my own voice. If I couldn't hear anything, this could still be a dream. I'd never had a dream before, but always heard there was this hazy quality to them. There was nothing hazy about the gruesome scene around me. It was all crystal clear.
I lifted my gray-blue eyes to meet the confused expression my reflection wore as it stared back at me. I was the same, but somehow different. My light brown hair was in a braid falling over my shoulder, maybe a bit longer than I remembered, and my skin was lighter than before, like a sickly pallid shade had taken over my complexion.
The glass revealed another reflection as someone edged closer to me from behind. I whirled around to see the last person I would consider to be a comforting face approaching me, his bright blue eyes wide with shock and his normally pale and freckled skin even paler, as if he was looking at a ghost.
The sordid and painful history Thomas and I shared went out the window. The same window behind me revealing the charred remains of the city I had grown up in. For the first time in years, I didn't care about how Thomas had toyed with me. I only cared that I wasn't alone.
"Thomas," I said with a gasp. "I don't understand. What happened?"
He jerked in surprise when I spoke. "Madeline... you're awake. How--I mean, when? Are you okay? Can you stand?" He rushed over and took me in his arms like I might topple over at any second.
I gently pushed away from him. "I am standing." I felt the horror wash over me as a thought occurred to me. "How... how long have I been in the hospital?"
The pained look on his face told me I wasn't going to like the answer to this question. "Four years," he finally choked out.
I turned around, looking out at the city with a new understanding. Four years. Somehow, we'd been attacked four years ago. The school must have been hit bad if I'd ended up in the hospital. I gripped his arm tightly, my eyes wide with fear. "Oh god--Brandon! He was in class with me. Where is he?"
Thomas tilted his head, perplexed. "What? No, he wasn't. He was in bootcamp. He's fine." He shrugged stiffly, but the hint of resentment in his tone when he talked about his brother wasn't lost on me.
I didn't dwell on Thomas's typical melodrama because my brain hiccupped on one tiny little detail. "Wait, what? Bootcamp? He's too young for bootcamp." Even if I didn't remember Brandon poking me with his pen right before our exam started--which I did, very vividly--and he hadn't been with me before the blast, I did know enough about the military to know no branch would take a sixteen-year-old boy.
"No, he wasn't. He got recruited two years before by the Lord Commander himself."
I blinked at him, certain I must be missing something. Granted, I wasn't a military brat. In fact, my father was quite the pacifist and would have moved us to a country with things like free healthcare and bans on assault weapons if he could have. But my uncle was a chaplain in the military and told me stories or explained things like the different branches and ranks all the time.
Not once did he mention a Lord Commander.
I watched Thomas carefully, but he wasn't exhibiting any signs of losing his mind. I glanced outside again and wondered if maybe I had. Had the world changed that much in four years? I shook my head. Even if it had, it didn't explain how Brandon was in the military before I got blasted into a coma.
I crossed my arms over my chest, annoyance and confusion fueling my denial. "Your math doesn't add up. I've been in a coma for four years, since the terrorist attack--"
"Terrorists?" He repeated and shook his head.
"Since the attack," I corrected, not giving him the chance to leave me with more questions. "You said four years since then. Four years Brandon has been in the military. Two years before, he was recruited by this Lord Commander, right?" I gave him the chance to nod before I continued. "What military organization in their right mind is going to recruit a fourteen-year-old kid? And what bootcamp takes two years to go through?"
"Fourteen? Brandon was ten when he was recruited. Just like every other recruit for the Southern Union."
"No, he would have been fourteen. You said the attack was four years ago. And what the hell is a Southern Union?"
"Right. When you were twelve," he said slowly and then bit his lip with concern.
"Don't do that. I'm fine."
"Maybe you should lay down. Mom said when it happened you could have hit your head pretty bad." He paused, looking at me with amazement, and then lifted his fingers to touch my cheek. "I've been waiting four years for you to look me in the eyes again."
I gently brushed his hand away from my face, disgusted by his terrible timing. Leave it to Thomas to tell a girl the apocalypse happened when she was sleeping and then hit on her. "So, in the past four years, our city was attacked and for some reason, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Again. And others followed. Again."
"No one seceded from the Union. The Union doesn't exist anymore. It hasn't for over ten years. I don't understand how you don't remember this. You remember me, right?"
I didn't bother asking what happened ten years ago. There was no reason I wouldn't remember, which meant this had to a nightmare or Thomas was just wrong all together. Maybe he was the one with the head injury.
"Forget it. Just take me to my parents and they can explain why everything's messed up." I started to walk past him, but he reached out and took my hand in his, squeezing it gently.
"I can't," he whispered, his voice cracking.
