For You

August 2, 2011
5:00 AM
Location: Old Peterborough Hospital, Peterborough, Ontario
Azalia

“Jordan…Jordan wake up!”

I’m yelling now as I rest my head on his chest. He was still breathing, it was short though, but he wasn’t dead. I wasn’t going to let him leave me; he didn’t come all this way to leave me. “Jordy…Jordan come on, wake up! WAKE UP!” I’m crying now.

I stop yelling for him to wake up because it was no use. He was out cold and possibly dying or dead. I pull my knees into my chest and begin to sob, all while ignoring the fact that I was in pain. In the past twenty-four hours, all I did was cry, but I didn’t cry as hard as I did right now. “WHY GOD! WHY!?” I begin yelling through a fit of sobs, as I begin choking on my own tears.

I look over at Jordan while crying, he looked helpless, which was something I wasn’t used to seeing. He was lying there motionless, his eyes where shut, and by the way his stomach was moving, his breathing was still short. “God, don’t take him away from me…please don’t take him!” I keep crying as the thought of why it wasn’t me dying.

It was at that moment I throw myself on to Jordan’s chest and continue sobbing. It wasn’t like me to do something like this, in fact, when someone close to me would die; I’d hide the fact that I was dying on the inside. This, however, I wasn’t going to hide. “Jordy…Jordy, please wake up,” I say through a fit of sobs as I grip onto his shirt, all while his breathing is growing faint. “Staalsy keep breathing, please keep breathing.”

It was at that moment when Jordan’s brothers and my own family popped into my head for whatever reason. I begin to think of how they would feel if they found out Jordan was dead. I began to cry even more, only because I missed them so much. I needed Marc to hold me and tell me it was going to be okay, while Jared would try to make me laugh, and while Eric would sit there and tell Jared to shut the hell up.

I needed my brother Joe join Jared on trying to make me laugh, while my mother and Mrs. Staal would cook food for all of us, while my sisters, Tanya, and Lindsay would be gossiping and swapping stories about the people around them that they would encounter.

I needed my family.

“Jordan…I love you, wake up please,” I sob. “I’m so sorry for all of this. I know you’d say it wasn’t my fault, but it is…Jordan wake up for me.”

It was at that moment I had a flashback of Jordan and I in October after he broke his hand. He had decided to come into Chicago with his mother for a few days, just for shits and giggles because he had nothing else better to do after his surgery. I remember we were driving around in my car, blasting Coldplay, only because we both had a love for them. We were on I-90, taking a random drive into Chicago, as we blasted “The Scientist”, because we both were dealing with people’s immaturity and we felt that it was fitting for our lives at that moment.

I snap out of the flashback as the piano introduction of the song popped into my head. I look at Jordan, who’s still out cold, but his face is as pale as a ghost. “Jordan…wake up, please….don’t leave me,” I whisper, knowing he won’t wake up. Chris Martin’s soothing voice began to fill my head with the lyrics to the song. It was fitting for that given moment of my life. “Come out to meet you…tell you I’m sorry, you don’t know how lovely you are,” I began singing in a fit of sobs, even though I know he couldn’t hear me and that he wouldn’t wake up.

“I had to find you, tell you I need you…tell you I set you apart. Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions, oh lets go back to the start…running in circles, coming up tails, heads on a science apart…nobody said it was easy…it’s such a shame for us to part…nobody said it was easy…no one said it would be this hard…oh take me back to the start.”

I begin to sob even more uncontrollably than I was before as I keep singing the song, in hopes that he would wake up, but I knew he wouldn’t, because this was reality. It was at that moment I began to hear voices as I stopped singing. I look around the hall way as the voices grow closer to me. “Dude, do you hear singing?”

“It sounded like a coldplay song.”
“It was coming from down there.”

I knew I recognized those voices.

---

August 2, 2011
5:23 AM
Location: Old Peterborough Hospital, Peterborough, Ontario
Marc

“Guys, how many ambulances do we have?”
“Two, just to play it safe.”

Eric replied to my question as I threw a bulletproof vest a cop gave me over my head. I then take the gun that was handed to me and hold it tightly in my hand, as Jared looks at me with one of those typical Staal looks. “Marc, do you even know how to work that thing?” He asks me.

“I’ll figure it out. Has anyone heard from Jordan?” I asked.
“Not since he told us to come with an ambulance and the cops,” Jared replies. “What about Azalia?”
“No, which is why I’m kind of worried.”

Eric walks over to me and pats my shoulder. I wasn’t one to usually be terrified, but it was my brother and the girl who he was madly in love with that I considered to be family, so of course I was terrified. “You okay buddy?” Eric asks me as I nod my head. “If you want to wait out here, Jare and I can go with the cops to get them.”

