3.3) Stagnant Heart

Everything began to buzz and blur.

Abigail looked at him in concern, then grabbed his phone from his hands and began talking to the caller. But Victor couldn’t hear anything. How could something like that happen so suddenly? He thought it was a scam call, at first.

But eventually, Abigail took him by his hand and drove him to the hospital. And as the person at the front desk told them to wait in the ER waiting room, it finally dawned on him that the situation was real.

Well, there was still a chance it was a mistake. It could have been someone who resembled her. But who was he kidding? They called him because they must have found some way to identify her.

Abigail sat by him, without saying anything. Or if she did, it didn’t really process into his mind. He didn’t really remember what he felt in those sixteen hours. It must have been too confusing and painful.

After about sixteen hours of limbo, with Abigail occasionally bringing him food and water, they were both finally let in to see her condition.

As the doctor spoke, he could pick out a few words.

Coma. Burn treatment. Damaged larynx. No speech ability.

But still, he didn’t really understand what was going on.

He could hear Abigail and the doctor converse, with Abigail speaking with increased frustration. Then, she stormed off with the doctor chasing after her. It later turned out that the doctor told her the situation of the incident: a drunk driver had crashed into Alice and then into the wall, causing an explosion that charred half her body. And as a result of the impact, Alice lost her voice and consciousness. Knowing this, Abigail immediately left to confront the reckless driver, who was in a nearby room...

… Leaving Victor all alone with his comatose sister.

He looked down at her. It was strange. Half of her body was covered, while the other half seemed, for the most part, to be still her. As if she was simply sleeping there.

But he wasn’t stupid. He knew that it was all wrong. He had heard enough. He was no longer looking at the same Alice. This girl who lay here was someone else, who had everything stolen from her for no good reason at all.

The girl who was destined to bring everyone happiness had been stripped of that destiny. She had just wanted to sing; she didn’t do anything wrong. She never needed a reason to live besides bringing others joy. And yet, for some strange reason, the world had chosen to make her suffer.

Or maybe it wasn’t destiny. It was just probability; it was just arbitrary. The world didn’t care about her dreams. Nothing protected her from this. Her dream–no matter how pure it was, no matter how righteous it was–had not helped her.

And she now lay there with a broken body, unable to move. And should she wake up, she would find herself without all that allowed her to be who she was.

The girl born to be a songstress would never sing again. And with this amount of damage to her body, there was no way she would present herself to the world again. 

This was the end for her dreams.

And Victor, with all of his fleeting ideals, could not help her.

And suddenly, he felt stupid for spending all those years writing and talking about helping others. He had done all that, ignoring the cruel truth that awaited him: death and tragedy would one day come at everyone indiscriminately. How could he protect anyone from such a fate with pretty words alone? The answer was that he couldn’t. He couldn’t protect her, and he surely couldn’t protect himself.

And that’s when he realized the brutal truth: this could have been him.

There was nothing that protected him from meeting a similar fate as hers. All it would take was a single accident for him to lose everything. And when that happened, his dreams would not help him at all. No, they’d be shattered, just as easily as her dreams.

He closed his eyes, listening to her breathing. She was still alive. And maybe she would wake up, one day. But he didn’t want to look at her and face her, especially if she awoke. Because, to him, she was the living evidence that beautiful dreams can’t protect anyone from the dangers of this world.

He wouldn’t be able to live if this had happened to him. He would want to scream and cry. He wouldn’t want this. He didn’t want to die or suffer like this.

He wanted to live as long as possible. He wanted to avoid loss as much as possible. That–that was what he really wanted, wasn’t it? And to try to do anything else would be lying to himself.

He wanted to survive.

He looked away from the broken body of his sister, then at a nearby clock hanging on the wall. He didn’t care what time it was. He simply looked at the hands of the clock tick by.

With each tick, a second passed. And with each second, his death approached.

Tick, tock, tick, tock…

There was no ideal timeline where everyone lived happily ever after. Just look at what happened to her.

His dream was dead.

***

Victor opened his eyes, easily adjusting to his surroundings after awakening from the lucid dream. It was still dark amongst the clouds outside the plane window, and Abigail was still sound asleep across him.

The dream ended better than it usually did. It would often end with his hands reaching toward her face and taking off the bandages that covered half her face, with him then screaming and waking up before seeing what lay beneath.

That was how it actually happened, after all. On that day fourteen years ago, he eventually took a peek under her bandages and saw the physical manifestation of death itself. The image was ingrained into his mind, but he had never taken a second look ever since.

He was too afraid to see her face again. And even now, a few years after she finally awoke from the coma, he still could not face her. In the end, it was Abigail who visited Alice in his stead throughout the years.

To him, her existence was evidence that there was no point in caring for an idealistic dream, knowing that the world did not truly reward such a dream.

The only thing that mattered to him during these grueling fourteen years was survival. That was the essence of life, that was the purpose of evolution, and of every single limb and structure of the body: to live and avoid death.

So to believe that anything else was more important–that anything would be more important than survival and preservation of the self–seemed foolish to him.

He sighed and leaned forward on the airplane seat and calmly intertwined his hands. It seemed that the plane was no longer experiencing turbulence.

But it appeared as if none of it mattered much to Abigail; she had slept through it all. She was still sleeping in the same position, with her arms wrapped loosely around her sword, unaware of his own predicament and seemingly ignorant about the imminent doom that humanity faced. It was like she didn’t have a care in the world as she slept soundly.

And what bothered him the most was that she was smiling. The girl who had once seemed incapable of smiling naturally was smiling in her sleep.

Admittedly, he was envious of the peace of mind she seemed to have.

Just what the hell are you smiling at?

What is there to smile at when you’re probably going to die soon, Abigail Kovacs?