The Touch - Rewrite

“You’re safe now, Zachary.”

The woman’s voice drifted through the darkness like something distant and warm, wrapping around me in a way that didn’t hurt. Her hand moved slowly across my chest, gentle and steady, as if she was trying to remind my body how to breathe properly again. Every inch of me ached, but the pain in the back of my head pulsed harder than the rest, sharp and constant, like something was trying to break its way out from inside my skull.

I tried to open my eyes, but nothing changed. The darkness stayed exactly the same, thick and suffocating, and for a brief second panic clawed its way up my throat before her voice came again, softer this time, grounding me just enough to keep me from slipping.

“You have a bandage over your eyes, Zachary,” she explained carefully, like she already knew what I was about to ask. “It’s just to protect them from the light. You’re okay. Just rest.”

Rest.

The word settled wrong inside my chest, heavy and unwelcome. Rest meant sleep. Sleep meant the dark wouldn’t stay empty for long. It would fill. It always filled.

I shifted slightly against the bed, wincing as pain rippled through my ribs and up into my shoulders, and forced myself to stay awake. My fingers twitched against the thin hospital blanket, searching for something to hold onto—something real—but there was nothing except the faint pressure of her hand and the steady rise and fall of my own breathing.

I didn’t want to go back there.

Not again.

Not where he was waiting.

“I don’t want to sleep…” I whispered, my voice barely there, dry and cracking, like it didn’t belong to me anymore.

Her hand paused for a moment, just long enough for me to notice the absence, before it resumed its slow, reassuring motion. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she murmured, though there was something in her tone—something quiet and knowing—that told me she understood how this was going to end.

I wanted to tell her why.

I wanted to explain what waited for me every time my mind slipped, how the memories didn’t feel like memories at all. They weren’t distant or faded. They were sharp. Immediate. Alive in a way that made it impossible to tell the difference between then and now.

But the words stayed trapped somewhere behind my teeth.

A part of me was afraid she wouldn’t believe me.

Another part was afraid she would.

So I stayed quiet and tried to hold on.

I focused on her hand. On the rhythm of it. On the faint sounds around me—the soft beeping somewhere nearby, the distant murmur of voices in the hallway, the quiet hum of machines that I couldn’t see but knew were there.

I held onto all of it as tightly as I could.

It didn’t work.

The pull came slowly at first, like a tide dragging me backward no matter how hard I resisted. The sounds of the hospital—the faint beeping, the distant voices, the soft rustle of movement—began to stretch and distort, growing thinner and farther away until they no longer sounded real.

Her hand was still there.

I think it was.

But even that began to fade.

Everything did.

And then the light came.

A violent flash exploded across my vision as his fist collided with the side of my face, snapping my head sideways. The force of it sent a ringing shock through my skull, and before I could even react, his hand tightened around my throat. My feet barely touched the ground as he lifted me, slamming my body backward into the wall hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.

The crack of glass shattered behind me as the picture frame broke on impact. Something sharp scraped against my scalp, followed instantly by warmth spreading through my hair. I gasped, choking more on instinct than air, as his grip tightened further.

His face was close—too close. His eyes burned with something wild and unrestrained, something that had nothing to do with anger anymore.

It was worse than that.

He didn’t care.

My vision blurred as pressure crushed against my throat, cutting off what little air I could pull in. My hands clawed weakly at his wrist, but it didn’t matter. Nothing I did ever mattered when he got like this.

Then suddenly, he let go.

I collapsed before I even realized I was falling, my body hitting the floor in a heap as I dragged in a desperate, broken breath. It barely had time to fill my lungs before his boot slammed into my chest, driving the air right back out again.

“Shut the fuck up, you worthless piece of scum!”

The words hit almost as hard as the kick. I curled slightly, instinct taking over, but it didn’t protect me. It never did. His hand grabbed my face, fingers digging painfully into my jaw as he forced me to look at him.

“You’re nothing but a piece of shit!”

The slap that followed snapped my head to the side, leaving a sharp sting blooming across my cheek. My ears rang as the room tilted, and for a moment everything doubled—two walls, two doors, two versions of him standing over me.

Neither of them stopped.

The next kick came harder, and something in me slipped with it.

The living room blurred.

The hallway stretched.

And suddenly I was remembering—

—or maybe it was still happening.

I couldn’t tell anymore.

Just minutes ago, I had been in my room, sitting on my bed with my homework spread out in front of me, trying to be quiet. Always quiet. I had been staring down at the page, barely reading, more focused on listening to the house than anything else. Listening for him. Waiting without realizing I was waiting.

