Krystal - Chapter 08

History

I jumped when I awoke to my head being moved around roughly and having a bright light shone in my eye. It took me a few moments to recognise that I was lying in my bed, with an unfamiliar person sat on the edge inspecting me.

“Ah, you’re awake.” An old looking man with a thick Indian accent said after I had regained my senses. “I’m Doctor Rashi, I deal with most of the home’s problems. It looks like you slipped and hit your head pretty hard, you’re a lucky boy though. No need for stitches this time, though you may have a bit of a headache in a little while.”

The doctor stood up from my bed and walked over to where someone I now recognised as Adam was standing on the other side of the room. It hurt to move my head too much but I could see that aside from the Doctor and Adam the room was empty. After a few moments of talking which I couldn’t make out, he came back over to me, told me to keep out of trouble and left the room.

“Four days, most of the kids here wait at least a month before injuring themselves.” Adam said with a small smile as he walked over to me, “How’re you feeling?”

“My head hurts when I move it” I replied a little groggily.

“It will do for a few hours yet.” He chuckled, “The doc said we can’t give you anything for it in case you have a concussion and the drugs knock you out.” He explained with a small shrug, “I gotta keep you awake so lucky you has got me for company all day. Doesn’t that sound fun? First thing we’re going to do is watch TV and do nothing for a few hours, then we might have a sandwich and start some hard, gruelling slobbery until the others get back from school.”

I chuckled slightly and managed to reply with a sarcastic “Sounds like you really work hard for your money.” I was greeted in return by a pair of boxers in the face from my drawer.

“Five minutes, dressed and downstairs, or I’ll set Spike on you when he gets back!” Adam warned while leaving the room.

It was only then that I realised that the last thing I remembered was being in the shower long before the others would have even left for school. Now the house was far too quiet for them to be there and I was lying naked in my bed. Someone must have found me and brought me here. After mustering my energy, I looked at the clock next to my bed-11:28. I’d been unconscious for about five hours. 

As I pulled on the clothes that were on top in my drawers-a faded and worn green t-shirt and pair of equally worn jeans, memories of what had happened in the shower started to come back to me. I have no idea where this scar came from but I decided that now would be as good a time as ever.

The home was deserted, which was expected since it was a school day, but it still felt a little odd. The only sound was from the TV room where Adam had some chatty daytime TV show on, some high-voiced middle-aged woman rattling on about celebrities’ private lives as if every minor event should be a source of great interest.

Just as I was walking down the stairs, Adam appeared at the TV room door. When he spotted me he checked his watch dramatically and clucked his tongue,

“Nearly, you’d have been in for a Spike-ing if you’d been any longer.” He said as he walked towards the kitchen door and stopped. “You want a glass of lemonade or anything?”

“No, I’m fine thanks.” I replied. I may not have eaten since yesterday but I really didn’t feel like I needed anything to eat or drink.

“Alright, go on through, there’s not much on this time of day but I’ll hunt us down some DVD’s.” he said as he vanished through the door.

The TV room was a bit of a mess, it was obvious it hadn’t been tidied up from yesterday yet and from what I’ve seen of Adam it probably wouldn’t be until five minutes before the others were due back.

I took one look at the junk that was on the screen and began hunting for the remote. I managed to find it just as the air-headed blonde was moving onto the contents of Leonardo DiCaprio’s bins, and managed to save my sanity with moments to spare. Randomly hitting a button, the screen flicked to a shot of weightlifting. The lifting I enjoyed a couple of days ago was enjoyable, but looking at the disproportionate men who no doubt ate, drank and slept weights made me feel mildly depressed. I wanted to lift and if it kept feeling like it did last time, I wanted to do it a lot. But if it meant I’d end up looking like that then I’d be happy never to see a weight again.

“I got you one in case you change your mind.” Adam said, setting down a glass next to me after he’d made a silent entry to the room. “Well, better than hearing about the contents of Tom Cruise’s latest handkerchief I guess. What sort of films do you like?” he moved over to another metal cabinet and opened it, displaying a large range of DVDs. “How about this?” he asked, holding up the case to ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’, “Strictly it’s an 18 reg but I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

After the film, I was a little confused. It was a good film and I enjoyed watching it, but certain parts of it felt a little familiar. I couldn’t put my finger on it but there was definitely something at certain parts of the film.

“You want a sandwich or something? It’s about lunch time and you haven’t eaten since dinner yesterday.” Adam offered as he stretched. My stomach accepted his offer before I could say anything and he walked out of the room chuckling. I nosed through the cabinet of DVDs. There were some good looking films in there, including a couple I wasn’t quite sure were actually out on DVD yet since there were still trailers on TV advertising them at cinemas.

I thought about the familiarity I’d felt watching the movie, I don’t know why but it was stronger around the drug references. While I was thinking about the feelings, Adam returned and sat a plate in front of me.

“What was I into?” I asked without looking at him but I could tell the question had caught him off-guard.

“What?” He replied confused.

“What sort of stuff was I into, before I came here?”

“Well,” he cleared his throat and seemed to take a few moments to consider what to tell me, “You know you were arrested for assault on five gang thugs, but there was more to it than that. They could never find any evidence but the police always thought you were a player in a number of drug rings, you may be just a kid but you had a lot of respect from some of the biggest names in the underworld.”

“I was a dealer?”

“A successful one. For the most part anyway, your medical files say you’ve been in hospital a few times for various wounds from fighting.”

