Days of Red and White: 1

Days of Red and White

Preface:

Dear Reader, long time no see. Or just no see at all. A while ago I was writing a serial named "Days of Gold gone by", which ended after 12 episodes. This is technically series 2 of that story, but I am also intending on making it able to be read stand alone. So if you were a follower of Days of Gold, or a new reader, then I'd love to collect you into my readers collection.

To any old readers of Days of Gold, since I was writing the entire things backwards, things about the first series are obviously going to be needed to be changed, such as events, reactions, and simple facts I change my mind about. So if you are reading along and thinking "wait a minute, why didn't they care about this at all last series?" Then its because technically this didn't exist when I wrote that so I obviously would need to change and edit that if I ever did do that. Which is another reason its probably a good idea that I write this "series 2" as standalone as well even though it is a continuation.
So to put it briefly. Don't be scared away if you didn't read the first series! I'm writing this so it hopefully works alone. Oh and please excuse the horrible writing. I'm lazy.
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Episode One: Fruit of bullets

It smells like the hospital. It sounds like the hospital. The hum and rumble of strange machines at work. The distant sound of sobbing and arguing. I know it is for certain because it is a place I used to spend much of my time.

Not as a patient. I was supposed to be learning, though I didn’t do much. After I stopped coming the face of the doctor who was trying to train me grew more and more hopeful every day, as he slowly gave up on my useless and mindless case. I wouldn’t blame him either; it was stressing him. I should have been a hopeless case from the start, but in times like these the world is desperate for those who can tend to the injured. I must have shown potential in their past. I wasn’t someone competent to learn a single thing just before I was born.

No-one ever told me much in the first months. There were rarely words involving my future spoken near my ears. I am certain I will soon find out why, yet I haven't so far.

But now that I find myself here and now, I can only question even more the things we never spoke about. The doctor never mentioned amidst all his frustrated attempts to remind me of our lessons that I had once been a patient too. Only once had I dismissed the words “miracle case” on the context I didn’t understand. And I knew that at least one person in my family had been injured as a soldier.

I had never imaged that it was me.

.

I don’t want to think about it. Never. Never. The red, the white. The people who could speak to me. The people who knew what I was. I push it all away to the back of my head. My heart is racing, and as it does, I feel my body grow wetter and warmer. I awake.

.

Back to the hospital. Back to reality. Once again my ears open before my eyes and mind, and the first thing I am consciously aware of is the voice of a man. He is yelling so loudly the sound pours into me, filling every thought in void behind my mind. It is so impending that it crushes me, yet at the same time, I hear it through walls and walls of distance.

“GET OUT!” He screams. “You.... you get out! And don’t ever show your face back here again.”

I know that voice. I know that voice. My elder brother.

My brother leaves, and the voice is replace with silence, but not absence. I still see nothing but the backs of my own eyes. I can feel fluttering across my skin, blankets, warmth, but I can’t place it beyond the pain in my abdomen. The next time I hear a voice it is quiet and broken. Despite its pained tone, the voice clams me. It is far more familiar than the harsh words of my brother.

“...You’ll die.” It gasps. “They fear and we all fear that if it keeps at this rate you won’t make it...I want to keep my hope strong... but just seeing you like this, I can’t doubt the fear...” The voice shifts and the breath moves away from my neck and stands up on its feet, speaking down on me. “Day by day your condition grows worse and worse... the doctors can’t explain anything.”

There is silence, before the heels step backward, slowly, slowly, distancing itself from me, calling and calling my name.

“Akira... Akira.”

~

My eyes flash open. I bolt upright before screaming out in pain, clutching my stomach. My head is swimming, dancing between patches of black and consciousness. The pain in my abdomen is even more painful than the moment I was born. This pain burns and drags across minutes and minutes.

.

As I adjust to the light I take note of my situation. The hospital. Right, just I had assumed. It is the place that is full with the victims of suffering, of bombing, of the great fire. Victims of war; and for the first time I am alive, I am one of them.

I flick my eyes around the room, searching for something to give me consolidation, to give me a concept of where and when I am. I hope for a calender. It should still be 1944 if I am lucky. I hope I wasn’t blacked out for too long after they left me here, because my days are numbered. Counting down slowly.

.

I glance down and my fingers which still blur beneath my dizzy head. If anything the white sheet seems to be softly blooming with red. Hot and wet. Hot and wet. The feeling is familiar. The sudden excitement of waking must have done it.

It was a wound that wasn’t survivable. A would that was lethal. A wound that by no possibility could possibly be survived. The wound had been the only proof I had, and the only way they believed me. I still remember the words of that medic as he sent me off to be carried onto the field, the confusion flickering through his eyes as he saw me for the first time.

“You can’t die.” He had said over and over. “You can’t die because you have already died, and you can only die once.” I will never see that medic again.

~

I sit clutching for hours, my head gradually starting to clear, until someone comes. She is a nurse. She is followed quickly by a doctor, scribbling urgently on a clipboard as he hurries into the room. He argues briefly with the nurse. I don’t pick up much, but it seems to be about not spending enough time with other patients for the strange nature of my condition. After discussions and tests the doctor inspects me briefly then leaves with the nurse, but she soon returns alone, to greet me personally. She looks sick.

“Your condition in worsening, I’m going to go get the doctor.” She says as she lifts back the blankets to check beneath my shirt. Her voice is hushed and her eyes bulge. I have never seen a nurse want to gag so badly before now. “Please don’t be scared if you start to get very dizzy, the blood-loss...” She can barely say. The shirt itself is stained with blotches of blood that has seeped through bandages; black and red. The dried smudges spread up my skin from where I must have been turning.

“Oh my god......” she gasps. The shirt and sheets are folded down quickly and her sombre face suddenly turns into a light smile, the image of the horrific sight completely washed from her memory.

“You look very unwell today, Akira. Are you in pain? Do you have a fever? You should be resting.” She tried to sooth. I just nod along, her words will have no meaning to me in a moment, lost in the future, as of mine to her, lost in the past. All I can do now is play a waiting game.

I lay back down as the nurse leaves, shuddering. I briefly yell out in frustration, letting my lungs echo the halls for everyone to hear. The act itself is exhausting and painful. But I feel it is needed. I need to divert my mind.

If only I could explain to someone... if only someone could understand exactly what I want to convey. If only there was no barrier between me and the rest of the world I could just have a moment to explain.

I am the person who lives time backwards.