Chapter 3

Chapter Three


         I couldn’t see.  Normally, I would not have been nearly as alarmed by this fact, but all I wanted to do was break through the deep sea of black.  My head was spinning.  I continued swimming, trying to find the way out.  Why could I not reach the surface?  I searched frantically now and heard faint voices.  I headed toward the sound, my fear fading as I glimpsed a thin strip of light.  I continued towards it and the light began to spread, suddenly a blinding flash washed over everything.  I blinked against it and then my eyes snapped fully open.

         The raw pain was like having a brick wall fall on you, followed by someone sticking needles into every inch of your body after they beat you with a mace.  It was agony taken to the highest level.  I felt like someone had creatively tortured me by snapping every bone in my body and nudging them ever so slightly afterward.  I was so shocked by it that I couldn’t even muster a scream, I just lay there staring, silent tears streaming down my cheeks.  I closed my eyes against the brightness; I wanted to go back to my ocean of numbing darkness.

         I was moving, that much I could tell.  I felt cold hard metal beneath my thin clothing.  Some sort of rolling bed, a cart maybe?  It wasn’t important, so I distracted myself by listening to the people.  By the sound of footsteps, there was definitely more than one person surrounding me.

         The voices were louder now, on the verge of yelling.  Someone was giving instructions; the deep bass spoke so quickly I had to concentrate to understand what was being said.  I opened my eyes again, slowly this time, letting them adjust to the fluorescent lights.  I peered to my right, focusing on the man who was giving orders, a look of intensity etched into his handsome features.  His jet black hair was smooth and shined underneath the glaring lights.  His ice blue eyes were hard and calculating.  He seemed unnaturally pale though it could be the bad lighting.

         My inspection of him was cut short as my makeshift metal bed went over a small bump, jostling my body painfully.  Though I had composed myself earlier, this sudden movement was unexpected and stabbed at my determination.  Before I could control my reaction, I released a scream.  It was cut off halfway through by a gurgling noise.  Blood dribbled between my parted lips now and I coughed trying to clear my airway.

         The ice blue eyes pierced mine at the sound of my shriek. 

         “She’s drowning,” he said firmly, a fearful edge to his tone.  I stared at him horrified.

         “How can she be drowning?  How is that possible?” another voice sounded to my left.  It sounded panicked, angry, disbelieving.  I turned to see who had asked the very question that had come burning into my mind and was met with shock.  It was my angel, the one who had come to take me away to heaven.  Now, I realized, he was not an angel come to rescue me, for this was certainly not heaven.  More like hell and nowhere near where God resided with his loyal followers.

         “One of her ribs must have punctured her lung when it was snapped and cut through the arterie that runs right below them.  Her costochondral arterie is pumping blood into her lungs, filling them with fluid, drowning her.  It’s called a hemothorax,” the man who was giving the orders said this quietly, his expression turning grim, “I’ll need a chest tube to drain the blood.  I have to put it directly into the lung, it will be painful.  I’ll need to do it now if she is to continue living.”

         I cringed at the word painful; I was in no short supply of that right now.

         “Can’t you give her something?  For the pain?  Must she really be awake for this?”  The angel asked exasperatedly.

         “I can, but I can’t wait for it to kick in, this needs to be done now or she could die in a matter of minutes.”

         “Then do it, do whatever you have to do to keep her alive,” the angel gave in, looking tired and defeated.

         “I will,” the black haired man promised, “You will have to hold her still, she will struggle.”

         The man withdrew and the angel moved to my head.  We stopped moving, but I didn’t look around to study my surroundings.  I looked into the brown eyes staring into mine.  This all seemed so surreal.  Was this really happening?  The sheer misery agony that coated every fiber of my being answered with a resounding ‘yes’, but my mind was telling me no.  I could never imagine this kind of misery though, could I?

         “Loren?”  the angel called after the man, breaking eye contact. 

         “Yes?”  I heard the man, Loren, answer.

         “Could you at least give her something to put her out?”  I could plainly hear the anguish in his beautiful voice.

         “It won’t work right away…” Loren warned.

         “I know, just,” he broke off for a moment, “please.”

