Jordan sat with his head buried in his hands. He should have seen nothing but darkness, but shattered glass and crimson blood filled his mind instead. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and pressed his palms to his eyes, but the images only grew clearer.
And he still didn't know how he'd gotten there.
He remembered being out late in one of the town's many bars. He rode with his brothers Justin and Jacob, and Justin's fiancé, Sarah, had a cab drop her off after her bachelorette party. They had drinks together like they did every Friday night. Jacob got out of control, shouting and throwing punches in the air like he always did after six shots, and Justin tried to keep him quiet while also trying to keep his own balance.
Jordan couldn't remember much else after he'd had a beer and a few shots himself. At least, he thought that's what he drank. He couldn't be sure, but his head was still pounding from whatever it was.
He tried to take a deep breath, but it got caught in his throat. He gasped for air, wishing he could clear aware this nightmare just as easily. Why couldn't he remember anything else?
Blurry visions flashed sporadically in his mind, but none of them made sense. He saw flashing blue and red lights one second and saw his family pilled in his little car completely care free the next second.
Jordan jumped up from his chair at the feeling of something touching his shoulder, and the white walls and ceiling spun around him. He cried out, begging the pain to stop, and his legs buckled beneath him.
"Careful!" he faintly heard a woman say as her arms tried to break his fall.
Jordan landed on his side, and the shock reverberated up to his skull, making the pounding worse. He groaned as he laid down on the floor and watched the bleached ceiling continue to twist and turn above him.
"Jordan! Jordan, can you hear me?"
Jordan closed his eyes again and took long, shallow breaths. "Yes," he whispered.
"I can't lift you on my own. You have to help me."
With his eyes still closed, Jordan held out his hands for the woman to grab on to. As he felt her pull, he concentrated solely on moving his legs. Every part of his body hurt, but he was moving. The woman led Jordan back to the chair he had been sitting in, and he took another chance at opening his eyes.
A curly haired brunette with big, sad eyes stood in front of him, searching his face for something. Jordan tried to manage a smile, but he was sure it looked more like a grimace.
"Lacy," he croaked. How had he not recognized his own girlfriend's voice? He shook his head. Jacob must have slipped something powerful into one of his drinks.
"What are you doing out here?" Lacy asked. She got down on her knees so that she was eye-level with Jordan. "You should still be in bed. You look awful."
Even with her bossy nature and ill-fitting blue scrubs, Jordan was still convinced he had the most attractive girlfriend. Though every once in a while it looked like he was seeing two girlfriends. He leaned in toward her lips—he hoped—but Lacy grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
"Jordan! Focus."
"I'm fine. They released me an hour ago," Jordan mumbled. He hated when she did that.
"What have they told you?"
Jordan relaxed back in his chair. "No one will tell me anything, except that I'd have this massive he ache for a day or two. I don't even remember anything since we were at the bar."
Lacy's shoulders dropped, and she bit her bottom lip. Jordan froze. He knew that look.
"Tell me."
Lacy opened and closed her mouth several times. "I...I can't..."
Jordan leaned forward so that he was inches from Lacy's face. "Have you seen them?"
Lacy nodded.
"Take me to them."
"Jordan...they're all..." Tears formed in her eyes, and she gripped Jordan's hands with a strength he didn't know she had. "They're all dead."
"That doesn't make any sense. We were together. We were—"
"The witness say they saw your car turn off the road. You...you hit a tree." Lacy reached up and held both sides of Jordan's face. "You were the only one who made it out."
Jordan shook his head over and over. It couldn't be true. Wasn't that why they had doctors and nurses? He looked directly at Lucy and narrowed his eyes. "Why didn't you save them?"
"There was nothing we could do. Justin and Sarah died on impact, and Jacob...there was nothing we could do for him."
"I don't believe you."
"Jordan, I—"
"Take me to them."
"I wouldn't suggest that. It's not good, and you're in no condition to—"
"Don't tell me what condition I'm in!" Jordan shouted. Lacy flinched, but she didn't break eye contact. His vision now returned, Jordan saw in his peripheral that a nearby nurse hurried past them with her head down. "Take. Me. To. Them. Now."
