Chapter 5
I slowly walked up to the bed and stopped to look at her. She was intentionally looking away from me, with her long black hair and freckled face. A stream of tears poured down her face. I could tell that they were fresh tears… I didn’t think she was crying before I entered.
I gently spoke to her, “Ruth… How are you?”
She said nothing. She never even moved as I saw more tears drip down her face. I wasn’t expecting a response, I was just testing the waters. I did manage to confirm that I couldn’t move forward by controlling the conversation… She needed to want to speak herself.
I gently sat down on the end of the bed. I looked over her and saw her swimming in a black sea of suicidal energy. There was no doubt about it… She was still in that dark place. I gently put my hand on her leg, in a desperate attempt to connect with her. She suddenly kicked the side of me surprisingly hard and I took my hand off immediately.
I sat there in silence as she finally stopped crying. I thought about how I would try to get her to start talking. I thought about what Aisling said… About not hiding or pretending.
I whispered gently, “You know… After the battle happened, they only had two blindfolds. Aisling and Nadia wore them, and I had to see the aftermath of the battle…”
She whispered back, “... The sea of blood in an ocean of corpses…”
I nodded slightly, “... Yeah. I think if I wasn’t in shock… I would have had a panic attack.”
She didn’t respond initially as my thoughts went back to that horrible sight. I tried not to dwell on the nightmarish image in my head for too long, though.
She whispered, “I never knew a person had that much blood in their body… Like a never-ending fountain…”
I nodded, “I… I saw my reflection in the puddle… There was just so much…”
She sat up with her legs together and wrapped her arms around them as she curled into an upright ball. She looked at me as fresh tears fell.
Her face was tragically wracked with sadness, “I’m weak… I tried so hard… AI said it would be bad… I should have listened.”
I tried complimenting her, “We all respect the excellent work you did… You’re incredible, you know that?”
She looked away and stared into infinity, “... I wanted to be like you. I wanted to be more than just a quiet girl, sitting alone at my table… I watched you as you walked through hell and eternal pain… I thought maybe I could do that too…”
I shook my head as I started crying as well, “Oh Ruth… Oh no…”
Suddenly I understood her viewpoint and it all made sense. She knew she wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t brave enough… yet she dared to dream. She hoped she could be more, and I couldn’t blame her for that… who could?
I whispered, “You are an amazingly strong person. AI told me how you did your job perfectly, that you even impressed the others from the army, who did it as a full-time job.”
She looked at me with dead eyes, “I just worked… I didn’t think, I just did. I should have let myself feel, Andrew… I didn’t, I was committed to being strong like you.”
I looked away, “It didn’t hit you until you finished… did it?”
She never responded. She just cried and sniffed more. A few minutes passed as I waited for her to speak.
She finally whispered, “I still smell the iron from their blood… Such a strong and bitter smell… Then I had to pick up their… their…”
She shook her head rapidly, like she was trying to get the image out of her head. I imagined it was the entrails I saw from the explosions…
I looked her in the eyes, “What did you feel, Ruth?”
She looked at me, “Cold… I just felt cold. On the fourth day, we finished cleaning everything. The smell of bleach was so strong. They ventilated the foyer and AI said I could go home.”
I nodded as I patiently waited for her to carry on.
She stared at her arms, “I got home, and I still just felt so cold. There were no other feelings. I just felt empty and cold… Every time I closed my eyes, all I saw was blood… Blood on the walls and blood on the floors… Blood on my hands and when I looked in the mirror… Blood on my face.”
I nodded, “Same thing happened to me. I was too scared to blink, even… the images were burned into my mind.”
She suddenly screamed, “I SAW THAT FOR FOUR DAYS! FOUR DAYS OF SWIMMING IN BLOOD, WHY WAS THERE SO MUCH OF IT?! I JUST KEPT FINDING MORE EVERYWHERE, IT NEVER ENDED!”
I felt myself get hit by a wave of depressed energy. I tried to shrug it off, but it stuck onto me. I looked away as I forced myself to breathe deeply. I tried to centre myself and tried not to think of the dark images in the back of my mind.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Zoe whispered, “Andrew, tread lightly.”
