Are you here with me

Chapter 1

It was a cold winter morning, just after ten o’clock, when loud footsteps echoed through the white corridors of the hospital.

A man walked down the hallway. He seemed to be in a hurry, but he was visibly limping. We couldn’t see his face. He walked with a clear purpose, and the only sound was the echo of his footsteps.

Suddenly, he stopped in front of room 313.

He stood there for a few seconds.

Then, after gathering the courage, he opened the door.

A flash of light.

The headlights of a car travelling far too fast in the middle of the night.

“The music is loud enough to make your eardrums explode!” Matthew shouted at Jacke.

“Not loud enough!” Jacke shouted back. “I can still hear those drunk idiots talking behind us.”

“You were pretty drunk yourself today, after not drinking for so many weeks,” Matthew said.

“I had my reasons,” Jacke replied, before turning back towards the road.

Jacke turned the music down.

“You already knew that Sophie and I were planning to have a baby, and after months of trying…”

Matthew let his sentence trail off.

Suddenly, he shouted at Jacke to keep his eyes on the road.

Jacke barely managed to avoid an oncoming car.

The three guys in the back started shouting after Matthew’s outburst, interrupting their conversation.

Matthew turned around, slightly frustrated, and looked at Gregg.

“Weren’t you supposed to take your son to his football match tomorrow morning?”

Gregg sighed.

“I hope my wife can go instead. Going to a football match with a hangover and a bunch of screaming six-year-olds will be the death of me.”

Everyone laughed.

Bob grinned and looked at his brother, Robert, who was sitting in the middle.

“I know someone else who didn’t like going to football matches while drunk.”

Robert laughed.

“I’ll take Gregg’s son to the football match. I’ve got plenty of experience with that.”

Jacke glanced at Matthew, who seemed a little down.

“Everything okay?”

Matthew looked at him.

“You should probably focus on the road instead of worrying about me.”

In the back, Bob and Robert continued talking about memories from when they were younger. The laughter grew louder as everyone joined in.

Meanwhile, Jacke began to drift off behind the wheel.

Matthew noticed.

“Jacke.”

“I’m fine.”

Jacke blinked a few times, trying to keep his eyes open.

“We’re almost there,” he said.

He glanced at the men in the back.

“Are you guys staying for another drink at my place?”

Then he looked back at the road.

And Matthew screamed.

Everything went dark.

Bob was lying on the ground.

He had no idea what had happened.

He could hear sirens in the distance. At first, they sounded far away, but they were getting closer and closer.

Where was everyone?

His thoughts were hazy, and he struggled to understand what had happened.

Where was Robert?

Suddenly, he heard a groan to his left. It sounded like someone struggling to breathe.

Bob turned his head as far as he could.

There he was.

Robert was lying a few metres away, badly injured, his clothes covered in blood.

He tried to crawl towards Bob, but his body refused to cooperate. He pushed himself forward with his arms, but he barely had any strength left.

The sirens grew louder.

Robert closed his eyes for a moment before forcing them open again.

He had to stay awake.

His body no longer felt like his own. Every movement hurt, as if a hundred people were jumping on him at the same time.

Then blue lights appeared around the corner.

The ambulance.

If Robert had enough strength left, he would have breathed a sigh of relief.

But even breathing felt like a fight.

The first paramedics rushed towards them.

Robert tried to say something, but barely any sound came out. Instead, he lifted his arm and pointed towards Bob.

The paramedics followed his gesture and ran towards his brother.

Bob looked up.

Their eyes met.

For a few seconds, neither of them said anything.

Robert could see the relief in Bob’s eyes.

Then Robert’s eyelids began to grow heavy.

Very heavy.

Several voices surrounded him, but between the sirens and the constant ringing in his ears, he could barely understand what anyone was saying.

The paramedics spoke to him, trying to keep him conscious.

His eyes closed again.

He tried to answer their questions, but the words wouldn’t come. One of the paramedics called to him again, urging him to keep his eyes open.

Jacke opened his eyes.

He couldn’t hear anything anymore.

He looked around in confusion. People were moving everywhere. Ambulances arrived and left again, while emergency workers rushed back and forth.

When he looked to his left, he saw Rob lying on the ground.

Suddenly, everything came back.

The car.

The music.

Matthew shouting.

The impact.

Jacke tried to turn around, looking around in panic.

Where were the others?

He tried to crawl forward, but one of the emergency workers immediately stopped him.

“Stay down!”

Jacke tried to answer, but the voices around him sounded distant, as if they were coming from underwater.