“No, I need to be in there as well.”
“Okay,” Officer Mitchell begins. “We’re going to go into that building together, however, we’re all going to go separate ways once we get in there. Eric, take the third floor with Officer Bentley and myself. Jared and Marc, take the fourth floor with officer Hager. Everyone else, spread out. If you happen so see anything or anyone, walkie us.”

I look at Jared, who nods at me and sticks his fist out. I pound back and follow everyone toward the building. In all honesty, it felt weird holding a handgun, considering that I’ve never held on in my life. I watch Jared inspect the weapon, and it was getting to the point were I wanted to take it out of his hands so he didn’t accidently shoot anyone.

Jared and I follow Officer Hager to the fifth floor before he tells us to go down to the surgery hallway of the fourth floor. We nod and begin walking, as I hold the gun out incase I had to set it off. “God,” Jared begins. “I can’t even the remember the last time I was in here.”

“Lindsay and I came here in high school to hook up when we couldn’t at home once.”
“Like I really wanted to know that,” Jared began.
“What, you were on the subject of the last time you where here.”
“But that was just too much for me to hear.”
“You’re a grown man dude and besides, it’s not like I’m telling you how far we went that night.”
“Just stop talking Marc and turn right.”
“How can you even see?”
“It’s called a fucking flashlight dumbass.”

As soon as he said that, I had realized he was holding a flashlight. I was way into my story that I didn’t even bother to ask Jared if he even had a flashlight on him. “God, this place is creepy,” Jared says as we continue walking. “How many people do you think died in here?”

“I don’t know, a couple hundred maybe? I just remember scaring the shit out of you and Jordan when we were younger when talking about this place.”
“Those were the good days when we didn’t have issues like this.”
“I miss those days.”
“You’re telling me? I’d give anything—“

I stop talking as I heard something from around the corner. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it sounded like a mixture of singing and crying. “What’s wrong with you now?” Jared asks me as I swat my hand at him. I then hold the gun out and continue to walk as the sounds became clearer to me. I was right, it was defiantly a mixture of crying and singing.

“I was just guessing, the numbers and figures, pulling the puzzles apart…questions of science, science and progress, do not speak as loud as my heart…”

“Dude, do you hear singing?” I ask Jared, who is standing next to me now.
“Tell me you love me…come back and hold me…oh and I rush to the start…running in circles, chasing our tails…coming back as we are…”

“It sounded like a coldplay song…Azalia is obsessed with coldplay, isn’t she?”
“Her and Jordan both…”

“Nobody said it was easy, oh it’s such a shame for us to part…nobody said it was easy…no one ever said it would be so hard…I’m going back to the start…”

“It was coming from down there,” Jared said as he pointed the flashlight toward the sound of crying and singing.
“Jordan…Jordan please wake up.”
“It’s Azalia…and did she just say what I think—“
“AZALIA!”

I yell as I begin running to where I heard the crying and the singing, with Jared following me. “Azalia, is that you?” I keep yelling as I turn the corner, with Jared telling me to slow the fuck down.

“MARC!?” I hear her yell.

I finally get to her as Jared flashed the light on her. “Oh my God,” I hear Jared say as fell down next to her and held her. I felt her grip to me, as she began sobbing uncontrollably.

“Marc…he killed Spencer…but Spencer really outdid himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Marc,” she begins through a sob of tears as I felt Jared flash the light on Jordan. “Jordan’s dying.”
“Oh my God,” I begin, as I pull out my walkie. “It’s Marc, I found them but we need a paramedic for Jordan now.”
“Marc, have them save him, please make him wake up.”

She continues to sob as I kiss the top of her head and run my hand through her hair. My brother was dying, no this wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be, Jordan was one of the toughest guys I knew in my life, and he was dying. I feel someone’s arms around both Azalia and I. I turn my head to see it was Jared, who was sobbing now too. “He’s going to be okay guys, I know he will.”

“Marc, make him wake up…ow!”
“Are you okay?”
“No…he kicked my side, it’s in pain. Jordan was going to get me to a hospital before he took a few battle wounds.”

I get up and pick up Azalia bridal style as paramedics get Jordan on an oxygen tank. Jared than grabs the walkie and the hand gun I had in my hands as we walk out side by side of the hospital. I look up to see Eric relieved that I had Azalia as he ran toward us. “Is she okay?”

“No, she needs to get to a hospital now.”
“Where the hell is Jordan?”
“Jordan is on an oxygen tank…Eric…I think Jordan might be dead.”