I looked at her and nodded. It was a huge hit to my sanity, but I was still in control. I waited in silence for Ruth to speak some more.
She eventually whispered again, “I had a bath to warm up… but when I climbed in it, my skin felt the heat, but I didn’t feel warm… I was just so cold… Hours passed, the water went cold, and I just felt so freezingly cold…”
I nodded gently, “You were in a form of mental shock. Your body was detached from your mind. It happened to me several hours after the event.”
She nodded, “I went to bed and the cold didn’t leave. I put on four blankets but I just… was so cold.”
I whispered, “It was psychological…”
She waited a moment, then whispered more, “I couldn’t sleep, the images stayed in my head… The hours passed as I lay in bed… I didn’t sleep for days…”
I found myself crying intensely, “Oh Ruth…”
She started shaking slightly, “I was so tired and cold… I kept seeing blood on my hands… Why couldn’t I get rid of the blood? I kept washing my hands, but it was still there!”
I nodded, “I know… I know.”
She cried intensely as her body shook so violently, “I thought maybe… It was my own blood I kept seeing… Maybe if I intentionally bleed out a little of my own blood, then I wouldn't have enough to keep bleeding on myself…”
I stood up in a state of panic… I felt like I was falling fast. This was too hard… Too much… I couldn’t stop crying as I felt overwhelming hopelessness crushing me. I shook my head as I put my hands around my head. I tried thinking happier thoughts, but it didn’t work. I heard Zoe stand up suddenly.
Her voice was firm, “You need to pull out now, right now!”
I shook my head and whispered back, “No, I can handle this…”
I heard Oliver come in as he grabbed me in a hug and pulled me out of the room. Zoe waited for the nurse to go back in before she shut the door.
I tried fighting free of Oliver's grasp, “No, I need to be there with her, let go of me!”
Oliver’s tone was firm, “There will be more time later, I'm not letting you fall, do you hear me?”
Zoe nodded, “Andrew, you almost went suicidal then, your body language indicated that you were rapidly losing hope… If you hope to save her, you need to save yourself first!”
I cried as I looked at the door, “Oh my God! how could I leave her, I need to tell her-”
Oliver cut me off, “Shut up! Be quiet now, don’t say one more word!”
I was angry as I breathed intensely. As I breathed more deeply, I suddenly became aware of my mental state. Oh wow… I was already in a deep pit, how had I not realised? I relaxed as I slowly found myself coming out of the darkness. Finally, after a few minutes, I stopped crying.
Oliver let go of me, but I still didn’t move. I thought about what she said as I tried to process the depths of her horror. I closed my eyes, and I saw the image of her in the shower, sitting in her own blood…
I shook my head, “It’s exactly as bad as I feared, precisely as hopeless… Oh my God, what am I going to do?”
Oliver spoke quietly, “You already got her talking. Talking is always the first step towards recovery with mental trauma. It’s why I always talked with you, Andrew.”
I nodded, “Right… and it worked, it helped me so much… Just saying how I felt took the edge off of my emotions… Do you think that might be happening with Ruth?”
He nodded, “Absolutely. She most likely felt nobody could understand the horror she saw… When you shared your feelings on what you saw and felt… It certainly gave her comfort.”
I shook my head in shock, “She’s so alone… It’s not even that place I spoke off to Aisling, the cold place… No, it’s worse, it’s just darkness like the bottom of the ocean… There’s no light anywhere, just cold emptiness…”
Oliver rubbed my shoulders, “Easy Andrew… Easy, stay with us please…”
I nodded as I wrapped my arms around myself. I rocked forwards and backwards as I tried to soothe myself.
I looked at the door with determination, “I need to go back.”
Oliver nodded, “I know you do and that’s what scares me. Where it ended… If you don’t hear her fully it might compromise her ability to recover… But I’m terrified that you won’t be able to endure it, Andrew!”
Zoe agreed, “I don’t know what you spoke about, but when I glanced at her, she looked wanting… She wants to share more…”
I found my voice raised, “God damn it! I know!... If I care for her then I have no choice… Just give me a few more minutes to try to find stable ground.”
