Everything is black. I don’t know where I am, what happened to me…whoI am. There’s just this overwhelming certainty that I shouldn’t be alive, and that I might not be. I’m floating, unable to make any sense ofanything. Memories and certainties slip from my grasp like the sands in a timer. A fleeting touch and nothing more before it’s gone again, leaving me grasping for air.
Of all my senses, sound comes back first. One moment, I’m barely existing, and then my ears are back on-line. I’m not hearing voices, though. If there are words, I can’t understand them. Instead, there’s beeping. Hissing. Something mechanical, and stray squeaks here and there, all of it muffled slightly as though my poor ears are stuffed with cotton.
Once I have ears again, I have a body. I’m lying on my back, and my chest doesn’t feel right. There’s pressure. It’s heavy, like something is sitting on it, pressing down, making every breath feel like work.
I try to move the rest of me. My toes wiggle slightly, and so do my fingers. When I try to shift my arm, testing to see if I can lift it, it doesn’t cooperate with me. It’s stuck, and when panic slips in alongside the dull ache in my head, I feel something tugging at my skin as I yank.
That hurts, too.
Dropping my arm, I struggle to get my eyes open halfway. As I emerge from the darkness, a brilliant light stabs into the narrow slit I created between my eyelids. I get a glimpse of a white ceiling before my brain screams that it’s too bright. I close my eyes again, the beeping surrounding me growing impossibly louder.
Someone says something near me.
“…coming around…”
The words drift in and out, like they’re trying to reach me while I’m underwater. I try to focus on what they could be and who might be saying them—but Ican’t. I also can’t hold onto them long enough to understand what they mean.
And that’s when I notice that there’s something wrong with my throat. Itburns. I try to swallow, giving myself some relief, but I can’t do that either. There’s something inside of my throat. Something plastic. I gag, then choke, and risk opening my eyes to the brightness again to see what the hell is wrong with me.
I see blue. Pale blue scrubs and a white face as hands land on my shoulders, pinning me in place.
“It’s okay,” a voice says. It’s a female voice, impressively calm considering I can’t tell if I’m halfway dead or nearly all the way. “You’re intubated. Don’t fight it. You’ll be alright.”
Intubated? What?How?
Intubated… so I’m not dead, not yet, and I wish I could say that I was relieved to hear that, but I hurt and I’m scared and I can’t breathe with that thing in my throat and I… I let myself go. I allow the darkness to swallow me up again, leading me toa place where I’m neither dead nor alive, but for the moment at least, I’m safe.
And that’s saying something because I don’t think I was before this happened to me.
The next timeI wake up, the tube is gone, and I’m pretty sure Iamalive so small victories, I guess.
I have to be alive. Death wouldn’t hurt this bad, and the first thing I notice is that my poor throat feels scraped raw. My chest still aches, too, but at least the weight is lighter than it was, like someone—maybe the woman in blue—moved whatever was crushing me a few inches over.
The room is quieter. The beeping hasn’t stopped, though it’s… calmer, maybe. I don’t know. It’s not as bright where I am, and that’s probably because there’s a curtain drawn around the bed that I’m lying in.
At the foot of it, a friendly-faced blond man is standing there, tapping the screen of the tablet in his hands. He’s wearing blue scrubs, too, and a badge clipped to his chest. I can’t read the name, but the face on the badge belongs to the medical professional whose expression softens when he notices that I’m staring at him cluelessly.
Hi,” he says gently. “Can you tell me your name?”
Good question.
My name. What is my name?
I… I don’t know. Panic rises as my brain throws up a block. Who am I? I should know this. A name. I have one, but I have no idea what it can be.
My voice is cracked and thin as I admit, “I… don’t… I don’tremember.”
There’s the tiniest shift to his expression. Not surprise, though. It’s closer to resignation, like he expected that answer.
“That’s okay,” he tells me even as I want to scream that it’s not okay. Not knowing my name… definitelynotokay. “Do you know where you are?”
I think back. My mind is blank, and I can’t say for sure how I got here. Fortunately, it doesn’t take much to realizewhereI am. A couple of furtive glances around me, spying the IV bag on its stand and the needle in my arm, the machines beeping sporadically, and the curtained-off bed… I breathe in, the chemical cleaner irritating my raw throat.
“Hospital,” I whisper. “I’m in the hospital.”
He nods once, a hint of satisfaction reaching his deep brown eyes. “Good. My name is Dr. Nathan. I’m here to help. Now… can you tell me? Do you know what happened to you?”
What happened? Whathappened? I flutter my lashes, trying to remember. No one just wakes up in the hospital without some idea of what put them there. But as I force it, all that happens is I hear the echo of a scream in my ears, feel the wind against my face, the sensation that I’mfalling?—
