It felt the exact same way as before – I groped around in the dark without any having any clue of where I was going or of what I would meet.

The difference was that this time every once in a while I would get a short flash of reality, because of me drifting in and out of consciousness.

Another thing that was different was that I actually felt more comfortable in the dense dark than in reality that was filled with enormous amounts of pain, so at this point the blindness didn’t feel near as suffocating.


But it wanted me back and deep down I also knew that I couldn’t stay here in the dark where I at least couldn’t feel my body at all. I felt the light pulling in every part of my mind and body and me becoming weaker and weaker, unable to fight against its great power. The uncomfortable flashes of reality lasted longer and longer until I completely lost my grip on my beloved dark blindness.


I quickly opened my eyes and even though the light seemed even brighter than last time I couldn’t close them again. I was back where I belonged and there nothing I could do about it. I had to get used to the pains that kept rushing through my body, enhancing second by second, so automatically I tensed every part of me in order to stand the pain.


“Welcome back, Maja,” a man’s voice said and I immediately turned my head to look at someone who was probably a doctor. “Just relax,” he said with a soft and comforting voice and I tried to do as he said while glancing further around the room that wasn’t the same as the one I had been in before my blackout.

“Relax,” he kept telling me and the tenderness in the voice of his actually helped, cause I started to feel a bit less tense minute by minute, muscle by muscle and at the same time I noticed a better ability to think clear.

Breathing still wasn’t easy but at least my chest didn’t feel nearly as heavy as before.


When I had calmed a bit more down a few minutes later he continued: “Four of your ribs have been broken in the accident and one of them has been pushing against your left lung, giving you some difficulties breathing properly, since it turned out that it didn’t straighten out by its own, so that’s what we’ve done. I believe that everything should now be fine, but you will get a small scar on your left side where we went in.”


Again I found myself having absolutely no energy left to talk, so instead I ended up nodding at him. When he told me about the scar I suddenly felt a slightly burning feeling on my left side.
The doctor called a nurse to drive me back to my room.


“It’s nine o’clock in the morning, I think your many friends would like to see you again,” she said as if she’d read my mind. “I’m going to drive you back to your room, is that okay?” She laughed at my eager face expression and vigorous nod.



When I returned to the room that I remembered from earlier endless pairs of eyes immediately looked at me.

Em and Liam had already returned from having slept at his place to get at least one night’s sleep. Eleanor was still sitting in the chair, but it looked like Louis and Harry had left. Instead Zayn and Perrie had arrived and I noticed a fresh scent of lilacs filling the room.


Niall came running from the other side looking more terrible than ever. He helped the nurse putting the bed back on its spot before kissing my forehead. Luckily they all looked like they’d been informed about everything, so that I didn’t have to explain anything to them.


“Harry and Louis are recording at the studio today – we’re doing it on shifts so that we can be here as well,” Zayn said when the nurse had left.

I waited a few seconds before whispering: “It’s… too much.”

“No it isn’t,” Eleanor said from her chair. “That’s exactly what friends do.”

“Here, we brought you some more chocolate, but I see you’ve hadn’t had the time to eat any of the first ones,” Perrie said and put down another couple of Kinder Buenos at the night stand. “Do you want one?”


I took a few minutes to feel if I was capable of eating anything and decided to give it a go. Perrie opened one and put it near my mouth for me to bite down on it. And it was really good. Just really sad as well when I immediately felt full after only one fucking bite.

Then the nurse returned with a drop. “I’m going to give you some morphine to lighten the pain,” she said while hanging it up and connecting it to the thing rubber hose in my right hand.



My friends spent a couple of hours at the room talking to each other and playing cards, but they were struggling to act normal with me looking like a dead person in the middle of it all. Niall refused to leave me for anything but when he was just about to wet himself and then had to go to the toilet. He was exhausted but I was in no position of talking to him about it.

The atmosphere was always a bit tense and depressed, especially when I once in a while made the huge mistake to move a little bit and then squeal because of the amount of pain it caused. Worried looks, both at me and at each other, was something I had gotten used to.


But that afternoon another the doctor came to check up on my concussion. And I had to sit up straight in order for him to get a proper investigation of my eyes and so on. The bed was an electric one that moved up and down when you pressed the little remote.