Lacy didn't move immediately, and Jordan wondered if he'd have to find his brothers on his own. Finally, she torn her watery eyes away from him and started now the hall, never looking over her shoulder to make sure he followed.
Jordan kept a safe distance between them. Deep down, he knew she didn't deserve the blame, but she was one of the many nurses responsible for saving trauma patients. If she wasn't to blame, then who was?
Lacy led him down so many different halls that were all painted the same horrible, ghostly white that he no longer knew where he was or how to get out. If she decided to leave him to find his own way, he would be stuck there. A chill ran down Jordan's spine at the thought of being forever confined by those bleak stone walls, surrounded by the screams of agony and the smell of chemicals designed to hide the smell of death. He looked up at Lacy who turned down yet another hall. He had no idea how she could stand being there all day.
Finally, Lacy stopped. She waited until Jordan reached her side, only glancing up at him for a second. She opened the door but didn't go in. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
Jordan assumed that was a rhetorical question and stepped inside the room. The door closed behind him, and an eerie quiet fell over the room. There were only two lamps at the far side of the room, a stark contrast to the overfit hallways outside. Jordan blinked a few times in an attempt to make his eyes adjust to the low light faster.
He expected to see a room filled with equipment from wall to wall, but there were only a few machines down the right-hand wall. There was a bed next to each machine with a curtain between every bed. The curtains were pulled back to the wall, allowing him to see all three beds at once.
Jordan took one unsteady step after another until he reached the side of the bed closest to him. He found who he knew to be Sarah, but he never would have recognized her otherwise. Her normally bright blonde hair was now matted down with dark spots of blood. Her face was bruised up and welted, and her jaw was stuck at a weird angle. The bed sheets covered the rest of her body, and Jordan didn't dare look any farther.
He stepped around to the next bed and found Justin equally battered up. Jordan might have been able to convince himself that Justin had simply got the worst end of another bar fight if it weren't for the rest of his body. Jordan thought he caught sight of a bone pultruding from his arm and jerked his head away before he lost last night's dinner. He could watch a blood and guts movie just as well as the next guy, but this...
A lump formed in his throat, but he swallowed it down. They weren't dead. They couldn't be dead. All they did was go for a drink like everyone else in town did on the weekend. Except Lacy.
Jordan used the end of Justin's bed to steady himself as he worked his way around to the last bed. When he clapped eyes on Jacob's dismembered body, he couldn't keep the lump down any longer. Jordan gasped for air, but none came. He dropped to his knee at his brother's bedside and soaked the sheets with his tears. He groped around in the hazy darkness until his hand found Jacob's hand, and he clutched it like he had countless times before. When they won a middle school football game. When they lost a high school basketball game. When they got a date to the prom. When they got their first jobs. When they had their first drink.
Jordan forced himself to look at his brother again, and another sob escaped his lips. Large lacerations covered his torso and arms, and Scarlett blood caked around his nose and mouth. There was no part of him left that would lead another to think that they were twins. Even Jacob's crystal blue eyes that they were both known for were now purple and red and swollen.
"Jordan?" Lacy whispered. He never heard her come in. "Are you finished?"
"Does it look like I'm finished?" He snapped.
"It's just...you've been in here for over thirty minutes."
"I didn't know grief had a deadline."
The room fell silent again. Jordan could still sense Lacy's presence behind him, but she didn't say anything. Normally, he would never be caught like this. H would never let anyone, especially Lacy, see any weakness in him. Justin always told him and Jacob that they always had to act strong, never showing weakness, even if they didn't feel strong. Jacob was always so much better at than Jordan was, though he eventually learned how to hold his own. But now...it was too late now though.
"Nurse Adams, are we ready?"
"One more minute, Dr. Fisher," Lacy replied. "Jordan, please. They need to finish taking care of the bodies."
Jordan released Jacob's hand and clenched his own fists. "They may just be bodies to you," he said as he stood up and glared down at Lacy, "but they are my family."
"I didn't mean—"
Jordan pushed past Lacy and the doctor still waiting at the door. He stepped back out into the fluorescent starched hallway and took a left. He hurried past cleaning carts, surgeons, and guests and over all the commotion, he could still hear Lacy.
"Where are you going?"
He didn't answer. Partly because he didn't have an answer. He didn't care where he went so long as it was far from this place.
Alone.