They watched me intensely as I walked up and down the passageway, staring at the floor. I was trying to focus on the hope the Angels gave me. It was there, inside me. I just needed to focus on it, never lose sight of their light. I finally stopped my pacing next to the door as I still stared into eternity.
Oliver whispered, “Are you ready?”
I nodded, “As ready as I'll ever be… Zoe, headphones please.”
She put them on, “Ready… Andrew, this time, I will pull you out myself as soon as I detect it… I almost didn’t react fast enough last time… We almost lost you.”
I nodded and gave her a thumbs up to indicate I understood and agreed. Oliver opened the door and waited for the nurse to come out. She looked at me with horror on her face, “You brave man…”
*
I walked in and went straight back to Ruth. She was in the same posture, but she was now staring into eternity as well. I sat back down next to her, but closer this time.
I whispered sincerely, “I’m sorry Ruth… please forgive me for leaving you. I’m doing everything I can to help you, without…”
She whispered, “Without falling into my darkness… Good… I don’t want you here with me.”
I nodded, “You said you wanted to clean the blood off your hands. I thought when I saw you there in the bathtub, that it was suicide… but you were actually trying to get rid of your trauma.”
She shook her head, “I wanted to die… if I couldn’t get rid of the blood on my hands…”
I looked into her eyes, “Is the blood still there?”
She let go of her legs and looked at her hands. I could see that they were very clearly not covered in blood.
She showed me her hands, her voice panicking “Obviously it’s still there… It’s all over my trousers… I can’t get rid of it, Andrew!”
I reached over and held her hands. She tried to pull them back, but I held on tightly. Her body squirmed as she tried to shake my grip… but she eventually stopped.
She looked at me heartbroken, as her tears flowed intensely. “Now you’ve got it on you too! Andrew, I'm so sorry! Look at the mess I've made, I'm so useless!”
I shook my head, “Ruth… It’s perfectly fine. I’m here with you…”
I put my face in between her hands. At first, she tried to not touch me, but then she eventually caressed my face with her hands. I know it must have looked horrible from her perspective… but I needed her to understand that I was not hiding, pretending or denying what she said she saw.
She wept as she looked at me, and I saw in her eyes horror… fear and shame. It wasn’t the blood that haunted her… it was herself. She tried so hard to be more… Yet she refused to see how she managed to succeed.
I whispered, “I’m so happy to be here with you, my friend. You’re incredible… So brave, so strong and so kind…”
She gently rubbed my face, “I failed you all… I tried to be like you, and I broke into a million pieces…”
I closed my eyes, “Sometimes you have to fall apart… So that you can be built back up stronger than before. The blood you see is the old you… It’s only going away when you realise that you succeeded.”
She pulled her hands back gently and stared at them, “The old me?... No, Andrew, it's all this blood…”
I shook my head, “There was so much blood, Ruth… I won’t argue that. It spread everywhere, covering everything… but Ruth, you cleaned it all… I went to the foyer and looked… It’s all gone… Your hands don’t have any blood on them.”
I waited a moment before I continued, “It’s not blood you’re seeing, it’s yourself. It’s your mind trying to make sense of the trauma and how much you have changed. You still see blood because you won’t accept that you’re stronger now, than you were before.”
She looked at her hands as she rotated them around. She shook her head as tears dripped down her cheeks. For several minutes she sat there staring at her hands… Then she stared into eternity.
She whispered, “I have changed… The old me feared the blood. The new me ignores it… I don’t want to forget who I used to be… I don’t want to stop fearing blood…”
I nodded, “I know… but you either embrace the new you… Or you fall forever into the abyss, and I lose you…”
She rocked herself forward and back as her eyes shot side to side, rapidly. I could tell she was peering deep into herself. She was measuring the two sides of her own soul. It’s always difficult for people to accept that they have changed. In her case, her innocence was holding back her courage. She must have valued her innocence very highly…
She stopped rocking and looked confusingly at her legs and then her hands. She blinked intensely in disbelief.
She looked at me as her face showed her courage cracking, “It’s gone… The blood is gone…”
She started weeping as she shook her head. I hugged her tightly as she cried and cried. She didn’t speak and neither did I. For what felt like an age she cried into my chest, and I cried with her. I let her have all the time she needed, for there was no rush to let go…