Everything feels heavy.
Too fucking heavy.
Like my own skin has turned into wet cement and someone poured it over every inch of me. My chest is tight. My throat's raw. My head—God. It feels like something cracked and kept cracking.
The ceiling above me is white.
But not the soft kind. Not clouds or paint.
This white feels sterile. Bleached.
Like nothing good ever happens under it.
There's a faint hum somewhere—machines maybe, a dull beep ticking in intervals like a metronome. Monitors. Oxygen? The sound is so rhythmic it nearly lulls me back under.
I blink slowly. Or… I think I do.
My lashes feel glued together, every movement sticky and sluggish. My eyes sting like they've been shut for a long time. The overhead lights are low but even that dull glow slices through my skull.
I turn my head.
Or I try to.
Nothing fucking moves.
Not my fingers. Not my arms. Not my legs. Just a distant, numb pressure where my limbs should be. Not pain—yet. Just a terrifying absence of sensation.
What the fuck.
My pulse spikes, loud and pounding in my ears, racing against the machines' calm cadence. My throat constricts and I try to speak, but all that comes up is a tight, burning resistance—
There's something down my throat.
Something thick. Something inside me.
Panic slams into my chest. I try to reach for it, to claw at whatever's choking me, but my arms won't lift. I can't even feel them. I'm trapped inside myself.
Where the fuck am I?!
Flashes come back like razor blades—
Rain.
Lights.
A scream.
The hand.
Lying still.
Not moving.
The beep beside me spikes.
Sharp. Urgent. Repetitive.
Footsteps crash in from somewhere—quick, sharp, the sound of urgency pounding across tile. Then—
Swish.
Curtain slides open. A woman in scrubs. Blonde hair in a bun. Her eyes widen, mouth drops.
"Doctor! She's awake! Room seven is awake!"
Chaos follows.
Another curtain swishes. Footsteps multiply. A second nurse appears. Then a third. A man walks in—tall, middle-aged, coat already buttoned, stethoscope around his neck, penlight tucked in the front pocket. His face is composed, but there's no denying the shift in the air. Serious.
I can't breathe.
I can't talk.
I'm drowning in my own skin.
He moves to my side, checks the monitor, watches the numbers climb, fast and erratic. Then his gaze drops to mine.
"Miss Mirza," he says, voice firm, but calm. "Can you hear me?"
I blink.
Once.
Then again.
Frantic.
"Good. That's good." He nods to the nurse. "Vitals are spiking—likely disoriented. Give her a moment."
I try to speak again but the tube in my throat burns, making me gag. My body jolts. The machines shriek.
"Don't try to talk," he says quickly, shifting closer. "You're intubated. There's a breathing tube in place. You were on a ventilator and you're still transitioning off it. It's temporary. We'll remove it when you're stable."
My eyes fill. With confusion, with pain, with the primal fear of being broken. His words wash over me but they don't really land.
I blink again, hard. My body's screaming in silence.
"Calm down," he says, lowering his voice. "Miss Mirza, listen to me. You were in an accident. A high-speed collision involving a motorcycle. You sustained multiple injuries—left femur fracture, three broken ribs, a minor skull contusion, and soft tissue trauma. You went into shock shortly after impact and were placed on life support."
I blink.
Shock?
Life support?!
"You've been in a medically-induced coma for two weeks and four days," he continues, checking a chart. "We've monitored cerebral activity, respiratory rate, and cardiac function daily. There were signs of gradual improvement. You responded to touch yesterday."
Two weeks?
No.
That can't be right.
It was seconds ago. The street. The rain. The hand.
My heartbeat goes wild. The monitor screams again.
"Calm," he says firmly. He nods to the nurse again. "Push one of Midazolam. Only a light dose."
"No sedatives until we stabilize BP," the nurse mutters. "She's responding. Lucid."
"Good. That's good." He leans down. "Miss Mirza. You're safe. You're in Medical Central. Trauma Unit. Intensive Care. You've been monitored twenty-four hours a day."
The words blur.
Trauma.
Intensive care.
Two fucking weeks.
I want to scream.
I want to run.
I want to ask if the hand is okay.
But I can't.
My body doesn't belong to me. My voice is strangled. My arms are bricks. My eyes are the only part of me left that still work.
And they're leaking.
Hot tears spill down both sides of my face, sliding into my ears, mixing with the sweat and the antiseptic and the sterile light. I'm trying not to shake but I do. Or maybe I'm already shaking.
"You're going to be okay," the doctor says gently, finally setting the chart down. "You're strong. The worst part is over. You just need to rest now."
Is it?
Is it really over?
Because right now it feels like the beginning of something much worse.
I can't hear him anymore.
The doctor is still talking—his lips are moving, his expression soft but controlled, like he's trained for this moment. But the sound doesn't reach me. It's like someone turned down the volume on the world and forgot to turn it back up.
I only hear static.
A low, humming white noise. The kind that rattles your teeth if you sit in it too long.
My body's not mine. Still.