Then the door burst open so hard it slammed against the wall.

Harold Stubbs had stormed in already yelling, his face twisted with anger before I even had time to stand up. He started screaming at me about my shoes being out of place, his voice rising louder with every word, like the accusation itself was feeding something inside him.

I didn’t understand what he meant.

I had done exactly what he told me to do.

Then he grabbed me—hard—and yanked me off the bed, dragging me by my arm down the hallway to show me the problem.

The shoe wasn’t even out of place.

“They’re right where you told me to put them,” I had said, the words slipping out before I could stop them, before I could recognize the danger building in his eyes.

That was when everything went wrong.

The memory snapped back into place with a jolt as my body hit the cold bathroom floor. Pain rattled through me, sharp and immediate, but it barely had time to settle before the faucet screeched to life. Water burst out in a harsh, steady stream, filling the small room with sound.

Then the kicks came again.

His boot slammed into my back, once, twice, over and over, each strike knocking what little air I had left out of my lungs. I curled in on myself instinctively, my arms pulling in tight, but it didn’t help. It never helped.

“Shut up, you piece of shit!” he screamed, his voice echoing off the tile walls, making it feel even louder, even closer.

Before I could even try to move, his hand was on my throat again, fingers digging in as he forced me upward just enough to choke off my breathing.

I struggled against his grip, my hands clawing weakly at his wrist as the darkness began creeping in around the edges of my vision, closing in slowly at first.

“I’ll teach you to talk back to me!”

Then, for the space of a single moment, I was weightless.

The sensation barely registered before my body slammed violently into the tiled wall surrounding the shower. Pain exploded through my skull as my head struck first, a sharp, blinding crack that seemed to split everything apart. A scream tore from my throat, but it sounded distant—wrong—like it belonged to someone else.

The strength drained out of me almost instantly after that.

I collapsed into the tub, my body refusing to respond as the water continued to run. I could feel it now—cold at first as it spread beneath me, soaking into my clothes, pressing against my skin. It pooled around me slowly, steadily rising, but I couldn’t find the strength to move.

My chest heaved weakly as I tried to breathe, but each breath felt smaller than the last.

The world around me started to blur.

The sound of the water dulled, fading into a low, distant roar as the ringing in my ears grew louder. My vision flickered, the light above me stretching and warping until it didn’t look real anymore.

Somewhere beyond it all, I thought I heard voices.

Men shouting.

Faint. Distant. Warped beyond recognition.

For a brief moment, it sounded urgent—like someone was calling out, like something was happening just out of reach—but the sound slipped away almost as quickly as it came. My mind couldn’t hold onto it.

It didn’t make sense anymore.

None of it did.

I told myself it wasn’t real.

Just another hallucination as everything started to shut down.

The water climbed higher, surrounding me completely now, the cold seeping deeper into my body until I couldn’t tell where it ended and I began. I tried to draw in a breath, but it didn’t come. My body jerked weakly in response, instinct fighting even as everything else began to fade.

The cold rushed in.

Then it spread.

Then it became everything.

Soon, there wasn’t even any pain.

There wasn’t anything.

Small flashes of light pulsed behind my eyes as sharp, distant pains rippled across my chest, but even those felt detached, like they were happening somewhere far away from me. The darkness wrapped tighter, heavier, pulling me down into something deep and endless.

Death was only a few heartbeats away.

And I welcomed it.

Anything to escape the Monster’s grip. Anything to make it stop. No more beatings… no more foster families… no more lies.

I welcomed Death.

And somewhere in that endless dark, it felt like Death welcomed me back.

There was another flash of light—sharp and sudden—and when it faded, I wasn’t alone in the darkness anymore.

At first, I thought it was a reflection. A trick of whatever was left of my vision. The space around me didn’t feel real—there was no floor beneath my feet, no walls, no sense of distance—just an endless stretch of dim, shifting nothing.

And yet… he was there.

Another boy stood across from me, close enough to see clearly, but far enough that I couldn’t reach him. He looked exactly like me. Same face. Same build. Same dark hair falling messily across his forehead.

But his eyes—

They weren’t mine.

They were locked onto me with a kind of urgency that made something twist uncomfortably in my chest.

“Don’t give up, Zyan,” he said, his voice unsteady but determined, like he was holding himself together just enough to get the words out. “We’ll be together soon… I promise…”

The name hit wrong.

It didn’t belong to me.