“What about this one?” I asked while putting my hand over where the scar covering my chest was and still staring blankly ahead.

“That one…” Adam said, in a tone that said he really wished I hadn’t asked about it. “That is the most recent one. It’s a few months old but it was a major one, you nearly died from it.”

“How?” I asked. I don’t know how I felt, I wasn’t feeling any emotion at all, simply taking the information in as if it was someone else being spoken about.

“Maggie said that you were interested in the old weights bench in the garage, why don’t we go there now and you can do some lifting for a while?” He asked, trying to change the subject,

“How?” I repeated, a little forcefully.

Adam hesitated before he managed to reply; “It was when you were arrested. You were involved in a big deal, the police raided it and at some point in your escape you fell onto a set of railings.”

“I went to hospital. My heart stopped, they shocked me.” I said absently, a tear rolling down my cheek.

“Yes, they almost lost you a few times during the surgery and it was touch-and go while you were in recovery too. You had to be kept sedated when you were well enough to become conscious because you kept lashing out at the staff. You spent a good few months in a prison hospital towards the end where you could be kept more securely.”

I heard what Adam was saying but my mind was still stuck on that trolley, I could hear the doctors’ and nurses’ voices, the doctor counting down and I could feel the pain when the paddles hit my chest. Over and over again I went through the whole memory. On about the fifth cycle, the paddles hit me, I felt the jolt pass through me and the room went black.

I stretched out under the perfect sun as the glorious heat penetrated me. The sound of birds in a tree that I could swear hadn’t been there before added to the atmosphere. Over the hill I could hear the stream babbling away to itself and the feint sound of a guitar playing a soothing melody.

I strolled towards the sound of the guitar but instead of just the figure on the rock there lay another on the opposite bank of the stream. As I got closer I could see his blonde hair blowing in the breeze, his face was the same as mine. The closer I got the more certain I was that he was me. The only difference to me was that he appeared to be sporting a large open wound to his exposed chest.

“Not you know.” He said in my voice as I approached him. “Are you going to let me get over this now then?”

“Get over what?” I replied, confused. I wasn’t stopping him doing anything.

“Umm, this.” He gestured to the bloody gash. “You know how it happened, can you just get over it and let me go now?”

“How can I get over it? I felt everything!” I could feel even now how I felt when I went into arrest, the pain filling my chest.

“Yes, you did, but it’s done now. You can’t change what happened, you have to move on. You weren’t even responsible. It’s no different to anything else that happened before, when he was in charge. You can’t forget what you felt on that bed but you can accept it. You have a new life now, let me go and live yourself.”

“Krystal?” Adam called, “Earth to Krystal, are you there?”

“Wha? Oh, yea sorry.” I replied, not really taking any notice of anything, I was more concerned with what had happened in the meadow. “I just need to…” I trailed off as I stood and started towards the door.

“Ohh no you don’t.” he said, standing to block my way to the door, “After what happened this morning I’m not letting you out of my sight. If you have to go catatonic on me, you can do it here where I can keep an eye on you.”

Not saying anything or giving any reaction I simply say back down and retreated into my thoughts. I could still feel the sensation of my heart stopping and the feeling of the electricity surging through me. I nearly died. Maybe I should have, it would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. I knew I was still alive, I knew that however much it hurt, I survived but it didn’t help. I was awake when I shouldn’t have been, I could feel what I shouldn’t have. Maybe it was a good thing I woke up when I did last night, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know how it felt to have someone poling around inside me.

Adam’s yawning and stretching finally brought me back to the real world as credits rolled up the screen signalling the end of another movie.

“Greetings from the people of Earth.” Adam joked, performing a Vulcan salute when he noticed I was lucid. “Must’ve been something big to keep you out of it for an entire film. Oh and sorry about the sandwich, at some point it just jumped into my mouth of its own accord, I couldn’t stop it. Do you want another one?”

“I’m fine thanks.” I replied, still a little distracted.

“You sure about that?”

I shook my head and tried to bring myself from the cycle of thoughts I’d got set into. “Yeah, sorry,” I said more alertly, “I just, I don’t know.” I knew that the ‘me’ in the meadow was right and that I couldn't change anything that had happened but still, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I could still feel pain in my chest. I decided that the only way was to take my mind off it. “Is that offer to use the weights still open?” I asked hopefully.

Adam looked a little concerned for a moment but then brightened up and answered with an enthusiastic “Sure!”.

We took it in turns lifting, not really timing but until we got tired and needed a rest. I got the feeling though that Adam could go on for hours at the weights we were using but feigned fatigue to give me another turn.

Before I knew it Adam had sent me up to have a shower. I looked at the clock when I was in the bedroom getting my towel and shower gear, it was almost 3 o’clock. We’d been lifting for almost an hour, my arms were a mixture of aching and numbness from the hard exercise but I felt exhilarated.

When I was in the shower I started feeling a tingling along the length of the scar, but somehow after the exercise it just didn’t seem to be an issue to me. It felt as if the experience in the hospital was a millennia away, I was past it and at least a little of the mystery and confusion I’d been experiencing since I’ve been here had been resolved.

All events characters are fictional and any relationship to real persons living or dead is coincidental.

Krystal is Copyright© 2005 Harrod200/M/Chris Harrod

Thanks to Talonrider for editing

Constructive criticism welcome at harrod200@yahoo.co.uk