Ruthless blood

In the entirely cliché mess of it all, he took me down an alley. The walls showed evidence of why I should have been scared, and the blade touching my stomach also showed evidence. His vision was impaired; he was intoxicated and shaking a little bit. But that still didn’t give me any confidence in whether or not I would survive.

I didn’t want to seem like I was scared, but the moment tears formed in my eyes I knew I had no chance of that.

“I’m sorry” I muttered. I just said it, over and over again, it was uncalled for and it didn’t make any sense, but it was worth a try. It was almost painful how scared I was, the stabbing nervousness in my stomach made me feel like I was already being stabbed.

He shouted at me to shut up “I have to do this” his eyes were watering with rage, and his face was growing in redness.

“Why?” I couldn’t help but cry.

He shouted again, I just shut my mouth, really tight. The silence was heavy; it felt like the longest silence I had ever sat through. He just stood there, and thought, his head was down; facing his feet, but the knife was still close to my torso. He shook his head a couple of times. And I knew I was dealing with an extremely unstable person.

I tried to reason. I opened my mouth, dry as a bone from nerves and spoke, hoarsely.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” I calmly asked.

He looked up slowly and stared into my eyes, I was frightened at how deep his were and how he was reading into mine like a book.

“No” he breathed “there’s nothing you can do for me”

The silence hung over us again, deathly and black, I watched the sky above me change from black to a deep blue, ready for the sun once again. I kept feeling my phone vibrate at my hip, where it was tucked for safe keeping. I knew he heard it, but he didn’t seem to care, because I never made a move to pick it up. Someone passed the mouth of the alley and stopped; he leaned into it and lit a cigarette. I wanted so bad to scream, to even breathe loud enough for him to see me. But his hand slipped over my mouth and he shook his head.

I heard the thing I most wanted to hear, and that was the sound of a familiar voice. It was Hannah, an angry, Hannah, strolling down the streets speaking loudly to someone.

“He takes her out for a night, and loses her” she was speaking into a phone when she passed the mouth of the alley.

“Fucking sod” she mumbled and hung up the phone, she crossed her arms and looked hopeless. I knew they weren’t worried something had happened to me, they were worried I did something to myself, like I use to, those months ago. But this time it was different I didn’t do anything to inflict this harm upon myself.

The guy smoking looked at Hannah, and in an attempt to avoid eye contact with her, looked toward me, caught sight of me and then unbelievably apologised, walking away, thinking he had interrupted us in the middle of something.

I mumbled words of begging, that Hannah would see us and, not come and save me, but get help. I didn’t want to have to see her get hurt trying to help me. Hannah just kept walking.
Silence again, thick in the air. The silence was broken with the faint sound of music as someone opened the door of a club and the near silence appeared again when someone closed it. Another familiar voice, the voice of Amy speaking to Hannah. They were talking about the last time she saw me, and I screamed in my mind “please look at me, please”. My thoughts turned into actions. I had enough. I yelped through his fingers, until my throat felt like it was being torn in half.

I screamed and in that second the blade punctured my skin. I pushed as hard as I could and watched him collide with the wall. The blade hadn’t gone deep, but I was still bleeding and people stopped, horrified at my appearance. My scream was mute, I felt like I couldn’t hear anything, even my own voice. I felt like that because no one looked at me, no one looked at me until I closed my mouth, when I was done screaming. Then they all stared, horrified at what they were witnessing.

Hannah slapped her hand onto her mouth and I dropped to the ground, glad that I heard the noise around me once again, that my ears weren’t failing me. The blood didn’t disturb me; sure it was escaping from my body. But the fact that this deep, red sticky substance reminded me of the sight I witnessed when Stevie died made me frightened.

Amy ran towards me and ripped the jumper she was wearing off her shoulders, it was Oli’s. The jumper smelt like him, and my eyes watered at the reminder of the pain I was trying to escape tonight. I watched as the hoodlum, hands covered in my blood ran and threw the knife into the nearby harbour. He kept running like there was no tomorrow to live for, like the world wouldn’t catch up with him.

Oli watched him pass with eye brows furrowed and shrugged. He then saw his jacket on the floor, attempted to pounce at Amy for putting one of his favourite jackets on the ground, but saw me instead, staining it with my blood.

He didn’t think, and he ran, he ran towards the guy who did this to me. I could hear his yelling grow fainter and fainter, until I knew he had stopped. His footfall grew faint and then louder again as he approached us, he stood panting and looked at Amy.

She looked like a mess, the smell and look of my blood was making her queasy and she tried to push past it, but her eyes rolled into the back of her head and Oli caught her, just before she hit the ground.

“Fucking brilliant” Hannah cursed while telling the ambulance our location.

Oli looked toward me and then toward Amy who lay in his arms. He pulled her up to stand upright and held her head up, looking worried.

“Hannah, when are they coming?” the gash was stinging but it looked worse than it felt.
“Soon” she sat next to me, and held Oli’s jacket against my stomach, and I felt bad for staining it.

It wasn’t a dramatic venture, I sat in the back of the ambulance, holding a gauze against my stomach, as an ambulance attendant watched me carefully.

“Sorry none of your friends could come” he apologised.

“It’s fine” I whimpered.

“Hold it tighter okay?” he pressed my hand harder against my stomach; his hand already had my stale blood on it.

“Your friends will be there when you get there, and it will be a very small surgery” he tried to comfort me and I just nodded.

I was sat in a wheel chair, and I hated that they brought more attention to me. They wheeled me through the hall, and into a room where a doctor had everything prepared.

“You won’t be unconscious, it’s just a local anaesthesia” he guided me through it as I was laid down and blood was wiped from my stinging torso.

I closed my eyes and hoped to fall asleep after the sting of a needle. But, though my torso was numb from pain, I could still feel the small tug of the needle and thread through my skin as they applied the stitches. When I was done, they sat me up carefully, and wheeled me to my friends.

A nurse gave me pills and specific instructions to my friends of how to handle me. I hated sitting while Hannah nodded and kept her hand on my shoulder. They were finally done talking and I was out of there. I stood, but Hannah just pushed me back down and drove me, a little too fast to a cab.

I sat with my arm around my torso while the road under us made me waver.

“Where’s everyone else?” I mumbled.

She thought for a moment “I think Amy’s passed out in Oli’s bus, and Oli is probably taking care of her”

I held Oli’s blood stained jacket in a clinical plastic bag the hospital placed it in. i then dropped it at my feet, on the car floor and let myself drift to sleep.

“What do we do with her?” Hannah whispered.

“Don’t just look at her you sod, we can’t let her sleep in here”

“But we can’t move her too much, her stitches will-“

“I will move myself” I spoke with my eyes closed.

“Sorry” they all mumbled communally.

I then sat up, and slowly stood up; they grabbed at me from every different direction, and walked me to the bus. As annoying as it was, it was nice to feel like I had a family that would take care of me here.

“I need to take your top off” Hannah announced.

I groaned “Dude, please let me sleep with some dignity”

“Nurse said it would irritate the stiches” she ordered. I simply stood with my arms in the air, and she removed my shirt.

Tom and Jeremy were in their bunks at this point. And I was completely past the point of caring. Hannah then placed me on the lounge in the front part of the bus, so she could sleep on the floor next to me, in case anything happened.

“Hannah” I whispered.

“What?” she was already half asleep.

“Thanks”

She just mumbled something and her faint snoring was heard.