The pain is back, no longer hiding behind the fog of adrenaline or sedation.
It's here now—alive, breathing under my skin, crackling in my bones.
Every breath feels like sandpaper scraping through my chest.
Every inch of me burns or aches or throbs.
And the thing in my throat—the ventilator tube—it's a demon of its own.
Thick. Unnatural.
Every inhale feels like it drags against me.
Like it doesn't belong.
Because it doesn't.
I want it out.
I want to breathe on my own.
I want to scream, cough, anything to get this foreign thing out of me.
But all I can do is lie there, tears leaking sideways off my face, pooling into the pillow like I'm some kind of broken, melting doll.
My throat clenches, panicking. My lungs try to rebel, but they can't win against the damn machine. It breathes for me. Like I'm not human anymore.
The doctor's still there.
His face comes in and out of focus.
He says something again. Probably gentle. Probably reassuring.
But all I hear is—
Nothing.
Only the hum.
And the scream building inside my skull that has no way out.
My eyes flick to the side, trying to escape the weight of everything.
And just like that, a thought stabs through the pain:
Two weeks.
Two weeks.
Two fucking weeks of darkness.
Two weeks of being nowhere, being nothing.
The world moved on without me.
My chest tightens.
I don't even know what I missed.
Who I missed.
What changed.
Who gave up on me.
I don't know if I'll ever get up from here.
If I'll walk again.
If this is what I'll be now—trapped in my body while life goes on like I never existed.
The pain screams again.
My leg. My ribs. My spine.
It all pulses with rage.
It's so much. Too much.
And I can't cry properly. I can't sob.
I can't even swallow.
I'm fucking drowning in myself.
The tears stream sideways, hot and fast.
Then a soft hand brushes my temple—delicate, gloved fingers—and a nurse leans into my vision.
Her voice is low, slow, too soft for this room.
"Hey… don't cry, sweetheart. You're doing so well."
I blink.
She doesn't get it.
"You made it through surgery. You woke up. That's everything. Your vitals are good. You're safe now, okay?"
Her voice trembles just slightly, like she's holding her own emotion in check.
But I'm not safe.
I'm not okay.
I'm wrecked.
Inside out.
Every part of me hurts like it's trying to quit on me.
My lungs sting. My skin itches. The bandages press down like sandbags.
And no one can hear the way I'm screaming in here.
Her thumb wipes away the tears that keep coming.
"You're going to get stronger, alright? Little by little. Don't think too far ahead."
Too far ahead?
I don't even know what day it is.
And somewhere under all of that…
Under the pain and the blank noise and the mechanical breathing—
A hollow settles in my chest.
An ache that isn't physical.
It's worse.
A grief that has no name.
No reason.
Just emptiness.
I blink again, and it feels like a surrender.
Because what else can I do?
I'm not strong. Not right now.
I'm barely breathing.
And all I want—more than anything—is to stop hurting.
Just for one fucking second.
But the pain keeps reminding me:
I'm alive.
Even when I don't want to be.
The tube in my throat is agony.
Like something trying to root itself into my body, force itself past all the places it doesn't belong.
My mouth is dry.
My lips are cracked.
Every swallow feels like broken glass, and I can't even shift to ease it.
I am pinned.
Bound to the weight of a body I don't recognize anymore.
And I keep trying not to panic.
Keep trying to breathe with the machine.
Not against it.
But my chest feels like it's working against me—every rise and fall like punishment.
But that's not even the worst part.
The worst part is the fucking memory.
The one that crawled in the moment I opened my eyes and hasn't left since.
The hand.
Still.
Pale.
Wet from the rain.
Fingers curled just slightly like it had tried to hold onto something in its last moment.
Like it reached for something and missed.
My stomach turns.
Tears burn behind my eyes again, and I can't wipe them.
I don't even know whose hand it was.
I didn't see a face.
Didn't hear a voice.
Didn't feel anything except the goddamn hit.
But I saw that hand.
And it hasn't left me since.
Was he the one who hit me?
Was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Was he going too fast?
Or was it me?
Did I step out without looking?
I did.
I did.
I fucking stepped out like the world owed me the right to move.
Like I was immune to timing and traffic and consequences.
I was in my head.
I wasn't watching.
I didn't see the light.
I didn't check the road.
I was just there.
And now here I am.
A fucking machine keeping me breathing.
Barely alive.
Broken.
But what if I wasn't the only one who broke that night?
What if I lived…
and he didn't?
The thought punches the breath from what little lungs I have left.
If he's dead—
If I killed him—
Then what the fuck am I doing here?
Why am I the one breathing?
Why am I the one with machines and doctors and second chances—
when maybe he's buried?
Maybe his family is crying somewhere.
Maybe someone loved him.
Maybe he was someone's only child.
Someone's future.
Someone's everything.
And I ended it.
With one stupid step.
One fucking distracted step.
God, no.
I can't bear it.
I can't even scream.