“My name isn’t Zyan,” I interrupted, the words coming out sharper than I expected. My voice echoed strangely in the empty space, like it didn’t have anywhere to land. “I’m Zachary. You clearly have the wrong person.”

Even as I said it, something about the situation didn’t make sense. None of it did. But that didn’t matter. I held onto the name anyway—Zachary—like it was the only solid thing I had left.

I shook my head and turned away from him, unwilling to look at something that didn’t exist, something my mind had made up at the worst possible moment. The only Zyan I knew was a character in a book. That was it. That was all.

Why wouldn’t he just let me go?

Why wouldn’t any of this just end?

“No, Zyan!”

His voice broke through the darkness, louder now, desperate enough to make me flinch. I turned back despite myself.

Tears filled his eyes—icy blue eyes that didn’t match mine—and one of them slipped free, tracing down his cheek as he stepped forward… or maybe the distance between us just shrank. I couldn’t tell.

“Don’t give up, baby brother,” he said, his voice cracking under the weight of it. “Please… I’m close to finding you. Just give me more time, Zyan… please…”

“I’m not Zyan!” I shouted, the anger rising fast, sharp enough to cut through the numbness that had settled over everything else. It was easier to be angry than confused. Easier than thinking about what he was saying.

The boy froze, like the words had actually hit him.

For a moment, he just stared at me, stunned, before his expression crumpled slightly. He sniffled, dragging the back of his arm across his eyes in a clumsy attempt to wipe the tears away, like he’d done it a hundred times before.

“You’ll figure it out… soon enough,” he said quietly, the determination gone now, replaced with something softer. Sadder. “You’ve just been away for too long.”

The words lingered in the space between us, heavier than anything else he had said.

And for a second—just a second—I hesitated.

The darkness didn’t disappear all at once. It peeled back slowly, unevenly, like something reluctant to let go of me completely. The weight of it still clung to my body even as faint sounds began to return—soft at first, barely noticeable, then sharper as they pushed their way into my awareness. A quiet, steady beeping echoed somewhere nearby. Beneath it, there was the low hum of machines and the faint rustle of fabric shifting close to me. Everything felt distant, like I was hearing it from the bottom of a deep pool.

My body felt impossibly heavy, like it didn’t belong to me anymore. When I tried to move, it took more effort than it should have, as if something unseen was pressing down on me, holding me in place. A weak groan slipped past my lips before I could stop it, my throat dry and raw from disuse.

“You’re okay… hey, easy…”

The voice was different. Not hers. Younger. Closer.

I stilled immediately, every part of me tightening despite the exhaustion. There was a soft shuffle of movement beside me, followed by the faint sound of something being set down. The mattress dipped slightly near my side, and I became aware of someone sitting close—not touching me yet, just there, like they were waiting to see how I would react.

“Hey… can you hear me?” he asked gently, his voice careful and steady.

I swallowed, wincing at the dryness in my throat before managing a quiet, “Yeah.”

“Alright,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his tone. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

I shifted slightly, slower this time, testing the limits of what my body would allow. The bandage was still wrapped tightly around my eyes, pressing everything back into darkness, and for a brief moment panic flickered in my chest before I forced it down. I focused instead on the sound of his voice, anchoring myself to it.

“Where… where is everyone?” I asked, my voice rough and uneven.

“Probably doing their jobs,” he replied lightly, like it wasn’t anything to worry about. “You’ve got a whole team looking after you. You just don’t see all of us at once.”

He paused briefly before adding, “My name’s Oliver.”

I didn’t answer right away. The name didn’t mean anything to me, and I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it. After a moment, I muttered, “…Zachary,” the name coming automatically, even though something about it still felt slightly out of place.

“Yeah,” Oliver said quietly. “I know.”

There was a short silence, not uncomfortable, just quiet in a way that didn’t demand anything from me. Then I heard him stand, the faint shift of fabric and soft movement of his shoes against the floor.

“I’ll be right back, okay?” he said. “Don’t go anywhere.”

The corner of my mouth twitched faintly at that, but I didn’t have the energy to respond. A moment later, I heard the door open and close, and the room settled into stillness again.

The quiet felt different this time. Heavier.

My fingers curled slightly against the blanket as my thoughts drifted back to the darkness I had just come from. Back to him. The other me.

I could still see his face clearly, sharper than anything else. The way he looked at me… like I mattered. Like losing me would actually mean something. The memory sat uneasily in my chest, refusing to fade like everything else had.

