Homepage › Stories › Out of the Darkness › Chapter 3

Out of the Darkness

Lost and Found

Harry POV:

My laughter dies off as I stare at the figure behind the speaker. It's a girl, but she looks badly broken and fragile. I swear loudly, and hear the boys come up behind me, each of them falling silent as they take in the scene in front of them. I don't look at them. Instead I slowly advance towards the girl, scared about what I will find. I reach her, and gently turn her onto her back. My breath freezes in my lungs.

"Shit..." murmurs Louis under his breath.

The rest of the boys come forward and we all look down at her. Her whole body is badly bruised and scratched. She is wearing nothing on the bottom, and we can all see the bruises and blood down there. Her shirt is ripped down the front, exposing her breasts, and there is blood everywhere, matting her hair and smudged over her face and body. Millions of questions race through my head as i realize the seriousness of the situation. I put my fingers slowly to her wrist, finding it cold.

After a few moments of heart wrenching suspense, I finally feel the faint throb of her pulse beneath my fingers. Letting out a sigh of relief, I call to Niall;
"Go grab the stage crew, and have someone call 911. She's out cold with a low pulse. Tell them that she has lost a lot of blood from a head wound. Hurry!"

Niall runs off, and Zayn gets a picture of the scene on his phone in case the police need any evidence. Then Zayn, Louis, Liam and I lift her up carefully and bring her around the speaker, and slowly bring her up onto edge of the stage. We are all feeling a little awkward about having this girl so exposed and venerable in front of us, so Liam takes off his sweatshirt and covers her bottom half with it while people run out from backstage and gather round.

A woman from the stage crew runs up, telling us that she is a retired nurse. She checks the girl's pulse again, and I give her my sweater to wrap tightly around the head wound. There's yelling and confusion everywhere as people try to find out what happened. Someone calls 911. They boys and I are frozen, we have no idea how to react, but right now it's probably best to stay calm and wait.

After what seems like an eternity, we hear the sound of helicopter blades whooshing through the air above us.

Luckily it is an open stadium so the chopper can land on the massive stage. We make room for it, and the second it lands there are medical personnel everywhere, gathering information, and strapping the girl securely onto a cot. There is a flurry of activity, and then they load the girl onto the helicopter, and take her away.

In the silence after the helicopter leaves, I look to the boys. We are all visibly shaken, and Niall looks like he might cry.

"How could something like this happen at our concert?!" He asks shakily.
None of us have an answer for him.

Our manager, Paul, is pacing around talking on the phone, and the second he hangs up he jogs over to us.

"Guys, go grab your stuff, we're going to the hospital." he tells us. We run inside and throw a few of our things into backpacks, glad to have something to do to distract our thoughts. The ride to the hospital is quiet, and i have to explain what happened to Paul.

Once we get to the hospital, we tell them who we are and why we are here. We are directed towards a private waiting room in the "critical condition" ward so we don't cause too much of a disruption in the hospital. Now all we can do is wait. A nurse tells us that the girl is having tests done, and may need an emergency operation to reduce the swelling in the injury on her head. The clock in the corner tells me that it is 2:00 AM.

The other boys have drifted off to sleep. I can't sleep though. Images of the girl's delicate broken body pass through my mind, and I can't stop thinking about her. Niall's words keep coming back to me - ""How could something like this happen at our concert?"". Another thought lingers in the back of my mind as I watch parents of other patients silently pass through the hospital's hallways; why hasn't the girl's family shown up yet? Shouldn't they be worried that she never contacted them after the concert?