Dear Journal,
I'm writing from my hospital bed. It's sort of lumpy, and it's very uncomfortable. I don't like it, but the nurses are nice enough, and the guy who was in the next bed, Zeb, was awesome. He was funny and talks to me a lot. He helped me get through my injury. I know it sounds silly and all, but he gave me the mental strength the carry on.
See, how it happened went like this. We were in class. My best friend, Marcus, was chatting with me online. He told me about a new clue going up with our favourite ARG (Alternate Reality Game), Harajuku Fun Madness. I didn't want to skip school, but I knew my team was counting on me to get them a head start. So, I agreed, and we went along with it.
We almost found the clue, but then another team came up, and threatened to turn us in if we didn't give it to them. They probably would've...if the earth hadn't started rocking with explosions. The PA system went wild, and the air raid sirens blasted us with a wooooo sound. It was pretty terrifying, but we made our way to a BART station.
There were so many people, pressing from all sides. I saw Marcus trying to help a lady who fell, but he almost fell with her, so he ended up stepping on her. It made me feel sick. No one was helping anyone else. Marcus and Jolu wanted to get back up to the surface. I agreed, and so did Van. We struggled back up, and, all of a sudden, I felt a sharp pain in my side. I didn't know what it was. I sharply turned, only to see an angry guy with a smug look on his face pulling his knife out of my side. My world spun. I only barely made it out.
I almost blacked out, and I fell on my face. My blood was pouring out, and it didn't fell pleasant. Van tried to do first aid on me, but it wasn't helping enough to save me. I don't remember much after that. I only saw the Jeep stopping, saw the armed men coming out, saw the hoods coming down over our heads. All of this was fuzzy in my head. And before they could even cuff me, I was out cold.
I woke up in a truck, my vision blurry. I felt very light-headed and dizzy. A man was tending to my injuries. I looked up and saw blood being fed into me using an IV tube. The man was preparing a needle...He looked at me with sympathy, then jabbed the needle into my wound. Gentle as it was, my mind howled in pain, and I blacked out again.
I woke up here, in the hospital. At first, there was no one around me. I was alone with my blood sack. I still felt light-headed and dizzy, but I felt a bit better now. My wound was still throbbing from the shot. I remember sleeping a lot that day. I couldn't process anything else.
The next day, I realised that someone had been put in the bed next to me. I was excited after spending so much time alone.
We talked, and I discovered that his name was Zeb. He was a really nice guy. He had a burst appendix, so he had to come here. I explained to him what happened to me, and he nodded along, occasionally wincing.
Turns out, he also knew Morse Code. When we weren't supposed to talk, we tapped out messages to each other on the wall. He didn't say much about his past life, but he told me that he was always on the run. He said that he was homeless and camped out wherever he could. Apparently, the DHS didn't like this prospect and took him in as a terrorist. He also called himself a freegan. I didn't know what this was, so he explained. I found this fairly disgusting. It supposedly means that he eats out of the "free food store." The free food store is more commonly known as a Dumpster. Yuck!
They're going to release Zeb back into his cell soon, but I know that he's still worried for me. I told him not to worry, that I was healing very quickly, but he wouldn't have it. So we just talked some more, and I...I told him about my friends. I didn't realise how much pain I'd been hiding until know, when I shed it all in a rain of tears. I couldn't stop sobbing as I told him about Marcus, Van and Jolu. I had always seen grim determination in his steely eyes, but now it strengthened.
He soon told me, in Morse Code (so that doctors wouldn't understand), about his escape plan. I begged him to take a note to Marcus. However, he insisted on writing it himself. I wasn't sure why it meant so much to him, but I let him.
Zeb was put back in his cell last week. He escaped (successfully? I don't know) yesterday. I'm not sure if they even realised yet, since there are just so many people around here. They eventually will, I know, and I hope Zeb can escape their watchful eye.
More importantly, I hope Zeb can give the note to Marcus.
Truly worried,
Darryl
Darryl is a very important character in the story, though he is a secondary character. His disappearance after the injury made Marcus swear revenge against them. If Darryl hadn't been kept in the prison, Marcus would be keeping his head down. With Darryl gone, though, Marcus had to fight the DHS to liberate Darryl and thousands of other innocent people.
This journal is written about Darryl's stay at the prison's infirmary. I knew he met Zeb from Zeb's actual note, and that they actually communicated using Morse Code, but everything else about the hospital stay is made up (also, Zeb really did eat from the free food store! He shared some Dumpster pizza with Marcus when they were on the run together). In an interesting way, Darryl is crucial to the way the story plays out.
No comments:
Post a Comment