It hurt like hell. Every time the bed moved me up just an inch I heard myself scream at the top of my voice – something that at first I was absolutely sure that I wasn’t capable of at all. The tears were streaming down my face and both the doctor and Niall tried to calm me down. Even though they spent several minutes to get me to sit straight up I still couldn’t wait to get to lie back down on my back.


Em tried her best to compose herself and be brave but she quickly ended up walking out of the room with shaking shoulders. Liam followed her and I heard her sobbing once again and him talking to her in the most comforting way he could manage at that point.

Zayn looked like he was feeling almost as awful as Em turning away every five seconds in order not to cry as well.

Perrie and Aida were my two heroes. They kept themselves restrained all the time while calming down both Zayn and Eleanor.


After a difficult and what seemed like a never ending investigation that probably only took a few minutes, I finally got to lie down again. But the movement of the bed was just as hurtful as the way up and I felt incredibly dizzy and sick because of all the pains afterwards.

At some point I let go of Niall’s poor hand that I’d held tightly on to the entire time, so tight that it was now almost completely pale. He’d kept his eyes closed most of the time, probably without a chance of standing what I was going through at those few moments.

He had the nurse giving me some more of the morphine, since it didn’t seem to work at all after having sat up.


“Is there anything we can get for you?” Perrie asked.

“Something stronger… than morphine,” I breathed. “Weed… might help.”

Even though I meant that last part as joke to brighten up the mood in the room I couldn’t help but wonder if I could actually get some.


When Niall had to go to the toilet, while Perrie, Zayn and Eleanor were out getting some food I found myself with only three as company; Aida, Em and Liam. When I had another chock wave of pains two of them – you can probably figure out who – had to go outside again.

Aida just sat next to the bed holding my hand without showing any emotion on her face – and it felt really nice. I was sick of everybody feeling sad about me.


“Aida…” I started when the worst of it was over and she looked at me. “I need you… to help me.”

“Anything you want,” she just said.

“Everybody is feeling… so depressed… because of me. I need you… to be… Wonder Woman,” I managed to say before completely losing my breath.

And right there Aida proved one of her thousand qualities; she just nodded, knowing exactly what I meant.


The minute Niall came back from the toilet Aida didn’t wait one second to do her duty as my superhero.

“Niall, can I talk to you outside?” she said and he nodded looking a bit confused and also unwilling to leave me out of sight. As they too left the room I found myself in complete silence.

God, it felt good.

It didn’t take me more than that short moment to instantly fall asleep, despite the heavy pains.



When I woke up after what felt like hours of much needed sleep there weren’t nearly as many people in the room just as before I passed out. Aida and Perrie were reading magazines and Louis was talking on the phone.

“Harry’s on his way from the studio, he’s bringing some food for dinner,” he said when he’d hung up.

“Great, I’m starving!” Perrie exclaimed suddenly looking up from here issue of Vogue. “Oh Maja, you’re up,” she added when she se saw my open eyes. I sent them a vague smile.

“Where is…” I began but had to take a break before continuing. Luckily I didn’t have to, since Aida already knew what to answer:

“We forced Niall home to get some sleep, he has a long day at the studio tomorrow, though it took me about half an hour of persuasion before he did as I told him. Eleanor went home to get some sleep, she also has a fitting tomorrow for a fashion show in a couple of weeks. We also sent Em home with Liam, these couple of days have been really rough on her. I’ve made sure that tonight it’s only going to be people here that don’t cry.”

All those words were sweet music in my ears and she smiled proudly at her fulfilled job.

“Except for Harry, he might cry a bit,” she then added with a thoughtful frowning and now it was my turn to smile thinking that she might be right about that.



About half an hour later Harry came through the door.

“Hi guys,” he said cheerfully. “I brought pizza!”


It felt really nice to hear a loud and happy voice, I was getting quite sick of all the vague and understanding whispering sounds around me. He put down the flat cardboard box and kissed Aida’s lips softly with on hand on her neck. “I’ve missed you,” he said smiling at her bright and happy eyes.

Shit, I thought. I had almost forgot what I’d seen the two of them do yesterday. “You guys…” I began just like last time, ”just kissed. Again.”

They all laughed at my choice of words.

“And you’re calling me a dork…” Aida said looking at me.

Harry blushed a bit as he tried to change the subject by asking: “Want some pizza?”

I shook my head still smiling at how cute and innocent they acted around each other.

