The Aftermath

When Liam finally regained consciousness for the third time, he was surprised to be in an extremely clean room. He opened his eyes to reveal a white ceiling and suddenly realized that he was unable to move his arms. Slightly startled, he panicked for a moment before realizing that he was restrained to a bed and in a hospital. Once he determined where he was, Liam calmed down and took stock of his situation. He looked around and realized he was only looking through one eye. He couldn't see out of his left eye even though he could have sworn that it was open. He then went through and did a mental check of everything else. He determined quite quickly that his arms and hands moved fine, his hips could shift from side to side and his back could arch with minimal effort, but a sudden lance of pain shooting through him paused his investigation.

"Holy Shit!" He gasped as his body became paralyzed, he could barely breathe as the pain wracked his body. As he stayed still the pain slowly mitigated and eventually subsided, but there was a slight irking pain that remained. "That was definitely not fun." Liam joked softly to himself. He avoided attempting to move his back and progressed to his legs, but no matter what effort he put in, he couldn't even make his legs budge. Not one bit. The panic returned, as this feeling was something he had never experienced before.

"Oh, look at that! You're awake!" a female voice remarked from the doorway. Liam turned his head, still careful to avoid shifting his back, to see a cute nurse enter with a large smile on her face. He thought to himself, 'What is she smiling about?'

"What's going on? Where's my sister?" he asked urgently. Sam was the only thing he was worried about at the moment, even though the inability to move his legs was ever-present in the back of his mind.

"Everything is going to be ok....," the nurse replied.

"That doesn't answer my question," he said, becoming slightly irate. "Where is she?"

"I am so sorry, Liam. Your sister didn't make it. She was gone before anyone made it to the crash site," the nurse responded sadly.

"Then everything isn't ok, is it?" Liam questioned with tears welling up in his eyes. "Can you at least tell me what happened? How did I end up here, in this hospital, in this bed?"

"They didn't tell me everything. All I know is it was a car accident of some sort. How are you feeling, physically?"

"I'm in pain, and can't feel my legs at all," Liam replied as he pointed to his legs.

"Ok, the pain is understandable after what you've been through. Your legs need some time to heal. You just need to rest," she said in a calming voice. "We are doing everything we can to fix you up. I'm going to give you some more pain meds, if that's ok." Liam nodded and closed his eye once more. He fell into a deep sleep, the result of some incredibly strong pain medication.

The next day Liam awoke screaming from a pain spike from his lower back. The pain was excruciating, but was over almost as quick as it began. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. The searing pain burned into his mind and caused him to continue reacting to it even after it had passed. By the time the doctors and nurses arrived, he wasn't feeling that awful pain anymore, but was still short of breath and struggled to catch it.

"Is everything alright mister Silva?" the nurse from before asked politely as she rushed into the room. "We heard you screaming."

"I-I think so," Liam stammered between ragged breaths. "It just h-hurt a lot."

"Where exactly did you feel the pain?" asked the doctor.

"My low-er back," Liam responded. "I still can't feel my legs. I-is that the drugs?"

"No Mr. Silva," the doctor began. "The crash severed several of the nerves in your lower back causing paralysis of your lower region. We won't know how far the damage has reached until we can get you to move around a bit more."

"W-what?" Liam's eyes widened as he heard the news. He tried moving his right leg, then his ankle, then with all his might he tried to wiggle just a toe but nothing would budge. An attempt of the left leg yielded the same result

The doctor watched Liam struggle as he attempted movement and stated, "Please, Mr. Silva, remain calm. We don't know how severe the paralysis is yet, but with some therapy, you could regain the use of your legs."

Liam took a few deep breaths using the method his mom taught him as a young boy to keep calm. After a few moments, his anxiety subsided some. "Alright... I'm good. So what happens now?" The doctor nodded and slowly left the room.

"We actually just needed to get some more information from you," the nurse politely said. "We were going to wait a day or two but you seem to have your faculties, so we are going to go over your information now, if that is ok with you."

"Alright, a-ask away." Liam winced as a lance of pain shot through his back once more.

"Are you alright?" asked the nurse.

"Yeah, seems to come in spurts," Liam replied. "Hurry along with those questions, please."

"Alright," the nurse responded with a slight worried look on her face, but continued, "Why was there no emergency contact for you? We tried looking for anything, but it seemed like everything we found regarding Liam Silva was linked to your sister."

"She was all I had, my parents died when I was young, and my Grandparents live too far away to be listed as emergency contacts.

"Wait, what?" The nurse's eyes widened in shock. "Your parents… died?"

"I wish they had just died, I think that would have made it all easier to take in," Liam sighed. "I really hate thinking back on it so I'll leave it at that, if you don't mind."

"O-ok, so you don't have anyone else?" the nurse asked as she continued to fill out the document in front of her.

"Nope. Don't like getting close to people. I know how it is to lose someone close, so I try not to get into relationships," he replied looking away, as if in deep thought.