My heart twisted. "Take me to my parents," I repeated, clinging to every word like my will alone could help me deny the ugly truth about to slap me in the face. "Please."
Thomas stepped forward and placed his hands on my shoulders. "I'm sorry, Madeline. They didn't survive."
I knocked his arms away from me. "No! No, this is wrong. This is all wrong." I turned around, ready to run away--from Thomas, the truth, this terrible nightmare--but stopped when I saw Brandon.
He stood in the doorway, completely frozen and slack-jawed. He watched me with a mixture of relief and horror and pity. It was amazing how I could see all the conflicting emotions warring back and forth behind his green eyes.
Looking at Brandon--my best friend in the world--I knew everything Thomas told me was true. This Brandon was dressed like a good little soldier boy, head to toe in black and with a big assault rifle strapped to his side. The hair usually hanging in his face was close-cropped. And those eyes, the ones that usually held so much laughter and so many secrets we might as well have our own unspoken language--they were haunted.
I let out a sob and dropped to my knees. "This can't be real. It can't be." I looked up at Brandon pleadingly, begging him to tell me different. "It can't."
Thomas was immediately there, gathering me into his embrace and consoling me. I couldn't look away from Brandon. He didn't move and didn't speak, but his gaze held the confirmation I needed. His heart was breaking for me.
I pushed against Thomas's chest, trying to resist the embrace he pulled me into. I trembled with fear, unable to comprehend how my world had changed into this horror show in the blink of an eye. I shook my head stubbornly and my whole body began to shake with the effort of my denial.
At first, I chalked up my very physical reaction to nerves, but as the tremors began to get worse, I realized I was having a seizure. Normally I wasn't cognizant of them. My epilepsy usually reared its ugly head in the form of absence seizures, where I'd look like I was staring off into space until I dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. But this was a different and terrifying manifestation of my condition. The fear must have shown on my face because Brandon's stoic facade finally broke and he cried out my name.
"Madeline, look at me," Thomas urged, as he cradled me across his lap.
My head lolled to the side, giving me a better view of his brother. Brandon was poised to dart over to me, but frozen mid-step. He closed his eyes and I silently begged him to look at me. I wanted to say something to ease his mind, but I felt myself slipping away as it became harder and harder to keep my eyes open.
When I opened them again, I was still in someone's embrace, but now I was in in the familiar setting of our classroom. Brandon barked commands at the teacher as he held me, his strong arms wrapped around me tight to prevent me from flailing around. I tried to say his name, but my throat felt like I had swallowed gravel. He must have heard me because he cupped my face in his hand and tried to give me a reassuring smile.
"It's okay, Mads," he consoled me, though his face was just as stricken with panic as my dream version of his brother. "Mr. Hardee said the ambulance is on its way. You're gonna be fine."
"There was a bomb," I whispered as best I could, confusion and exhaustion threatening to overwhelm me.
His look of worry deepened. "No, you had a seizure. You must remember the sound of the desk hitting the floor, that's all."
I tried to shake my head, which felt too heavy on my neck. "No, in the other world. Thomas told me."
He didn't seem to know what to say. "Just get some rest. I've got you."
I obeyed and closed my eyes, wondering where I would be when I opened them again.
#
I woke up in a hospital room, but thankfully this one had electricity. The nightmare appeared to be over. When I turned my head, I realized I might have spoken too soon. Thomas―the real Thomas, who had crushed my heart with one single glance―was hunched over in a chair next to my hospital bed, clutching my hand.
For a second, I thought I might still be dreaming. Thomas and I weren't even on speaking terms, so seeing him holding vigil at my bedside was a leap, to say the least. I pulled my hand away from his and sat up.
Thomas cleared his throat and straightened. "How are you?"
I ignored his question. "What are you doing here?" Panic threatened to burst from my chest when I looked around and remembered why my parents hadn't appeared in my nightmare. "Where are my mom and dad?"
"They're on their way," Thomas assured me, resting his hand on my forearm.
I looked down at his hand warily. "What are you doing here?" I asked again.
He sighed and leaned back. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Why?"
"Jesus, Madeline. Give me some credit. I know we've been through a lot―"
I held up a hand. "You led me on for months, kissed me, ignored me for a week, and then brought your new girlfriend to my birthday party. We haven't been through anything. You put me through everything."
"I know, and I am sorry. I know it will never be enough, but I really am sorry. I've missed you every day."
I fixed him with a steely glare. "Yeah, I'm sure you were just miserable with Evelyn."
"Evelyn dumped me because of you, Madeline," he retorted, his piercing blue eyes shaded by his furrowed brow.
"No. She dumped you because of you. I haven't talked to you in months."
