Max woke with a jolt, rustling the clean white sheets that lay over him. Pain flashed like a lightning bolt through his body, and he gasped in agony. The sudden intake of air only made it worse, feeling as if his lungs were being ripped apart. He clutched his chest with his fisted hands, trying not to struggle with the pain. He lay on the bed waiting for the pain to go away, his face contorted in a grimace.
Movement caught his eye, and he tried to shift his head, but realized that he shot pain through his chest again when he did that, and resisted. A woman dressed in blue walked over and looked at him then. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and she pressed a button that Max could not see.
It was now that it occurred to him that he was in a hospital bed, probably suffering serious injuries. He couldn't remember what had happened, only how it felt. And...
Adams voice entered his train of thought. His voice, screaming for him. His mothers face contorted in disbelief. He swallowed hard. Everything was so quiet. Why? Why wasn't anyone in the room with him? Why wasn't he already dead? It had felt like he'd been crushed, when it happened.
The door opened then, and the same nurse appeared, with two people trailing behind. Max couldn't see their faces clearly enough to tell who they were yet, but one thing was for sure. They were crying. Not that sort of sad, normal crying. But the kind of crying that lets everyone around you know that something's seriously wrong.
Suddenly, one of their faces became lit up by the bright artificial light of the room, and Max had to muster all the strength he had left to keep from crying. Then the other person became visible, and he couldn't help but cry.
His mother ran over to him, sobbing, her cheeks ruddy with adrenaline. She enveloped Max in her arms, and the pain was excruciating.
Max couldn't help but holler, feeling his voice crack. His lungs screamed from the rib that must have been poking through them. His mother jumped back, looking hurt. The nurse intervened, holding A remote that she banged on.
A minute later, another nurse came in with a cart, taking a syringe out of the cart, and wiping the side of Max's neck down, and injecting the needle. It stung slightly, and he felt the fluid entering his bloodstream. She took it out and Max shivered.
After a minute of awkward waiting and agony, the pain started to dissipate. The shot must have been pain medicine. The tears he didn't realize were on his cheeks began to dry, making crusty little paths. His mother started to talk frantically, but Max just stared out of the window.
His head ached, and every part of him felt exhausted. The television screen lit up with a computer image of Max's muscles and organs, and he cringed as he looked at them. It was weird to see every part of himself. His left lung was punctured by a cracked rib, and fluid had leaked into it. His chest plate had been shattered into about four pieces, and his collarbone was broken.
The nurse walked over to him then and grabbed a notepaper, writing something on it. She then handed it to him, looking forlorn.
Max's eyes watered. A pain erupted inside his chest, feeling as if his heart had been stopped for a few beats. He grimaced as he battled the emotion in his heart, his lungs burning in protest.
Deaf. He was deaf. Not profoundly, but still deaf. Almost moderately. He would never hear music again. Never hear his friends excited shouts and joyful laughs again when one of them messed up a guitar chord. He would never hear his own voice again. Or at least, not the same.
The nurse awkwardly handed him another note that said he was to have another scan. He sighed, his breaths shuddering with his punctured lung.
The nurse took hold of his bed, carting him down the hallway, a few machines following. They entered a room with a bed and a scanning machine. Another male nurse came from behind the little box that they always sit behind during scans, lifting Max with the other nurse slowly and carefully onto the bed.
Pain came over his chest, and he suppressed a cough. The screen above him lit up, as the other nurse went into the little box and a light flashed. The screen popped an image of him up. It took a moment before max realized that it was a live feed of his body. His heart pulsed behind his shattered chest cavity, causing him to cringe. His lung was the hardest thing to look at. It looked as if it was stabbed, and blood was flowing in like it had a right mind to suffocate him.
He became more and more uncomfortable watching his heart. How it seemed to be laboring with each desperate flutter just to keep him alive. He became tense. He swallowed hard, watching the mechanics of his throat force the saliva down to distract himself from his heart. One part caused another to move, that made another part do something else. Though he couldn't hear it, he forced air through his vocal chords, watching them vibrate, humming what felt like the tune to one of the bands songs. He watched as his voice box moved up and down, fluttering with his vibrato and dipping when he took a breath.
He felt like he could scream, with everything that had happened to him. It had been so sudden. No warnings, or goodbyes. No I love you's. Just some guy running him over. And bam. No more hearing. Probably no more normal anything either. Lots of healing surely, and tests, and treatments. And loss. Loss of the gift he had. Of his passion. The one thing that made him hope. Music. And his friends.
A lump formed in his throat, and he swallowed again to get rid of it, the cords in his neck standing out as he strained. He didn't bother to look at his body anymore, cringing at the sight of it. What was the point of living if he was lost? Everything that he loved was conflicted with now.
He gasped as the nurses hands slipped under him again, laying him as gently as they could back on the other bed. The pain ran throughout him, making him want to cry. He couldn't do that in front of nurses though. He had to be strong for now.
They settled him back in his room, his mother looking at him sadly. Adams face was red from crying, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. He had snot and drool on his face, and he wiped his mouth with a sleeve, shuddering as he took another breath, and swallowing as he looked at Max.
Max began to feel tired. His eyelids became heavy, and his vision began to fade. He exhaled, glancing at Adam with a sad look in his eye as he drifted to a painful, restless sleep, forever changed.