The Animal Within

It's like finally waking up from a haunting nightmare where there is no air to breath, no warmth to feel, and like life was a cold, distant memory that just wouldn't let you come back from the brink of losing your mind. Waking up in the hospital was a reprieve in and of itself my mind had tortured me more than enough within the time I had been sleeping. I hated how I had let it slip back into the dark chasm's that I had locked away after getting over my drug and alcohol abuse.

Never before had I been this depressed and...and...suicidal about something in all of my lives. Never had the lure of alcohol tempted me so much that I abused it; I had always been a respectable man and scholar, but, now as a teenager in this life, I was nothing but a tidal wave of anti-depressants while being four fifths suicidal.

Baylynn knew, and I know I hurt her every time I slip, but I keep trying to tell myself that everything will be fine that we'll find Jeremy and Demetri so that everything can rotate in harmony again; that we can finally, truly die in peace.

That's when it hits me like a freight train - we had found Jeremy and Demetri. Demetri had touched me so gently, so sweetly - like I was a flower whose petals were too delicate to tear off and let die; I felt that love course through me when I saw the flash of concern go through his eyes when he looked into my own hazy eyes.

I knew at that time I didn't want just my Demetri - I wanted the man that he was now. Funny as it sounds, as I let out a little giggle, I wanted everything of him. I wanted the new person he was much more than the Demetri I had known that had feared the unknown and was a lover rather than a fighter; I can feel he has changed to a fighter rather than a lover since this world changes even the longest living souls.

I couldn't help myself from laughing at all the revelations I was making as I thought of all of the new things I could do with this new Demetri; I didn't know his new name, but I wanted to know. I wanted to trace every muscle that I thought I knew, but never actually did because they looked stronger and more built to endure harsher things than the stable boy that I had known so long ago.

Let me tell you the differences between my Demetri and this new man that presented to me the feelings of being Demetri, but really wasn't.

He was built equally to his brother rather than his brother being the more muscled one of the two; by all means Jeremy still protected Demetri, but it was less than it was long ago. His hair was shorter than the mid-length it had been, but Drex's was the same way since it was more modern times. Oh god those sultry muscles of Demetri's, Drex wanted to run his hands and tongue over them just to see if they tasted as good as they looked. His chocolate brown eyes so gorgeous that if I could get them alighted with lust they'd be even more striking -maybe mixed with a bit of red to make them look a little more dangerous.

'Ah Damn' I thought as I bashed my head into the soft hospital pillow. Those thoughts had costed me the embarrassment of an erection, and I only know one way to kill it, but maybe I don't want to kill it because it shows the sign of knowing I'm still sexually attracted to Demetri even though it's been more than one-hundred years since we touched so intimately.

"Oh! Wow! I'll come back later" a mature woman's voice said breaking me from my thoughts. I turned to see a nurse about to make a hasty retreat, "No, it's okay. I was just thinking, and, well, we both know where those thoughts went" I said before laughing nervously. "Well, I'm Melissa McCall and I'll be your nurse while you're here" Nurse McCall said introducing herself. "Nice to meet you" I said rubbing my hand on the back of my neck, and that's when all the pieces fell together.

I was in the hospital, I was injured, and there was pain radiating from my right thigh. Alarmed, I looked down to make sure there was no bad news, and saw my leg was bandaged up, and nothing too terrible looked to be wrong with it.

"Oh thank god" I said in relief as I pulled the covers up and looked down to make sure the blankets weren't fooling me, but, alas, my first conclusion was correct. "Your leg is fine, but if it hadn't been for someone putting their shirt on the wound you would have lost a lot more blood, and it would have not been advised for them to remove the glass, but they did it at such an angle that it didn't tear anything that wasn't already torn. Whoever it was, I'd thank them the next time you see them - they saved your life" Melissa said after looking up from my chart. "I think I have a good guess as to who it was that saved my life" I told her as I got a small smile on my face.

"Just make sure to thank them after the hospital discharges you. It says that you can be released from the hospital tomorrow, but you'll be getting crutches along with some prescriptions of hydrocodone and antibiotics to help with the pain and keep infections from affecting your wound" she said as she re-checked my chart, and took my vitals. "You should get upgraded from nurse to doctor, because you seem more competent than any of the doctors I've seen around here" I said looking unimpressed out the little window in my room door.

"You haven't met any of the doctors" Melissa said looking at me with a "are-you-being-serious?" look on her face. I shrug, "You usually read and watch the doctors come in to check on a patient, but instead a very formidable nurse does. Has to make a patient wonder" I said looking at her in a joking way. "Oh har har" Melissa said as she finished writing in my chart. "I'm sorry to bother you, but...have I had any visitors?" I asked her wondering if my sister has come by at all.

"Your sister and a young man has, why?" she asked looking at me questioningly, and that's when I get confused. Not only has Baylynn come by, but so has someone else? Who could it be? "Who...who's the young man?" I asked her feeling slightly panicked, but also very curious. "Medium build, short brown hair, brown eyes could be one of my son Scott's friends" Melissa answered looking slightly alarmed like she probably shouldn't have let him through. "Everything leads back to Demetri" I mumbled as I laughed out, and grinned. "Pardon?" she asked looking at me as she hadn't heard me.

"Ah! It's nothing! If he comes back please keep sending him in, I would really like to speak to him" I told her with a smile on my face. "I bet you remember all the buttons to press if somethings wrong or you want to sit up seeing as you have been in hospital's more than my son has with his severe asthma" Melissa commented as she re-checked my charts again for a third time.

Before she walked out, I commented on something that really hits home, "So my parents haven't been contacted". She hesitates before turning back around to look at me, but I just turned my head away from her to show that I didn't need her response to know they hadn't even thought to come see how their only son is doing or how he wound up in the hospital.

"I'm sorry" she said before she opened the door and closed it. As with all amazing and wondrous thoughts, there is always that Debbie Downer.