Suffocation.

It was foggy yet somehow there was light everywhere. I felt like I was dreaming, floating on clouds. From somewhere came the soft voice of the person I was named after.

"The sun is fading away,
That's the end of the day,
As the June light turns to moonlight,
I'll be on my way."

I began making small, unsteady strides to try to find him. To try and find the man singing the song that I hear my mom hum to me as I drifted to sleep. My bare feet didn't connect to the hard surface of ground each time I took a new step.

I didn't know where I was, all I knew that I was laying on my brother's bedroom floor, watching him watch me as my life slipped slowly from my body.

I was dead, I had to be. There was no other way of explaining it. I was in some bizarre after world.

"Just one kiss and I'll go,
Don't hide the tears that don't show,
As the June light turns to moonlight,
I'll be on my way."

I blinked as the light got brighter for a moment then going back to light fog. My mother stood before me. Not as how I last saw her, pale and covered in her dark blood. She didn't even look like how I remember her. No bags under her eyes, the wrinkles around her mouth had vanished. She was younger, happier, and lively.

"Mom?" I whispered and my mom smiled back at me.

There was no time for thinking; I latched myself to her as if I was a small child.

"Oh my beautiful Lennon," she stroked my red hair patiently.

"You're dead," I choke out as I pull away from her. She nodded at me. "I'm dead too." This time she shakes her head no and I furrow my brow in confusion.

"There's still time for you, if you want."

"I can choose?"

"Yes Dear, you can always choose."

"Can you?" I already knew the answer to this question but I wanted my mom to confirm it anyways, just to make it real.

"No. But I'll be just fine. I raised such a beautiful daughter and a strong son; there is nothing else I can ask for."

"What if I wanted to stay with you?"

"Is that what you want?"

I thought about it. I could stay in the haze and let the world below me continue without the life of seventeen year old Lennon Abrams. I could stay with my mom and leave my brother to face everything on his own. I'd no longer be his role model. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I found me answer.

My mom already knew. She smiled at me, kissed my cheek and told me she loved me. I only had enough time to whisper it back to her before I could no longer see her.

"To where the winds don't blow,
And golden rivers flow,
This way will I go."

It was still foggy but the lights seemed to intensify once more and John Lennon's voice vanished along with my mom. It was replaced with the sound of beeps and a whooshing sound. There were also voices, two from what it sounded like but I couldn't tell who they belonged to. I tried to open my eyes but my eyelids were too heavy and I was too weak to keep trying. I tried moving but hands but that was even harder than trying to open my eyes.

So I laid there, counting the different sounds. Two voices, murmuring something that I couldn't make out. High pitched fast beeps, a long slow beep that one happens on occasion. One high pitched beep followed by two faster beeps in similar frequency. Another voice different from the first two voice. Then no voices at all.

Focusing so much of what little energy I had on sounds was tiring and I allowed myself to slip back into darkness.

When I woke up I was able to open my eyes, but only fractionally. I viewed my surroundings through a curtain of eyelashes. I spotted a young lady in scrubs to my right. I tried talking but my mouth was too dry and my throat was so sore. I resorted to moving my fingers back and forth on the bed sheet to try and get her attention. It worked.

"Miss Abrams, I'm Jenny, your nurse. Please don't move or talk and I'll go get the doctor," she said before rushing out of the door.

She came back minutes later followed by a balding man with a manila folder in his hands.

"Lennon, I'm Doctor Kirby. You're at Mercy Hospital, do you know how you got here?"

I gave a small, painful nod.

"Okay, good. Now I don't want you talking or moving while I explain to you what happened."

Then Doctor Kirby went on to explain that I was shot a total of four times. One bullet grazed my side but managed to break a rib, three bullets actually entered my body, and one bullet broke my collarbone before exiting. Another bullet went into my leg and lodged itself in my femur bone and the last bullet played pin ball inside my chest, breaking more ribs and deflating my right lung. I was lucky enough that the bullet didn't touch my spine or my heart.

I had five blood transfusions and multiple surgeries. One surgery was to put a rod into my bone marrow so my femur could heal correctly. Another surgery was to of course remove all of the blood and trapped air from my lung.

I had a tracheostomy and a ventilator to breath for me until my lungs were able to work by themselves. A catheter and a colostomy bag because my bladder and colon still worked while I was drugged up on anesthesia. There are also multiple IV's in my arms and a feeding tube that was just taken out of of my mouth.

Doctor Kirby promised that he would take out the tracheostomy tube in a few hours and that I should sleep more because I had a long road ahead of me. I saw the nurse flitting with one of my IV's and a cool, heavy sensation washed over me and I was asleep once again.