         “Of course,” Loren spoke calmly as he turned to a desk littered with papers and other objects.  He jerked open a drawer and pulled out a clear tube and a needle.  He used his teeth to pull the protective cap off the large needle and spit it into a wire waste basket on the floor.  I whimpered and shrank away from it.  I greater feeling ripped through my senses, panic.  I had not had many shots in my lifetime but I had never handled them well.  I hated them, enough so that I actually tried to move to get away from it. 

         A new wave of pain rolled through me and I began to cough up more blood.

         Loren nodded head towards someone in the doorway behind me.  I was confused at first by this odd gesture but as a tall man with neat auburn hair came into view and settled at the foot of my bed, I understood.

         The angel looked down into my eyes once more and pulled my wrists above my head, not painfully.  He was gentle as he restrained me, just enough force that if I struggled I wouldn’t be able to get away.  The man at my feet reached for my ankles but I jerked them away reflexively.

         “Pl-please don’t. Please,” I was pleading now, spluttering, though it didn’t last long.  The blood in my lungs cut off my voice again and I begged with my eyes.  The angel’s eyes filled with such remorse it was hard to keep looking.  The tears pooled and overflowed.  He looked away, nodding once to the man named Loren.  The man at my feet took hold of my ankles and the blood in my mouth muffled the scream of pain.  I arched my back, squeezing my eyes shut.  The pain that shot up my leg was as sharp as it was when I had first snapped it.

“Be careful!” the angel snarled at the man who had grabbed my injured ankle.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it all.  The relentless throbbing and unceasing pain were too much to let me comprehend what was going on.  I only knew that I dint want that needle near me.

Loren came forward raising the needle like it was some sort of rare gift, like I should be grateful for it.  I cringed away as Loren advanced, lowering the needle point to my arm.  My whole body yearned to flee, though I knew I couldn’t.  I never even knew why I feared them so, a little prick from a needle?  There had to be worse, but the core of my being didn’t scream in protest when other supposedly more frightening things appeared in my life.

He quickly jabbed the needle into my arm and forced the medication in.  I could feel the liquid enter under my skin, it was unnerving, and not nearly as painful as I remembered it.  Though I couldn’t possibly imagine why a simple shot would be more painful than having every bone in your body fractured in one way or another.  I felt a sense of relief pour through me.  But just as I though the worst was over, another, more substantial fear gripped me as Loren pulled out the clear tube from its hiding place beneath my metal bed.  I hadn’t looked at it clearly before, but now I could see the large metal spike that ran all the way through it.

I remembered a snippet of the conversation earlier and stopped breathing completely.  What was it Loren had said?  I’ll need a chest tube to drain the blood.  I have to put it directly into the lung, it will be painful.  I was truly an imbecile.  How had I not put the pieces together before now?  I had been so terrified of the shot but the real trepidation should have resided with the clear tube that had a diameter the size of my thumb and the nail that was sticking out the end of it. 

He was going to shove that tube into my lung to drain the blood.  I blanched at the thought of it.  My consciousness was waning; I did not want to be awake for this.  But he had said he could not wait, I would die if he did.  But would it be so bad?  Death could not be this excruciating, could it?  Just let me die, I thought.  Just let me die.  Why did this angel want me alive anyway?  My mind was losing its composure as the last bit of my sanity left me.  They were torturing me.  Why couldn’t they just let me die?

Loren was leaning over my left side, I scalpel appeared out of nowhere and I felt a slight sting as he made a small slit on my side and then it came, the worst pain I had ever felt in my life.  I had never really thought of what it would be like to be stabbed, but I had the feeling that this was not what I would ever be capable of imagining, this was off the charts.

It felt like someone was succeeding on their attempt to run me through with a railroad spike, just below my left armpit.  I gasped and started choking.  I was screaming again, pulling against the men restraining me.  Oh god, let it be over, I can’t take anymore.  He continued pushing; turning the tube while he did so to shove it just a bit deeper and my screech raised an octave, the sound distorted by the pool of blood in my throat.  I turned my head and gagged as I tried to cough it out.

I began to register what was happening around me after a matter of moments.  Firstly, Loren had removed the large nail from the tube running out of my chest and was now taping the end of the tube to what looked like a small plastic rectangular box.  Secondly, I heard more arguing, loud and fierce, but I could no longer separate the words.  Thirdly, I realized I had stopped screaming and my ankles and wrists had been released. 