He tried to sit up again.

Then he saw the brothers being carried towards an ambulance on stretchers.

Jacke looked further into the distance.

Matthew was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was Gregg.

He tried to speak, but his voice barely rose above the noise.

“Where are they?”

Suddenly, he heard one of the emergency workers shout.

“There are two more over here!”

The atmosphere changed immediately.

The emergency workers began moving faster. Someone shouted something Jacke couldn’t understand, while another paramedic rushed towards the wreckage.

Jacke looked around, trying to understand what was happening.

Whoever was lying over there was clearly in worse condition.

Before he could make sense of anything, an emergency worker helped him to his feet and guided him towards the ambulance.

Jacke tried to ask another question, but nobody seemed to hear him.

The priorities had clearly changed.

He was lifted into the ambulance, and the doors slammed shut.

Through the small windows, he took one last look outside.

In the distance, emergency workers were still moving around the wreckage.

Then the ambulance drove away, and the chaos slowly disappeared from his view.

A flash of light.

Rob slowly opened his eyes.

Everything around him was blurry.

“Where am I?” he asked.

“In the hospital,” a doctor answered.

“What do you mean, the hospital?”

“You were involved in a serious car accident.”

Rob tried to remember what had happened.

The car.

The sirens.

Bob.

He looked at the doctor.

“My brother…”

The doctor said nothing.

“Bob?”

The doctor briefly glanced at the nurse beside him.

“Your parents are here.”

Rob didn’t understand why the doctor had answered that way.

“Let them in.”

A moment later, the door opened.

His mother walked in first.

As soon as she saw Rob, she started crying. She hurried towards his bed and carefully hugged him.

Rob gave her a weak smile.

“I made it.”

His mother said nothing.

His father stepped closer too. He placed a hand on Rob’s shoulder, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at him.

Rob looked from his mother to his father.

Something wasn’t right.

“Where is Bob?”

His mother closed her eyes.

Rob turned towards his father.

“They took him too, right?”

Nobody answered.

“I saw him.”

His voice began to tremble.

“He was lying next to the car. I tried…”

He stopped.

His mother started crying again.

Rob looked at the doctor.

“Where is my brother?”

The doctor looked at him for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry.”

Rob stared straight ahead.

He understood.

Bob didn’t make it.

Later That Night — Jacke

The hospital room was quiet, but I couldn’t find any peace in it.

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. Every now and then, someone walked past the door, and I could hear voices coming from the corridor. They all sounded so normal. Nurses talking to each other, footsteps, the occasional phone ringing. It was strange to think that the world outside my room was still moving as if nothing had happened.

I wished I could do the same.

My arm hurt whenever I moved, so I kept it close to my body. I had tried to sit up earlier, but a nurse had told me to take it easy. Apparently, I was lucky to be alive.

I hated that word.

Lucky.

How could I be lucky when Bob was dead?

I still couldn’t make sense of it. I remembered the headlights, the shouting and the sudden impact. After that, everything became a collection of images that didn’t seem to belong together. I remembered the road. I remembered the car. I remembered people shouting for help. But whenever I tried to think about what had happened to Bob, my mind seemed to stop.

A doctor had explained that my friends had been taken to different rooms and that some of them were in critical condition. He had spoken carefully, as if choosing the right words could somehow make things easier for me.

It hadn’t.

I wanted to know everything. I wanted someone to tell me that Matthew was awake, that Gregg was going to recover and that Rob would be able to walk again. Instead, I was left with questions.

I reached for my phone, but my hand stopped halfway. Who was I supposed to call? What could I possibly say? That I was alive? That I was sorry? That I didn’t understand how one night could destroy so many lives?

I put the phone back down.

For a while, I listened to the sound of the machines in the room. They were steady and irritating, but at least they gave me something to focus on. Whenever my thoughts began to wander, I counted the beeps and tried to keep my mind there.

It never lasted long.

Eventually, I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to sleep, but keeping them open had become exhausting. The moment I let them fall shut, I saw the road again.

I opened them immediately.

My heart was racing, and I could feel tears gathering in my eyes. I pressed my lips together and turned my head towards the window. Outside, the night was dark. A few lights shone in the distance, and somewhere below, a car passed the hospital.

For a second, I imagined being in that car with my friends again, before everything went wrong.

Then the thought disappeared, leaving me alone in the room.

I pulled the blanket closer and tried to convince myself that things would become clearer in the morning.

But deep down, I already knew that waking up wouldn’t change anything.

Bob was still dead.

And I was still here.