All I can do is cry, and it's useless—tears sliding down my temples in silence, lost in white sheets and antiseptic air.
Don't do this to me.
Don't make me the reason someone died.
Don't let me live with that weight.
Don't make my breath the fucking proof that he stopped breathing.
If I killed him…
I don't deserve to be alive either.
I'll never be able to look in a mirror again.
Never step outside without wondering who's missing someone because of me.
Never sleep without seeing that hand, that goddamn lifeless hand, curled like it was letting go of something important.
Maybe that's why I didn't die.
Not because I'm lucky.
Not because I'm strong.
But because this is the punishment.
To wake up.
To remember.
To ache.
To never know the truth.
And still live with it anyway.
God, if you're listening—if you still give a shit about me at all—
Please don't let it be true.
Please.
I can't live with it.
I swear I'll never complain again.
I'll never ask for anything again.
Just let him be alive.
Let me be broken.
Let me carry it.
But don't let me have taken someone.
Please.
I'm drowning.
And not in water—
But in myself.
This body isn't mine anymore.
I can't move.
Can't talk.
Can't scream.
Can't fucking breathe without this tube inside me, punching air into my lungs like I'm a puppet on life support.
And all I can do is cry.
Not the loud kind. Not the kind that people hear and hug and comfort.
The kind that leaks out of your eyes like guilt.
The kind that burns.
The kind that doesn't stop.
My chest is tight. Not just from pain or the ventilator—but from something worse.
The thought.
That hand.
That body.
Did I kill someone?
Did I fucking kill someone?
The thought loops again, and again, and again—until it's not a thought anymore. It's a full-body scream that my body won't let me scream.
I blink.
Tears slide sideways down my face and into my ears.
The machine beeps louder.
Once.
Twice.
Then again, faster.
Faster.
My pulse is spiking.
The monitor's going off like a fucking alarm.
And I can't stop it.
My breath is heavy, sharp, punching through the ventilator in chaotic, rattling bursts.
I can't do this.
I can't.
I'm alive when I shouldn't be.
And if he's not—
If I took that from him—
Then this… this room, this white ceiling, these machines forcing me to breathe—
This is my punishment.
Being kept alive against my will to remember what I did.
The curtain whips open.
I can't turn my head, but I see the blur of a figure rush in.
A voice. Female. Familiar.
"Nurse!" another voice calls. "Nurse, monitor's climbing!"
The nurse leans in, her hand brushing my arm.
"Hey—hey, sweetheart. Calm down. You're okay. You're safe now. Try to slow your breathing."
I can't.
I can't.
I am not safe.
I'm not okay.
I'm a walking sin. A mistake still breathing. A murderer wearing a hospital gown.
The tears won't stop.
The panic keeps climbing.
And the machine beeps even faster, angry, loud, terrifying.
The nurse glances at the screen, her voice sharper now. "Doctor!"
Another set of footsteps pounds against the tile, and then a male voice, low but calm, cuts through the chaos.
"Stats?"
"Pulse 178, BP rising fast, respiratory erratic."
He moves into my line of vision—a man in his fifties, thick grey streaks at his temples, a name tag I can't read through my blur of tears.
"Miss Mirza," he says, measured and firm. "I need you to breathe with the machine, not against it. Blink once if you hear me."
I blink.
He exhales slowly. "Good. Good. Now, I know everything is overwhelming right now. But you're okay. You're alive. You're safe. We're here."
No, I'm not.
I want to scream it.
But my throat is bound to silence.
So I cry harder.
He nods at the nurse. "Get 2 mg of Midazolam. IV push. Now."
No.
No, no, no—
The nurse moves quickly. A syringe prepped. A sharp pinch in my IV line. Cold.
The sedative burns its way into my veins.
I feel it in seconds.
My eyes blink slower.
My chest feels heavier.
The ceiling starts to ripple.
Not again.
Not the darkness.
Not that place again.
Not the fucking hand waiting for me in the dark.
I try to fight it, but my body is useless—limp and heavy like I've been dipped in lead.
The tears still fall, but they slow.
Everything slows.
My eyes roll back slightly, not from sleep, but from defeat.
I'm being dragged back into a place I hate—into silence and guilt and that single, unmoving hand.
The doctor's voice echoes just before I drop completely.
"She's stable now. Let her rest."
But it's not rest.
It's a sentence.
I don't deserve to be awake.
I don't deserve dreams.
And I sure as hell don't deserve peace.
Not until I know he lived.
Not until I know I didn't kill him.
Because if I did—
This isn't a hospital.
It's my personal hell.
.
.________________________________
AUTHOR NOTE
I didn't write this chapter to make you cry.
I wrote it because sometimes survival doesn't feel like a miracle.
It feels like punishment.
She's awake. Broken. Drowning in guilt.
And one question keeps ripping her apart—
Did she kill him?
You think you're ready for the answer?
You're not.
Next chapter… everything changes.
💬 Drop your theories.
📌 Save this chapter.
🔪 And pray the hand wasn't his.
.