There were other things, things I could not understand, or didn’t want to.  I focused on my shallow, ragged breathing, my steady but soft heartbeat.  I was fading.  Was this it?  Had they finally decided to let me die?  No, it’s probably the medication mixed with the amount of blood loss you just suffered.  Don’t get your hopes up.  I wanted to throttle the little voice in my head right about now and tell it to leave me alone.  A wave of anguish swept through me as I thought of all that had happened.  I had welcomed death, cheered for it even.  Who were these people to take that away from me? And for what, more pain, more torture?  I didn’t want to think about the agony anymore.

I struggled to keep conscious, the voices rise to shouting around me, something important was going on.  I fought against the numbness, though I did not know why I would want to fully resurface and feel again.  The lack of sensation felt stifling now, I wanted to be rid of it, but the harder I fought the farther I sank into my ocean of blackness.

I was tired, so tired.  I wanted to rest now.  I no longer cared what the dispute was about.  Just sleep, that is all I wanted now, sleep.  I let the darkness envelop me once more, hoping that this would be the last time, that I would never again have to see the light or feel the pain.

Just lay back and sleep…

***

My skull was exploding, that was the only explanation for this kind of intense pressure and throbbing.  My entire body was stiff and aching.  It felt as though I hadn’t moved for a month and I was not in the mood to try now.  I sighed and found that it caused a sharper pain than I had expected.  I gasped and let out a low curse as that small movement produced another stabbing sensation.  I carefully inhaled, slowly, judging my pain tolerance.  After testing this for a bit, it became apparent that as long as I didn’t try to breathe too deeply and if I didn’t hyperventilate, I should be fairly fine.  I heard a steady beeping to my left as well and a fainter dripping noise next to it.

I decided to check my eyes as well, and find out what those sounds were originating from.  I squinted reflexively, expecting bright lights.  I was pleasantly surprised by a faint glow from an old fashioned lamp sitting atop a sturdy mahogany desk.  My eyes were adjusted in a matter of seconds.  I decided to risk movement to check my surroundings, a strange feeling of apprehension and déjà vu plaguing my thoughts.  I pushed myself up onto my elbows, wincing with the soreness of my unused muscles. 

The bed was metal underneath with thick blankets being used as padding on top.  A sky blue sheet covered the lower half of my body.  My clothing was strange and unfamiliar.  I was wearing a light, pink tinged, cotton gown, not quite like what you would see patients wearing on hospital TV shows but similar.  I knew I had never owned such a piece of clothing, so why was I wearing it now?

I turned to my left, remembering the reason I had opened my eyes in the first place.  A kind of monitor was sitting there; strange markings and numbers covered the computer-like screen.  Above that, hanging on a metal stand was an IV.  I had never seen one before in real life but I had seen my share of medical soap operas.  I followed the thin tube leading from the empty clear pouch and was startled to see it lead into my own arm.  Panic filled my mind and tied my tongue.  What happened?  Where was I?  The questions slowly began to flood my mind. 

I heard a slow tapping but when I froze to identify where it was coming from, the noise stopped abruptly.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see something move slightly in the shadows.  As I turned, my heartbeat faltered in fear.

A girl was standing there, leaning comfortably against the wall to my right, her arms crossed.  Her jet black hair was short, cut in a way that made her look pixie-like.  All that was missing from her sprightly form to keep me confusing her with a fairy were the light gossamer wings that were characteristically a part of the mythical creatures.  She was staring intently at me, like a researcher studying a specimen.  Her eyes bored into mine, the light blue color of her irises only furthered the intensity of her fixated gaze.  It felt as though her eyes could see straight into my very soul, but I could not look away.  She tilted her head to the side questioningly, a strand of hair falling in front of her eyes.  The dark color contrasted nicely with her ivory toned skin.  With one swift movement, she tucked the freed strand behind her ear and eased herself away from the wall.

Her face was so familiar, why could I not place it?  Something in the back of my mind was screaming at me in frustration.  I knew her, I had to have met her somewhere before.  Memories flashed in front of my eyes but they were too quick, I could not make sense of them.

