The Number Five volume Eleven

"One last thing, kid, how can you stand up to grown men with both arms broken and you being paralyzed but coward away when kids raise their hands?" he said, his face fading. As I struggled to get back up, he was gone. I pulled out the piece of glass stuck in my mouth, and blood filled the sink. I run the water so the blood can run down the sink quicker. I grabbed the towel on the rack and put it in my mouth to cover the hole and stop the bleeding. I looked next to the mirror, saw a little box hanging next to it, opened it, saw a little first aid kit, and pulled out a sewing needle. As I start to sew back my cheek, the needle is cold to the touch. I put the towel on the ground to cover the blood if it hits the ground. The first stitch was the hardest because I couldn't see. So, I grabbed a piece of the mirror and placed it on the sink to see where I needed to stitch. I dropped to a knee to get the right angle of the area. I can feel the gash closing; it took five stitches to close the wound. I put the sewing equipment back in the box and left the bathroom. I saw Steve and the rest of the group waiting for me. I started walking in their direction when I heard something from my right side. I heard a very weak voice say, "Five, is that you?" I stopped dead in my tracks to see if it was just my imagination. I hear wheels rolling closer to me. I turn my head and see a woman wearing a green sweater with a red beanie. I get down on one knee. "Miss, I think you mistook me for someone else," a woman in all blue said, rushing over to where we were. She grabbed the back of the wheelchair, pulling her away, and the ill woman put her hand on the wheels, stopping the wheelchair. "Come on, Mrs. Billinberg," she yells, reaching out and grabbing my arm. Her sleeve rolls up, and I see nothing but bone and veins. I got up to her bicep; I realized this woman was twenty-two. She can tell the horror on my face. "I knew it," she said after her sentence started to cough. I looked at her caretaker; she started stuttering, "Ar-ar-re you five?" I lowered my chin, "Yeah, I'm five; can we go and talk somewhere in private?" Twenty-two said without hesitation, "I would love to." I followed behind Twenty-two and her caretaker, wondering what happened to her. We exited the store and turned right. We appeared in front of a narrow alley. Twenty-Two turned around to face me. Her caretaker was shaking her head, asking, " do we even get to this point? Are you even the real deal?" I looked at the caretaker; she started to fumble with something. I notice she has a bottle in her bag. The bottle fell to the ground and landed with its label facing me; I grabbed it and read "schizophrenia" at first glance. I looked at the bottle, then back at Twenty-two when the caretaker snatched it from my grasp and said, "Thanks for getting that," as if she didn't want me to see it. She gets down on one knee, her back facing me, and says, " Mrs. Billinberg, I think you need some rest. OK, he is not real." After she finished her sentence, he pushed her back away, shouting. "Look, he can prove it; it's been way too long; let him prove it," he told me, knowing she was insane. Her eyes looked like she was fighting a battle with no will left in the fight, but seeing me gave her the will to fight, and she took a deep breath. "Show her five to prove that I'm not crazy." She shook while talking. I was stunned by the way she was acting. I started to strip off my clothes. "What are you doing?" She paused mid-sentence, her eyes telling me she was looking at a mystical being, perhaps an elf or an archangel. She pointed at my chest, her whole-body stuttering from what she saw; she turned away from us, clutched her stomach, and began vomiting.Twenty-two. "Man, that is a different reaction than I was expecting you to have back there, Kayce?" Mrs. Billinberg asked as she returned to us, wiping away the puke. "Help me up." Kayce put her arms under her, lifting Twenty-two out of the chair and carrying her to me. She struggled to carry her to me, and she fell into me. Her body was extremely weak; I felt four ribs. I could tell that she was close to death's door. She came up to my chest and wrapped her body around me. I could tell she wasn't eating enough, or something was telling her not to. I tried to pull her up more to get a better look at her. "Finally, after forty-five years of waiting, I can finally die in peace, knowing the man who saved me from those nights of being alone and scared as a child, seeing me walk out of that hell hole in a better place, you can finally live peacefully not worrying about how much longer until they finally give you a minute to rest," she began sobbing, her tears weighing more than she did. I turned my head back to her, and Kayce screamed out, "Calm down, don't hurt yourself, ma'am!" Her eyes met her caretakers', and I can tell that shocked her as well; she looked back at me. "Five, do you ever wonder why you don't see me in the hospital bed or why I don't care anymore?" I started looking around to avoid the conversation. I can feel a slight tug pulling me back: "It was because of you; you showed me that even through death, you keep fighting." My heart started to break because the reason she stayed so strong was because of what my actions said back then. "Please go get some help. I'm sorry for not getting here earlier so I could see you before this happened," I began to stutter as tears streamed down my face." So, this is why you didn't get treatment?" Kaycee asked. "The person you were talking about is just some kid who was just some goddamn kid for three years." grabbed Twenty-two's head, pulling her in her direction, out of pure rage. Kayce yelled out." Why! "Why go through so much pain for one person for so many years when he could have died? He isn't your husband or even your children, so why the living fuck!?" She grabbed her hands, shaking with pure rage. Mrs. Billinberg said with a sad smile, "Remember those stories I told you about a kid whose spine was poking out of its back but who was still fighting back? "A kid who didn't even have a family but was still fighting for something, protecting people, even though he didn't even know their real names, even with his right eye dangling in front of him, he still kept fighting, even when he couldn't walk or, hell, even breathe, he kept going."