David lay on the ground struggling for his dear life. Blood kept oozing from his sliced-open chest and the pain coupled with the trauma he had to deal with, made him wish death upon himself. Just when he wanted to give up, a conflate of thoughts and feelings run through his mind and body respectively. He thought of what would become of his father who was now ripe with age should he wake up to find him laying dead in front of their house. He also thought of what would become of Ellen if he was to leave her all alone in the world. With these thoughts running through his mind, he decided to do something to at least call the attention of a 'savior' who would come to his rescue. He managed to drag himself in front of his car, where the assailants had dropped his cell phone. He managed to get to the phone and as he lay there almost passing out, he dialed Erica's number. Erica's phone rang but there was no answer. He tried calling her again immediately after the first call was unanswered. Just when the call was about to drop after a long time of ringing the second time, Erica answered the call. "To what do I owe this sudden remembrance?", she asked. Her query was met by dead air. "Dave, are you sure you really intended calling me?", she asked again and still, there was no answer. Instantly, she knew something was wrong because David always went straight to the point in all the countable times he called her. Their calls were almost all the time, 'Ellen-centered' so she knew it was so unlike David. All that while, David was trying tirelessly to get the phone to his ear but his strength was failing him miserably. He prayed that Erica would not hang up the phone because she was not getting any response from his side of the call. He desperately thought of another way to reach Erica and he suddenlyhad an idea. He tried a different approach. He stretched himself out on the floor in his pool of blood, put the phone on loudspeaker and managed to let out some words even though they were close to being inaudible. "Erica, Erica, I have been attacked by armed robbers and they have injured me, please come to my house now". When Erica finally made out what David was trying to say, she got alarmed but at the same time was skeptical. "David, is this some kind of a joke or something?", she asked. With the little bit of strength left in him, David managed to get on his assertive selfwhich Erica had come to know one too many times and said, "If this were to be a joke, I would have called someone else". "Just come to my house now, I am dying", David added and passed out. Erica got to David's junction and saw his car parked outside with a figure drawn in the darkness on the ground. Instantly, she knew David was serious. She asked the taxi driver to speed up and they parked behind David's car. Erica jumped out of the taxi and with the help of the driver, David was put into the taxi. They sped off to the nearest hospital in a frantic effort to save David's life. As the car took off, Erica sat with David at the backseat and kept checking if David still had a pulse. "David, please don't die", Erica said, with tears in her eyes. "Who could possibly think of hurting you?", she asked. "Do you owe anyone some money?". "What is it, David?". All her questions went unanswered because David was unconscious. When they got to the hospital, David was immediately taken into the Emergency Unit and the doctors were summoned to attend to him. Erica sat there and prayed to hear some good news when the job of the doctors was over. The doctors came out and to her relief, David's condition had been stabilized but he was going to lose the finger that was cut off. "Doctor, he can live without a finger", Erica said, when she received the good news. "His life is more precious to us", she added. Erica rushed back to David's house and informed his father about the attack. The old man almost suffered a heart attack but Erica assured him that he was in a stable condition and they both made their way to the police station to report the incident and went straight to the hospital to see David afterwards. Meanwhile, Ellen was having the time of her life with Collins. Two days after her father's attack, Ellen was asked by her grandfather to come home for some stuff for school. "Why can't daddy bring them?", she asked. "Just come home, my dear, your father is a bit indisposed at the moment and wants you to pick the stuff yourself. When Ellen got home, she found out about her father's attack and wept bitterly as she visited him at the hospital. Fred had also come back but instead of David going to meet him at the airport, it was Fred rather who met David in the hospital. they also had to postpone their surprise party till David was much better.Fred had changed remarkably. He was almost always at David's bedside. The doctors informed them that per the hospital's policy, any patient who was given blood from its blood bank had to replace it with blood from donors. Ellen and David's father volunteered to donate blood to replace what was given to David when he was brought in to the hospital. The donations were done successfully. The police also informed David and his family that they had unraveled the reason behind his attack. It was a simple case of mistaken identity. The 'real victim', David's neighbor reported a threat on his life some weeks back but did not reveal the truth about the reason behind the threats for fear of being chastised and it appeared that the hired assailants, for whatever reason attacked David instead. Reports were then put out in search of the assailants. Collins had fallen in love with Ellen and had become worried about her because Ellen had been acting up on her return to school after visiting her father in the hospital. Collins tried hard to get to her but Ellen was unresponsive. To help him stop worrying his head, she wrote him a poem and it read "AS HARD AS YOU KNOCK, AS MUCH AS YOU TRY, AS REAL AS YOU CAN BE; YOU JUST CAN'T SEE THROUGH ME BECAUSE I'M AS STRONG AS A ROCK, AS BLANK AS PLAIN SHEET, HEAVY AS A DUVET BUT SOFT AS COTTON", "Your dearest Ellen". She later promised to tell him the reason behind her mood swing when her worries were over. David spent three weeks and five days in the hospital before being discharged. On the day of David's discharge. His father went in to see the doctor after all the bills had been settled. After thanking the doctor for saving his son's life, he turned to leave but the doctor had some concerns. The doctor was David's family doctor and he had this to say, "Something strange and bizarre came up during David's stay". "Out of curiosity, one of our student lab technicians doing his internship with us matched up the blood samples of yourself, David and your granddaughter and it appears that it is likely, though not certain yet that your granddaughter may not be your real granddaughter", the doctor added. "What is that supposed to mean?", David's father asked. "We would need to run some blood tests on your granddaughter's mother and if possible, do a DNA test before we draw any conclusions and yes, when we get it done and the results are negative, it would mean that David is not the father of Ellen and neither are you her grandfather", the doctor added... TWISTS AND TURNS ARE APPROACHING. STAY TUNED. My name is Edwin Oko Lamptey and this is "BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS". More at randomafricanthoughts.blogspot.com
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