She strode towards the end of my bed and I was suddenly aware of the door that was behind me.  There was something so strangely recognizable about this picture, the girl standing at the foot of my bed, the desk, the bed, all of it.  I had to have been here before, why couldn’t I remember?  My questions were momentarily put on hold as the girl leaned forward, that intense colored her expression once more.  The closer she got, the more I cringed away from her.  More flashes of memory, this time they were slower, but not much.  Fear gripped me, paralyzing my body.

“You’re not supposed to be awake,” she said flatly.  I wasn’t supposed to be awake?  What did she mean?  What was happening?  Did she mean to kill me, or maybe run tests; was I some sort of sick experiment?

“Looks like your body metabolized those meds faster than we thought,” she spoke thoughtfully, releasing her hold on the end of my bed, “Loren will want to know immediately.”

Loren.  The memories came pouring back into my skull, the pressure increased tenfold.  A scalpel, a shot.  Pleading with them to stop, to let me die.  A tube with a spike sticking out the end.  He had stabbed me with it.  I remembered his face now and the resemblance between him and this fairy-like girl was shocking.  That’s why I had thought I recognized her, she looked just like him.  I recalled the pain, the complete and awful agony that I had felt.  It had all been real, not a horrific nightmare that my imagination had conjured up.

So they had kept me alive to use me as a lab rat, this explained their total lack of concern for my pain and why I was still alive.  I had never met these people before, they had no reason to save me other than to use for their own sadistic games and kill me later.

The fear I had felt before had become full blown terror.  I would not let them take me, not alive at least.  The plan was in place before she had time to take another breath.  I subtly looked to either side of me, searching for something….aha that would work perfectly!  I spotted my weapon of choice on a small table to my right.  I quickly checked my body for any other tubes, praying she didn’t suspect anything.

I exhaled slowly, mentally preparing myself, hoping that the exit would not be difficult to find.  I took one last look at the girl but she seemed preoccupied in her own thoughts. 

In one swift movement I ripped the IV out of my arm, throwing it away from me and leaping from the bed.  I didn’t even pause to contemplate the pain that was pulsing in my left arm.  I scrambled on the marble flooring; I hadn’t realized I was wearing socks.  I kicked them off and was immediately rewarded with the traction of my bare feet.  I snatched the very spike Loren had used upon me earlier and sprinted out of the room. 

She was on me in a moment, holding fast to my left forearm.  I turned and stabbed blindly with my makeshift spear.  She cursed and released me as I nicked her wrist.  I was off again without another look back.  I sped down a white marble corridor turning down the first hallway that I passed to my right.  I took it so sharply that my forward momentum carried me into the opposite and my left shoulder throbbed but I never slowed.  I tried not to dwell on the pain my breathing was causing me.  I would not be caught; if they trapped me here then I would use the spike in my hand to make it impossible for them to use me for their ridiculous will.  They would not touch me.

Thinking of this fueled my determination and my speed picked up.  I could hear commotion behind me now, they weren’t close yet but they knew this place better than I did.  I had to get out fast.  I passed a few more hallways that didn’t look at all promising but then I felt cool air coming from another even wider white marble corridor to the left.  I took this corner more carefully, slowing just enough to keep from flying into the wall again.  My legs screamed in protest but I just ignored them and kept going. 

I could see the fading light of sunset and relief ran through my veins.  My strength was fading fast but I would not quit now.  I flew between two pillars that marked the exit and hit the pine needle covered ground at a run.  I flitted between trees getting all sorts of cuts along my bared skin but it didn’t matter.  In less than a minute I could see a clearing up ahead.  A new wave of relief brought tears to my eyes, they wouldn’t catch me now.  I was home free.  Less than thirty yards now.  A muffled roaring sound registered in my head, confusion replacing my happiness.

I skidded to a sudden halt and was teetering on the edge of a deep crevice.  I was waving my arms wildly, trying to keep my balance.  Shock blew away all other emotion.  The roaring noise was coming from the great river that was flowing fiercely at the base of the abyss.  Again the feeling of déjà vu hit me but I had no time to scour my memory for an explanation.  Voices, shouting.

Cold hard fear stopped my heart.  I was standing at the edge of a cliff looking down, looking behind me; I could see the opposite side but knew it was too far, there was no escape.  The fatigue from my escape finally caught up with me and I staggered backwards, not wanting to fall forward into that roiling merciless water.