Ouch!
10-06-2003, 03:51 AM
Step into the unknown. Let the world around you fade away as you open your eyes to see the truth, the truth that has been denied to you. Step into the abyss. Allow it to envelope you as your definition of real becomes permanently obscured. Step into the shadow. Free your mind as you are swallowed by your sorrows and fears…
…are you afraid of what you don’t know?
I had not seen the car when I stepped out into the street. I had not known that a car was about to slam against my body at 60 miles an hour. I had just been walking across the street, away from my house with my mind full of anger and my ears full of the loud music that exploded from my headphones.
So, when he ran that red light and struck me, I had no time to react. He didn’t even stop when my body slammed against his windshield and shattered the glass. The car kept going, right into the nearest tree. Again I was flung through the air and my body crashed somewhere nearby on the ground. Cars nearby began to stop and people started rushing over towards me and the wrecked car.
A searing pain filled my body suddenly. I faintly remember hearing someone calling for everyone to get out of the way. The crowd around me parted and one young woman came through and knelt down beside me. She immediately turned back to the crowd and shouted for a rag of some sort. That was about when I passed out.
Now, I’m lying here in a hospital bed. I see flashing of light across the room, I think it’s a television but my vision is impaired so I can’t tell. My mother is asleep with her head by my feet. She must have been by my side since she got to the hospital. I notice that there was a wet spot on the sheet next to her face, she had been crying again. Only this time, she had a reason to.
I tried to move but find that my body is tied carefully down. I have a cast on almost all my limbs and my stomach has a large bandage wrapped all around it. I’ll just have to wait until I would find out what had happened after I passed out.
On the nightstand by my table I saw a clipboard with a piece of paper on it. I did my best to read what the scrawled handwriting said but could only make out the words ‘drunk driver’, ‘struck’ and my name, Isaac Lee. I felt strange when a sudden curiosity about the wellbeing of the driver came over me. I would have thought I would feel angry, but no such feeling came to me. That was strangely out of my character.
I continued to look down the sheet until it read ‘Previous Diagnoses’ in typed font. Below the heading there were many lines, on one something was written in the same illegible handwriting. I didn’t have to be able to read the horrible handwriting to know what this said. I knew that it read reactive depression.
“Get up.” I look up to see a young man standing in the doorway. He’s wearing a gray trench coat. It’s drab and worn, it was probably once the darkest of black hues. Sunglasses shad his eyes, and his hair is slicked back. He looks like someone out of a gangster movie, minus the Italian accent. In fact, he sounds a lot like me.
“What? Who are you?” I respond quickly, noticing that my voice was a lot more afraid than what I had intended. He chuckles and takes a step closer to my bed. He glances at my mother and smiles and then turns his gaze upon me again.
“I said get up.” I stare at him with both fear and curiosity. He just smirks and repeats himself again, “C’mon, get up.” I look at my limbs again and confirm that they are indeed encased in casts. My right leg is in a cast and a sling suspend from the ceiling keeps it above my head.
“Well… sounds easy enough doesn’t it?” I respond as I chuckle a bit. I feel a strangeness about me then. I would never respond in such a happy and carefree tone. Usually I’d be giving the guy hell for being such an idiot. But again I get the odd feeling that I’m not myself and that there is something very different. Maybe it’s just side-effects from a concussion I got in the accident or something.
“Just stop whining and get up, damn it,” he sneers. His tone deepened as he said that and I feel a sickness in my gut, “If you just do as I say, it’ll be a hell of a lot easier for the both of us.” I don’t want to anger this guy anymore so I decide that I should just do as he says. Ignoring my mind’s call, the screaming that this is impossible, I try to sit up.
That is when I first feel the strangest and most awkward sensation that I have ever felt in my life. I just sat up, simple as that. I look around me and all the casts are gone. The bandages around my stomach have disappeared. All the pain I had been previously feeling is suddenly nonexistent.
I look to the man standing over the bed and he is smiling. Then I notice something about him I had not noticed before. Maybe it had not been there earlier, but now it was as if his whole body was teeming with a terrible power.
“Good,” he whispers, “Now…” I try to look away from him but something keeps my eyes locked on him as he continues to grin. I fall into some kind a trance and I find myself without control over my own being. The room around me begins to turn to a gloomy gray, just like the color of his jacket.