“No, Maja had one bite of Bueno four hours ago, she must feel sick to her stomach,” Perrie joked.



The next few hours I was having a blast – at least as much as I could without making my ribs hurt whenever I tried to laugh. Louis and Harry were joking around saying the most odd and funny things, it was purely entertaining to just listen to those two imitating famous persons.

Perrie and Aida had one of their famous competitions of making the weirdest face expressions, but even Aida – who I’d reckon was almost better than me at making ugly faces – had to see herself overcome by Perrie’s amazing ability to squint her wide eyes enormously.


I felt happier than I’d done for as long as I remembered. But what made me feel blessed the most was the fact that they for the first time while I’d been lying here in the hospital actually also my friends seemed truly happy. No tears, no concerned faces, no frowning or holding my hand. Just friends having fun. I felt so grateful to them, at that point more than ever.



Suddenly I felt my stomach turn. I started feeling a lot warmer and my breathing again became a lot heavier in a matter of a few seconds.

“Is there…” I began and Louis and Harry quickly looked at me pausing their game of paper ball fight, “a dustbin?”

“God, you look pale,” Louis said tilting his head a bit to one side watching me. Harry on the other hand didn’t wait more than half a second before he flew up from his chair, grabbing the bucket in the corner and running towards my bed holding it underneath my chin.


It turned out that he made it just in time cause right then and there I started throwing up. Or at least my body tried to. A bit of liquid came out of my mouth, but besides that I only did some dry heaves for the next few minutes. Harry had pulled back my hair with the other hand while saying a few comforting words in my ear. In between the heaves I couldn’t help but squeal at the pain in my ribs the throwing up caused and my eyes were again watering all over the places.

But this time it wasn’t as bad since there weren’t any people to get upset or cry because of my situation. Harry looked like he struggled a bit but he managed to restrain himself, Louis sat on the other side of the bed brushing my un-bruised leg. Perrie went outside to get a nurse while Aida just sat on the sofa looking at me.


“It’s the morphine,” Louis said and Harry nodded.


At that point I noticed that beside now, I hadn’t felt that much pain for a couple of hours that evening because of a massive dose of anesthetic being shut in to my veins.


Perrie came back a few minutes later followed by a nurse who carried on a couple of plastic bags.

“You might feel sick again, but I don’t think we should cut down on the morphine, you’re in too much pain otherwise. So use these instead, so that you won’t have to clean the bucket every time,” she said and handed the bags to Aida who stood up and put them on the night stand.
I nodded, knowing that she was right. Right now everything hurt so much that I wouldn’t even dare thinking of how it would feel without the drop. I suddenly felt completely exhausted and dropped my head back on the pillow.


“Aida…” I said and she looked at me. “Will you tell me my story?”


She smiled, almost laughed, at my childish and innocent question but nodded and came over to the bed and sat down.

“In Danish,” I quickly added. This made both Harry, Louis and Perrie open their eyes, probably being curious about how our language sounded.


Aida began telling my favorite fairytale written by the Danish writer and poet, H.C. Andersen, who lived in the 19th century. He’d become very famous all over Europe, mostly because of his exciting and beautifully written stories. The one that I loved the most was called The Story of a Mother in English and Aida knew it by heart from start to finish, since it wasn’t the first time that I’d asked her to read or tell it to me. We used to sooth each other with music or stories whenever one of us felt sad or sick.

“Der sad en moder hos sit lille barn, hun var så bedrøvet, så bange for at det skulle dø,” Aida said before getting interrupted by Louis gushing: ”God, Danish is a weird language.”
After sending him a kind smile she continued: ”Det var så blegt, de små øjne havde lukket sig, det trak så sagte vejret, og indimellem med et dybt drag ligesom om det sukkede; og moderen så endnu mere sorrigfuld på den lille sjæl.”


As she was telling the story I felt my eyes close; not because I was sleepy, but because I was imagining it all inside my head. No matter how many times I heard or read this story I would always cry at the sadness in it. And this time was no exception as I felt a single tear slide underneath my left eyelid.

Except for that I wasn’t only letting out the tear because of the beauty of the fairytale – also because of the beauty of my friend.

Notes

To my 13 subsribers, thank you so much to all of you! I could use a lot more of people like you, so please! Subsrcibe, vote and comment on the story!!!