“Zyan…” I murmured under my breath, the name feeling strange on my tongue.

It didn’t belong to me.

It couldn’t.

And yet, it lingered.

You’ve just been away for too long.

I frowned slightly, my grip tightening against the blanket as I tried to push the thought away. “I’m not…” I started quietly, but the words lost their strength before I could finish them. The certainty I’d had before didn’t feel as solid now.

The door opened again, pulling me back.

“Alright,” Oliver’s voice returned, lighter this time. “I come bearing gifts.”

There was the soft crinkle of a bag and the distinct sound of items being set down carefully beside me. His movements were deliberate, controlled, like he didn’t want to startle me or cause me to spill anything.

“I’ve got chips,” he continued, “and a can of Pepsi. Figured you deserved something better than hospital food.”

I blinked behind the bandage, caught slightly off guard by that. “…seriously?” I asked quietly.

“Seriously,” he replied, a small hint of amusement in his voice.

He gently guided my hand toward the tray, positioning it so I wouldn’t have to search. “Chips are already open,” he explained. “Drink’s right next to it. Just take it slow—it’s full.”

My fingers brushed against the crinkled edge of the bag before finding the cool surface of the can. The normalcy of it felt strange, almost unreal, but grounding at the same time.

“What do you wanna watch?” Oliver asked, picking up the remote. “Or listen to, I guess.”

I hesitated for a moment before answering quietly, “…SpongeBob.”

There was a brief pause, followed by a soft chuckle. “Good choice,” he said simply, not making anything of it.

A few buttons clicked, and moments later the familiar cartoon voices filled the room at a low volume. It was muffled slightly, but recognizable enough to feel… normal. That word didn’t quite fit, but it was close.

Oliver stayed for a moment, like he was making sure everything was set the way it should be. “I’ve gotta make my rounds,” he said after a bit. “But I’ll be back soon, alright?”

I nodded faintly. “Okay.”

His footsteps faded, leaving me alone again with the quiet hum of machines and the soft noise of the television. I reached slowly for a chip, my movements clumsy but careful, and brought it to my mouth. The salt hit my tongue sharply, real enough to ground me in a way nothing else had yet.

But even with that… even with the noise…

My mind drifted back.

To him.

The other me.

The way he said it.

Baby brother.

My fingers tightened slightly against the blanket as the thought settled in again, heavier this time.

What did he mean?

The door opened again at some point, though I couldn’t tell how much time had passed.

“Alright,” Oliver said as he stepped back in. “Hate to be the bad guy, but it’s time for meds.”

My stomach tightened immediately. “I don’t want them,” I said, the words coming quicker this time, more certain.

Because I knew what they meant.

Sleep.

“No one ever does,” Oliver replied calmly, though his tone had shifted slightly—still gentle, but firmer now.

“I don’t want to go back to sleep,” I added, quieter but more serious.

There was a pause as he set something down. “I get that,” he said. “I really do. But you need them, Zachary.”

I tensed slightly at the name but didn’t argue.

“You’ve got a long recovery ahead of you,” he continued. “This helps your body heal. It’s not optional.”

For a moment, neither of us moved. Then he gently took my hand and pressed the small cup into it.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “Work with me.”

I hesitated, then finally took them, swallowing them down with the water he handed me. The motion felt heavier than it should have, like I was agreeing to something more than just medicine.

“Thanks,” Oliver said softly before settling back into the chair.

“Natalie’s your main nurse,” he added after a moment. “She’s been the one with you the most. She… kind of dotes on you.”

I frowned slightly. “Why?”

He let out a small breath of amusement. “That’s just how she is. She gets attached. Don’t read too much into it.”

There was a brief pause before I asked, “…how long have I been here?”

“About three weeks,” Oliver answered. “You woke up earlier today for the first real stretch.”

Three weeks.

The number settled heavily in my chest.

“That bad, huh…” I muttered.

“It was close,” he said simply, not softening it. Then, after a moment, “But you made it.”

Silence followed, quieter now, but not empty.

“You’ve got a long way to go,” Oliver continued. “But you’re not doing it alone. I’ll be around. Natalie too. We’ll keep you company.”

The medication was already starting to pull at me again, that same slow, heavy drag creeping in from the edges. I clenched my jaw slightly, trying to fight it, trying to hold on just a little longer.

But I already knew how this would end.

It always ended the same way.

And as the darkness began to creep back in, one thought lingered stronger than the rest—

I wondered if he would be there again when I closed my eyes.