“What is this…?” I whispered as I tremble.
“Anything you dream it to be.”
…are you afraid of what you don’t know?
I had not seen the car when I stepped out into the street. I had not known that a car was about to slam against my body at 60 miles an hour. I had just been walking across the street, away from my house with my mind full of anger and my ears full of the loud music that exploded from my headphones.
So, when he ran that red light and struck me, I had no time to react. He didn’t even stop when my body slammed against his windshield and shattered the glass. The car kept going, right into the nearest tree. Again I was flung through the air and my body crashed somewhere nearby on the ground. Cars nearby began to stop and people started rushing over towards me and the wrecked car.
A searing pain filled my body suddenly. I faintly remember hearing someone calling for everyone to get out of the way. The crowd around me parted and one young woman came through and knelt down beside me. She immediately turned back to the crowd and shouted for a rag of some sort. That was about when I passed out.
Now, I’m lying here in a hospital bed. I see flashing of light across the room, I think it’s a television but my vision is impaired so I can’t tell. My mother is asleep with her head by my feet. She must have been by my side since she got to the hospital. I notice that there was a wet spot on the sheet next to her face, she had been crying again. Only this time, she had a reason to.
I tried to move but find that my body is tied carefully down. I have a cast on almost all my limbs and my stomach has a large bandage wrapped all around it. I’ll just have to wait until I would find out what had happened after I passed out.
On the nightstand by my table I saw a clipboard with a piece of paper on it. I did my best to read what the scrawled handwriting said but could only make out the words ‘drunk driver’, ‘struck’ and my name, Isaac Lee. I felt strange when a sudden curiosity about the wellbeing of the driver came over me. I would have thought I would feel angry, but no such feeling came to me. That was strangely out of my character.
I continued to look down the sheet until it read ‘Previous Diagnoses’ in typed font. Below the heading there were many lines, on one something was written in the same illegible handwriting. I didn’t have to be able to read the horrible handwriting to know what this said. I knew that it read reactive depression.
“Get up.” I look up to see a young man standing in the doorway. He’s wearing a gray trench coat. It’s drab and worn, it was probably once the darkest of black hues. Sunglasses shad his eyes, and his hair is slicked back. He looks like someone out of a gangster movie, minus the Italian accent. In fact, he sounds a lot like me.
“What? Who are you?” I respond quickly, noticing that my voice was a lot more afraid than what I had intended. He chuckles and takes a step closer to my bed. He glances at my mother and smiles and then turns his gaze upon me again.
“I said get up.” I stare at him with both fear and curiosity. He just smirks and repeats himself again, “C’mon, get up.” I look at my limbs again and confirm that they are indeed encased in casts. My right leg is in a cast and a sling suspend from the ceiling keeps it above my head.
“Well… sounds easy enough doesn’t it?” I respond as I chuckle a bit. I feel a strangeness about me then. I would never respond in such a happy and carefree tone. Usually I’d be giving the guy hell for being such an idiot. But again I get the odd feeling that I’m not myself and that there is something very different. Maybe it’s just side-effects from a concussion I got in the accident or something.
“Just stop whining and get up, damn it,” he sneers. His tone deepened as he said that and I feel a sickness in my gut, “If you just do as I say, it’ll be a hell of a lot easier for the both of us.” I don’t want to anger this guy anymore so I decide that I should just do as he says. Ignoring my mind’s call, the screaming that this is impossible, I try to sit up.
That is when I first feel the strangest and most awkward sensation that I have ever felt in my life. I just sat up, simple as that. I look around me and all the casts are gone. The bandages around my stomach have disappeared. All the pain I had been previously feeling is suddenly nonexistent.
I look to the man standing over the bed and he is smiling. Then I notice something about him I had not noticed before. Maybe it had not been there earlier, but now it was as if his whole body was teeming with a terrible power.
“Good,” he whispers, “Now…” I try to look away from him but something keeps my eyes locked on him as he continues to grin. I fall into some kind a trance and I find myself without control over my own being. The room around me begins to turn to a gloomy gray, just like the color of his jacket.
“What is this…?” I whispered as I tremble.
“Anything you dream it to be.”