CBC - Origins

Colin O'Brien  (by: Sue ©05/2005)

How do you explain what it's like to be sure you're dying? The feeling of lightheadedness? The disconnection of your mind from your body? Or just that there's no pain anymore? I don't really know, all I know is one second I felt like I'd been knocked down by a steamroller and the next I was floating and feeling nothing.

I watched Midori die beside me and I was slowly letting go, I thought I could feel the heat from the flames and I knew the fuel tank would blow soon. My life was ebbing out of me and reality was fading when the door was wrenched open and a blast of cooler air filled the car. A distant thought registered that the added oxygen would intensify the blaze and the tank would blow. I was lifted up in the air and landed with a crash, all the pain flooding back into my body. I'd have screamed in agony if I'd had the breath to do it.

I heard a string of curses and hands grabbed me again hauling me up and dragging me to safety. The pain was too much and I passed out.

My only memory until I woke up in hospital was a familiar voice saying over and over. "For fuck's sake fight. She'll have my balls if I say I lost you." Not exactly strong words of encouragement to live but it fixed in my head and kept drawing me back, stopping me from letting go.

I hurt like fuck when I woke up. I was bandaged like a mummy and every fucking part of my body screamed with pain. When they came to pump me full of drugs they asked if I could manage a visitor, I nodded wondering who the fuck would visit me. The last thing I expected to walk through the door was 'Me' but not me, older and a definitely more successful me.

Half of what he told me didn't make sense, but what I did grasp is that I was being invited to live in a new place. To be honest, a place that sounded like fucking paradise. No more money worries, no running from the law and sheilas, no way it could be real but I had nowhere else to go. I was on the run, a place to hide seemed like a boon right then. So I agreed.

In typical Thorne fashion, as soon as I said yes, wheels moved and I was transported bed and all to Central. It didn't take long to recover once I was there, a miracle in itself how fast I was up on my feet again. The longer I stayed the less I wanted to leave. Then Cort found Suz and invited me to live with them. There was no going back then, I was here to stay, I'd come home.