"L...luke?" His eyes were closed, blood flowing from the side of his face. I shook my head to bring myself back to reality as I wrapped my arms around the upper part of his body and pulled hard, freeing his leg from the crushed car.
After getting them out, I straightened, trying to calm my nerves. My hands shook uncontrollably as I tried to analyze the situation in front of me.
What should I do now? What does someone have to do when they witness an accident? I stepped away from Luke's body and felt around for my bag. I got my phone and called for an ambulance.
It took roughly twenty minutes, and I got in with them after saying I was a family friend. They had started resuscitating Luke and putting an oxygen mask over him, but the older, weirdly extremely familiar man was completely still. It scared me to my bones.
I don't remember seeing this accident back then, the first time I was 18 years old. So why and how was I seeing it now? What does this even mean for me? I was sure this was not the accident that killed Luke, but...I also never knew he was in another accident. Come to think of it, I don't know a lot about him.
I sat on the waiting chair as both of them were wheeled in. I was sure Mrs. Catherina would not know me, so I called my dad instead. Mrs. Catherina arrived after some time, just as the light in the operating room of the elder man went off, and the team of doctors started to troop out.
"Excuse me," Mrs. Catherina said as I stood up too, my hands anxiously rubbing together. "How is he?"
"We did all we could, but the internal bleeding was too much. He went into cardiac arrest too many times during the surgery, and he died at 2:23 p.m." The doctor said, then walked away.
I watched her collapse and they all gathered around her, while some nurses came over to look at her. It reminded me of how she had collapsed when the same announcement was passed, 7 years into the future, during her son's death.
He was going to be buried in a public ground, and a relative of theirs went to sign the necessary papers. When he came back, he was holding a few things in a ziploc, and he said it was the things that had been found with him when he was brought in. I couldn't help hut catch sight of a familiar rectangle shaped object through the clear ziploc bag. It was broken, but I could remember it.
It was exactly what the elderly man had dropped on the floor, and I had stepped on. I watched absent mindedly as they started to disperse, leaving the one relative who was holding the ziploc.
"Excuse me," I said as I walked to him. "I am sorry for your loss. I was the one who found them at the crash site."
He broke into a smile. "Thank you so much." He said. "I am hoping Luke wakes up. I bet he will be devastated about my brother's death."
"The deceased is your brother?" I asked, wondering why I never saw him.
"I was adopted at an early age. Hence the lack of resemblance." He nodded at me, and I forced a small smile.
"Nevertheless, I am sorry."
"Thank you. Can you please wait here while I get a few things done? Luke is still getting treated ."
I nodded. "Go ahead."
He dropped the ziploc and walked off to do something. I carefully picked it and opened it, bringing out the small broken digital calendar.
The date on it was broken, but I could see the year. 022. Wait. If the man who just died is Luke's father, and he has this...does that mean...does that mean he was transported to a time in 2022? Seven years from now? Is that even possible if he was going to die now?
"Dad."
I looked up, and Luke was walking, swaying side by side, his leg feeble. I had no idea he had woken up, or if he was even allowed to be walking around like that.
I kept the ziploc and digital calendar and ran to him. "Luke?"
He didn't look at me, just continued to trudge forward. He tripped and almost fell, and I broke his fall, forcing him to look up.
"Who are you?" He asked, his voice the same deep musical notes I remembered. Just this time it lacked the cold steely ring to it, and it made him sound more human.
"i am...a friend."
He didn't look like it made any sense to him as he asked. "Do you know where my dad is?" His eyes filled as he asked, and I held on to him, wrapping his arm around my shoulder to support him, and my other hand wrapped around his waist.
"I will take care of him," I said to the nurses who were trying to stop him, and I helped him walk forward.
He had never looked so vulnerable in all my time of knowing him, and I tried hard to see him as the 18 year old who just saw his father die. Not the 25 year old who never gave me a chance.
As if on cue, the stretcher was wheeled out with his father's body, his face covered in white sheet. He looked at me, as if asking me if that was him. I couldn't answer before he left my grip, his nail digging into my neck as he removed his hand from around it roughly and fell on the body, stopping the nurses from wheeling him away.
"Dad." He said, his voice breaking even though the word was so short. "Dad, please answer me. Dad."
He was getting hysterical now, and I couldn't resist the urge to stand next to him, and pat his hair lightly as he hugged the body, crying without reservations. I guess this was how it must feel. Losing someone. Unlike the deafening silence I had shown at his own funeral.
He peeled off the white sheets from his father's now clean, pale face, and that was when I remembered where I had seen him. He was the elderly man who had talked to me at Luke's burial. Luke's father was alive in the future? Was he the one who brought me back here?
Wait..I know his father was a science geek, and his name...what was Luke's last name? I never did find out because no one wanted to talk about him then, but I knew Luke's last name.
I was so deep in thought that the only thing I heard was the nurses wheeling the stretcher away, and Luke's cries became even louder and more desperate. I walked closer to his crouched body, and I patted his back a little absent mindedly.
What was his last name?
It was when he suddenly straightened and pulled me into his arms, his face buried in my shoulder and his tears wetting the crook of my neck that I remembered it.
McGregor. Luke McGregor.