I gasped as my surroundings rapidly changed until I was sitting in... the driver's seat of an ambulance? What? I tried to turn the steering wheel, but no avail. I was so confused. This wasn’t one of my memories. I was sure of that.

So whose memory was it, and why was I seeing this?

~~~ ꧁꧂ ~~~

I watched on as the ambulance pulled over, and got out. When I saw the scene in front of me, my breath hitched.

Two cars sat in the middle of the road, squashed together, both completely wrecked. Fire engulfed the entire wreckage, battling the blasts of water sprouting from the firefighters’ hoses.

Then I noticed four men walking away from the wreck, carrying a stretcher. As they advanced towards me, I noticed the body they were carrying.

The man lying on the stretcher wouldn’t have been older than 30, but lines were etched into his forehead. His hair was a dark grey, like the colour of ash. His eyes were closed, his skin covered with soot. His clothes were charred and torn, and a pair of crushed glasses lay on the stretcher next to him. That face… I knew that face…

My heart stopped as the realisation hit me.

Then, the scene suddenly changed. I was back in my own body, but once again, I didn’t recognise the memory. I gasped as I realised where I was. I stood, no- scratch that- floated, in a room not unlike the hospital ward I woke up in earlier.

Laying on the bed in front of me was the same man from the car wreckage. Doctors and nurses bustled around him, running all kinds of tests.

The man lay peacefully, despite the fact he was hooked up to several different machines. His eyes were closed, his hands resting comfortably on his stomach. I couldn’t see much more, but before I could move to try and find out who he was, a horrible sound cut through the commotion.

Beeeeeeep.

My breathing suddenly became the second loudest thing in the room as everyone around me fell silent. We all froze and listened as the heart monitor attached to the patient let out an eery, high pitched cry. Still, nobody moved.

One second… two seconds… 

My heart pounded in my head.

Three seconds… four seconds… five… 

Then, everyone went into hyper mode.

All types of people wearing coats or uniforms pushed forward, crowding around the man until I could no longer see him. I watched as they tried everything they could to restart his heart, but the monitor continued to play its song of death, the sharp sound ringing throughout the room.

After a good five minutes, the doctors stepped back. One of them lifted his arm, took a look at his wrist and sighed.

”Time of death, ” he announced, ”11:46pm, 15th of June, 2017.”

One of the nurses let out a shaky breath and detached the heart monitor from the now dead patient lying beside her. The machine went silent.

I closed my eyes. I was never a big fan of death. EVER. I couldn’t take it anymore. I let out a scream, the loudest scream I’ve ever heard. Suddenly, the room was silent. Nothing made a noise.

I didn’t know what was going on, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to open my eyes. But I knew I had to.

So I did.

I gasped as I took in the scene in front of me. Everywhere I looked, people were frozen. No one moved. I looked everywhere, yet no one moved an inch. Well, I looked everywhere except for right in front of me. I didn’t want to see… him.

Come on, Sam. I thought to myself. You can do this.

So, I slowly turned to face him. But, alas, as soon as I took one look at him, I broke down.

I dropped to my knees, tears pouring down my face.

“This… no…” I choked out. “She… she told me… she told me he ran away… This can’t be real… He…” my voice cracked. I couldn’t speak.

So I didn’t.

I buried my face in my hands and sobbed. That’s it. It all finally made sense. Why no one could tell me where he ran off too. Why he never answered my calls. Why my stepmother never let me go to the cemetery.

As I cried, I could slowly feel my consciousness slipping away. I looked up just in time to see two words before I fainted. Two simple words, scribbled on a white board sitting above his bed. Nothing else. 

But those two words, they were more than just words. Together, they made a name. But not just any name. The name that was assigned to the body lying in front of me. The name that changed my life forever.

As soon as I saw them, I knew it was true.

And I knew at that moment, that the name scrawled in dark black ink would haunt me forever, and that it would keep me up, night after restless night of torture. That name…

Michael Williams

“... Dad?”