"Which ripped me apart," he admitted in a choked voice. He pressed his lips together, regaining his composure. "I missed you so much, and she could tell. She was jealous. And then today I hear about what happened... I knew I'd nearly lost you. I couldn't stand it." He leaned forward and took my hand in earnest. "I couldn't stand the thought of losing you forever."
My glare melted away, but his butterfly-inducing speeches fell a little flat on me, which was surprising. "I had a seizure," I said--mainly because I had no idea what else to say. I wasn't even sure I could offer him friendship after everything he'd put me through. and pulled my hand away from his. "It's not like I was dying."
"But you could have," he insisted. "I read about it. If Brandon hadn't held you down, you could have hit your head, or the seizure had lasted too long... you might not have ever come back to us. To me. We were so close before I screwed everything up. You were like my best friend, and I was a complete jerk."
I tilted my head, inspecting him and my feelings at the same time. 'Friends' would normally be the kiss of death for my hopeful heart. But I didn't feel the usual sinking sensation at the thought of being his friend, and his swoon-worthy stare wasn't spinning my head like it usually did.
"Funny, because she actually is my best friend," Brandon said from the doorway. He shoved his hands in his pockets and the blond hair hanging in his eyes doing nothing to hide the disapproving frown on his face. I knew what his expression meant. He walked into the room to stand over his brother, never sparing me a glance. He cocked an eyebrow and glanced at the seat Thomas was occupying. "I leave for two minutes and you think that's an invitation to take my place?"
"What do you think you've been doing for the past six months?"
Brandon stepped closer and opened his mouth to retaliate, but I didn't plan to give them a chance to duke out their issues in my hospital room. "Don't start, you two. Brandon, Thomas was just leaving. It's fine."
Thomas whipped back around to me like I'd slapped him across the face and then rolled his eyes. "Right. Of course. No coming between you two. Guess I'll leave you to your hero." He stood up and didn't make any efforts to not invade Brandon's personal space. They stood almost nose to nose, locked onto each other with intense glares. And then it was over. Thomas was pushing past Brandon and striding down the hallway.
There was no love lost between those two, brothers or not. They were complete opposites on so many levels. Thomas had dark, clean cut hair and pale, freckled skin, but Brandon had olive-colored eyes usually hidden by his shaggy blonde hair, and though he shared his brother's freckles, his skin was tan. Thomas was also much more of a social butterfly than Brandon, who was more the brooding, quiet type. Granted, he usually brooded because of his on-again-off-again relationship with the never-faithful Ana, but still. Brooding.
"Hey, you," Brandon said as he claimed Thomas's seat by my bedside.
"Hey yourself," I smiled up at him. "Apparently I have you to thank for saving my life." I said the last part with dramatic flourish, but Brandon didn't laugh. "Come on, not you too. I wasn't dying. It was just a seizure. No big."
"You weren't there," Brandon whispered as he studied the edge of my hospital bed. "I thought you might be dying."
I reached out and linked my fingers through his, surprised to feel his hand shaking. I pulled him into a hug and rested my head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I know it must've been scary."
He squeezed me a little tighter. "Yeah, it really was," he agreed. "One minute you were fine and the next you were flailing around. I tried to keep you from hurting yourself, but you were jerking around pretty hard..."
"And thanks to you, I didn't. I can't imagine what it must have looked like." I pulled back and winced, realizing how very stupid and unattractive flailing around probably looked. "Pretty sure I don't want to imagine what it looked like, since I'd like to keep my self-esteem intact." My joke got a laugh out of him, which eased the tension. "Thank you, though. For taking care of me."
He shrugged bashfully. "What are best friends for, right?"
I grinned. "I have the very best."
"So..." His gaze shifted away from me, which meant I wasn't going to like what he had to say. "You and Thomas again, huh?"
"No. I mean, I don't know." I let out a slow breath, confused by my own reactions. "He's actually jealous you 'saved' me, and he didn't, I think. How messed up is that?"
"Messed up that he's jealous of me? Pfft. That's the story of my life. I'm fan-fucking-tabulous, thank you very much." He puffed out his chest for affect but deflated when I laughed and hit him lightly with the back of my hand. "Seriously, though. Don't be fooled by his whole white knight complex."
"I won't," I assured him. "We're just... I guess we're friends."
Brandon rolled his eyes. "Isn't 'friends' how it always starts with him? He's just going to break your heart again."
"Can we save the lectures for when I'm out of the hospital? Shouldn't my current condition earn me a 'get out of lecture free' card, at the very least?"
He sighed reluctantly. "Yeah, yeah. Especially since you got us all out of our Chemistry exam."
I spread my hands. "See? I can be a hero too."