Tug of War
There will be a moment in your life that you will enter a game which will conclude your fate. In that arena, your hands are tied, lips are sealed, you’re the red mark in the center of a rope, a red mark which will try to win either by death or by life.
The clock’s hands moved. There were still minutes left before the night ends. The December cold lets me snuggle my blanket endlessly. Everyone in the house was tired from an exciting trip at the countyside. I was really trying to get some sleep. In the room, I felt that the night was filled with murk and only a thin ray of light had transpired. Silence reigned and that it seem whimsically danced inside my room as if it was a lullaby. A moment of tranquility that my breathing and my heart beating were the only sounds that I heard inside. Whilst the middle of silence and solitude, suddenly, a deafening scream broke everything.
“Help!”
I heard my aunt screaming downstairs. I hurried to get up. I ran down swiftly that I had to chase my breath. My heart was racing, a myriad of thoughts started to run on my head. I needed to check everything immediately. It was a disturbing noise.
Then, I saw her lying on their mattress, where she sleeps in our living room. The blankets are scattered, her hair was like blown up, and she was turning violet. Her lips were pale. She was catching her breath and screaming in pain. She‘s crippled and she was rubbing her chest. She then looked at us.She was rubbing her chest. There were tears falling on her eyes and screams,
“Help Me!”
And she repeats in a high pitched tone,
“Help Me!”
I was standing about two to three meters away from her with my knees trembling — shocked. Then I held on the wooden rail of the stairs to keep me composed. As I tightened my grip on the stairway, I was then trying to calm myself, and contemplate on having an immediate possible action to do. Then an abrupt thought crossed my mind. I immediately knock on the window of my cousin’s home. She then woke up hurriedly with a shock. She then rushed to get the keys for her car to bring our aunt in the nearest hospital. I was 15 at that time and she was 19, while on the car, my cousin had a hard time putting the key on the keyhole. Then, as soon as she hit the right spot she immediately started the engine then hit the road.That night was like a gripping scene in a film. Everything happened so fast in a short period of time. While I was in the car, I sat in the backseat with my aunt. Trying to calm her and patting her back. I felt her pain while she was crying. I felt how she chased every breath. At that moment, It seems death was sitting beside on her left. I imagined that night at the backseat that it seems death and I playing a tug of war and my aunt was in the middle — the red mark — that we were trying to win.
Then, she screams, ‘Help!’
And pleaded, ‘ I don’t want to die. I am not yet ready. I have kids and they’re still young.I want to see them grow. God, help me!’
With those uttered words I saw the excruciating pain on her. Not because of the tears flowing from her eyes which were a delineation of her hardship, but the pain of seeing the end: losing her loved ones. I was clueless and was still ingesting what was happening at that predicament. I don’t have any idea what to do. I lost of words. I was like a lost kid in the dark hearing painful screams from places of unknown.
So we had arrived at the hospital. They rushed her to the emergency room. I and my cousin weren’t allowed inside, so we just waited outside the ER. We waited for hours or two for the doctors and nurses to tell us what was happening. But minutes later a nurse approached us and asked for our parents because they needed something from them. So we called our parents and thirty minutes later they arrived and went straight to the ER. At that time I felt confident that everything will be fine. She would survive that horrifying moment because we were in a hospital. All the experts are there and they know how to handle her. Yet, moments later a van arrived. The van was color white and it parked beside the color black car that we brought. Then there were two men went inside the emergency room. Both clad in a white shirt and black pants with slippers and has surgical masks on. They’re holding a stretcher made up with a cloth with two wood handles on both sides. They went inside the room then the doctors and nurses came out of the ER and approached us. That moment, all my senses got focused on their voices and on the air they would expel.
As soon as they started to say a single word, the heart pumping fluctuating ambiance plateaued.
