Tale Zero: Screaming Scorpion (5)

How could this be true?

No, no, no…

This must be a mistake.

A bad dream.

Yes, I must be dreaming. Surely I hadn’t actually woken up from my nap in the park?

Yeah, that had to be it.

How else could you explain-

How else would it be possible-

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”

I was so scared.

I couldn’t take it.

This couldn’t be. Claudia couldn’t die. She couldn’t.

Please, if there’s a god up there, please, spare her life!

Even if we can never be together, let her live, please, that’s all I ask for-!

Ah, that’s right-! An ambulance! Quick!

I needed to call an ambulance!

Quickly, right then and there, at that very instant-

…

……

They assured me they would be here in less than ten minutes.

Claudia, please, hold on… You’re always so strong, always so cheerful, always so willing to help others…

Tell me you kept some of that strength for yourself too-!

I really didn’t want to look at her.

I didn’t want to see her like this. So pitiful. At the verge of death. So extremely fragile…

But even so, even when I couldn’t stand to look at her any longer…

My eyes were still glued to her.

If I looked away, she’d disappear.

If I looked away, there would no longer be any hope.

So I didn’t look away.

And somehow, even then, I knew I couldn’t leave things like this. I needed to… tell someone else.

And I knew I could only trust one man now.

I messaged Nick telling him where I was and to come as quickly as he could.

Shortly after, I heard a distinct sound come from outside – the ambulance was here.

I pointed the medical staff to Claudia, and they rushed to help her immediately.

I was extremely relieved when they told me she’d live, when they got her into the ambulance and left.

It was like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders, I felt so much lighter now. And before I could realize it, sitting just besides the spot where Claudia had hit her head- I lost consciousness.

***

…

“-Ames! Wake up, James, god damn it!”

“Hnnng…”

Opening my eyes, I saw him, my friend and classmate, shouting at me from directly above.

A sight that was accompanied shortly after by his accidental spit on my face.

“Ow…”

“Oh! Sorry, man. Thank god you woke up, I’ve been here for thirty minutes already. What the hell happened here?!”

“Please, Nick… Not so loud, my head hurts…”

He seemed to just realize the fact that if I had been unconscious for over half an hour after hitting my head on the floor, and had just barely recovered my senses, maybe I wasn’t in perfect condition.

Only maybe.

“Ah… I’m really sorry, James. I was just so worried, you were right there on the floor, unconscious, and there was blood, and-“

Oh.

I remembered.

It had left my mind the moment I hit my head and lost consciousness, but now it was all flooding back.

The wait in the park. The walk with Claudia. Her confession inside the warehouse in ruins. And then… and then…

“AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

“James?! What’s up, James? An ambulance, we need an ambulance-!”

“Claudia! Claudia! Why?! What have I done???”

“Calm down, bro, everything’s fine! Tell me what happened and I’ll see what I can do, okay?”

“I… I… almost killed Claudia… What have I done, what have I done…”

Killed.

Nick froze the moment I said that word.

He looked around once more, and seemed to connect all the dots – blood on the floor, pointy rock, my desperate cries of pain and regret.

“… James, let’s go home. I’m sure Claudia will be fine, ‘kay? Just don’t blame yourself for it. It’s not your fault.”

“But it is, it’s all my fault, it’s all my fault, it’s all my fault!!!”

I kept crying and screaming from the floor, no energies left for anything else.

Nick pulled my arm.

He picked me up by himself, and forced me to walk. I was too weak to resist.

“Let’s go, James. You’re coming with me.”

“… Where to?”

“You’ll know when you get there.”

…

Slowly.

At a snail’s pace, moving at such a speed that even a tortoise might easily outrun us.

My mind was in the clouds, I couldn’t register anything going on around me.

So I didn’t question it when a car stopped right in front of us, and Nick helped me get inside.

I recognized the driver, it was just Nick’s father.

They both exchanged a few words whose meaning I didn’t register, and the car started moving.

My head was hurting.

It throbbed continuously, the pain eating away at what was left of my sanity.

All those boring, bland landscapes that had looked so beautiful to me not long before passed me by as the car ran towards its destination.

Not an ounce of that beauty I’d felt before was now left.

And as the car kept going and going, getting farther away from that horrible place…

I once again started to give in to the peaceful darkness.

I fell asleep in Nick’s car, and when I woke up, all I saw was a white ceiling I wasn’t at all familiar with.

I was in a bed… Not mine, and not an especially comfortable one, but it was much better than sleeping in the car.

I was still tired.

For the fourth time that afternoon, I wanted to fall asleep and let time pass me by…

But it wasn’t meant to happen that way.

I heard a door open, and through it came a doctor, accompanied by Nick and his father.

“James. We have news about Claudia, and we thought you’d want to hear them.”

Nick said that, hoping that the sound of her name would jolt me awake – and that exactly it did.

“What? What’s gonna happen to her, doctor? She’ll be okay, right? Right?!”

“Calm down, James. She’s still alive, yes, but…”

The doctor’s voice was calm and composed, but his words hinted at a less than desirable news.

“But?”

“She’s entered a coma. We don’t know exactly when she’ll regain consciousness or whether there will be any lasting effects. She really was unlucky, if she hadn’t landed straight on a rock with all those sharp edges, , she would probably have fared better. But now all we can do is work hard towards her recovery, and don’t worry because we will. You’ve got nothing to fear. Okay? For now, focus on your own health, young man.”

He said that and he left, leaving me to wonder.

Just how bad was the sin I’d committed?

If I had just been careful…

If I hadn’t gotten carried away…

I wouldn’t have made her trip and fall.

She would still be right at my side, and we would be happy as a new official couple…

But now I didn’t deserve to love her. I didn’t deserve to be loved.

All I wanted was for the earth to swallow me whole so I’d never hurt anyone anymore.