Chapter 5:

I start to open my eyes and move, but all I could feel was pain controlling my entire body and got blinded by the light in front of me. I take a deep breathe in and feel an oxygen mask wrapped around my mouth.  

I hear a voice next to me. “Oh good, you’re awake.” I turn my head to him and see his white lab coat. He looks down at me and smiles.

“What happened to me?” I asked as I coughed.

“You were in a house fire that happened a few days ago. You were severely burned. The firefighters said that you were able to get out of the house in the nick of time.”

“Did the fire cause any permanent damage to me?”

“No, the only thing is a sprained wrist. But that should heal in about a month or two.”

“That’s good” I thought to myself for a few seconds then realized something. “What about my family?!”

“Oh um this is the worst part of all.” He said with a nervous voice.

“What happened!? Did my family survive!?”

The doctor shook his head with a quiverful lip and a tear coming down his extremely sad face. “I’m so sorry.” he said. I started to cry. “The firefighters said that right as they pulled you out of the scene, the house collapsed in on itself. There were no survivors other than yourself.”

I covered my face with my hands and started to cry more and harder. The doctor looked at me and said “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I try to pull myself together and speak. My throat started to hurt from the crying but I tried anyway. “Did they find the cause of the fire?” I asked.

“To be honest…no, the firefighters couldn’t find the source of the fire in fact no one even had seen the fire until someone came by and notified 911. Which is very unusual due to the fact in the area you live in in town.”

“Do you know who that person is that called 911? Because I want to thank him or her.”

“We actually do. Her name is Taylor. She was headed back to the orphanage on the outskirts of town after she came to town to get some medication for some of the other orphans. She actually came aboard on the ambulance with you to make sure that you were ok and has come to visit every day that you have been unconscious. In fact she in in the cafeteria eating some lunch right now. I’ll go get her and tell her that you’re up and you want to thank her.”

The doctor leaves the room and heads toward the cafeteria.  I lay back and try to cope with the acceptance of losing my entire family, house, and the life I had before. I hear a knock on the door. It opens up and a tall man covered in a long voluminous black coat and black fedora with a briefcase and enters the room, locks the door, and sits in the chair next to my bed.

I didn’t recognize the man sitting next to me. It didn’t help that he tilted his head downward covering his face with his fedora. “You have to forget this house fire ever happened.” The man said in a deep raspy voice.

“Why?” I asked “That event has changed my life forever.”

“I can’t tell you at least at this time, but it’s reasons that you don’t understand yet. You can’t tell anyone, your friends, the police, any surviving family members.”

“Why should I listen to you! I just met you and you’re trying to control my broken life!”

The man tilts his head up forward and reveals his face to me. He had an eyepatch on his right eye and a scar that stretched from the top of his forehead, down through his eye patched eye, and went down across his cheek, and through his lips and to his chin. “Because I’m trying to save your life you dumbass kid!”

He opened his suitcase and pulled out some papers. He handed them to me and said “For the time being, I want you to stay at the orphanage and help out around there. It is the safest place for you at the moment.” I looked at the papers and it had a brochure of the orphanage, the paperwork from the deaths of my family and my house burning down. And a closed manilla envelope that said on the front “Open at the right time”. “Also, I was never here, and I don’t exist at all.” he said

I look up from the papers and see that the man was nowhere to be seen. I was confused by his words and the papers, but strangely not his presents at all. With all of the stuff that has happened to me the past week, it just felt normal to me.

I heard a knock on the door. “Come in” I responded. I hid the papers underneath the blankets The door opened and the doctor and the girl walked in. “Taylor?!”

“Hey Devin” she responded.

I sat up on the bed “It’s soo good to see you again!”

“It’s great to see you to”

“So you’re the one who called 911 and saved my life”

“Yep”

“Oh my god thank you soo much.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You two know each other already?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah we went to school together and were good friends.” Taylor responded.

“Well I think that i’ll let you two get caught up with each other. Devin, i’ll check back on how your recovery is going tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you doctor” I replied. He smiled then left the room.

“I’m sorry about what happened to your family Devin. I hear dieing in a house fire is one of the worst ways to go out.”Taylor said in a sad voice.

“That’s ok Taylor. Death surrounds us all of the time but it’s how EACH PERSON reacts to it is what makes a tragedy different from living”.Taylor looked at me with a confused expression on her face.

“Where did that come out of?” She questioned.

“Oh I think I heard it one day in history class. You know how well teachers just shout out random stuff while teaching.”

“Yeah remember back in 8th grade when a GIANT wasp somehow got stuck in our algebra classroom for a few months and wouldn’t sting anyone but knew how to annoy all of us by flying to close to our faces, hair, and opened toed shoes?”

“That class is the main reason why that my 8th grade year was the weirdest and most eventful year of school I have ever had.”

“And whenever someone would complain to the teacher and ask to get rid of it, the teacher would always shout stuff out like “You should be more concerned about me failing you in this class than that stupid wasp!” and “Unless it actually stings you a million times, you don’t need any of my help just focus on your school work!”

“Part of the time it actually wasn’t funny cause there are a few kids in our class that are allergic to bee stings and actually feared for their lives a few times. But one day in winter the wasp was crawling on the floor and someone was able to step on it and get rid of it before someone got majorly injured.” We both laugh for a few moments.

Taylor stopped laughing and put on a concerned face on her and looked down. “Hey Devin, I know that you just woke up but do you ever wonder what actually caused the fire? I mean that the firefighters were never able to find the source of the start of the fire. I mean come on, in my opinion I think that someone was actually trying to get rid of both you and your entire family. What do you think Devin?”

At that moment I couldn’t decide if I should tell her everything I experienced during the event and bring up my opinions and conspiracies, but I remembered on what that man told me to just forget about the events and just move on.