I am back.
Chapter 18
Sentinels
~Cassandra~
Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh…
Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh…
Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh!
The sound of working machines are the ones that reach my ears first. The smell of the hospital antiseptics invades my senses next. Turning my head to look around, I notice wildflowers bouquets spread around the room. The soft grey walls have big windows on both sides with white blinds. One of them has a beautiful view of the town and trees poking from behind, and the other has the sight of the hospital ward reception in the far corner.
The beeping monitors showing my increasing heartbeat alert the nurses, who come bounding in to check my readings. The surprised nurse speaks to me, then calls out to the doctor. She is maybe just over twenty and isn’t tall, and her features are kind. She shines the lights in my eyes and asks me to tell her things about myself. The drip feeds my vein as drop after drop falls into the small pipe.
“Cassandra, can you tell me, what is the last thing you remember?” the woman in her fifties, with her brown hair and blue eyes, and dressed in white, asks me, but my throat is too parched for me to speak.
The nurse gives me water and I try to sip the liquid, moistening my throat. It seems like I haven’t used my voice for a while. I clear my throat a few times and try again. This time, the words come out, like from a broken box.
“I think the day I spent with the family. They came all to the decorating party, brought kids.” I try to grasp what happened next, but besides me talking with Leif about his love life and thinking about reconnecting with my mum and dad, there is an empty gap. Hollowness.
I look up at her, silently asking her to tell me the truth.
“Do you remember how you got here or what happened to cause you end up in the hospital?”
Racking my brain, I still can’t seem to make any sense. I shake my head, trying to get rid of a headache.
“Headaches are very common after experiencing brain trauma. Here, let me give you a dose of painkillers.” She presses the button, and the pain begins to numb.
“What happened to me?” I feel drowsy, tired.
“We believe that we should give you time to remember on your own. You’ve experienced many injuries and a shock to your system. Let’s wait for a while and see how your brain responds. You have a broken skull and numerous other bones, ribs, and arms shattered in few places. Also, you have many bruises and wounds. We performed few operations on your face, and you’ve been in a coma for over twelve weeks. You are a wonderful miracle, Cassandra. Now rest, the family will be informed shortly.”
The nurse brings the syringe, and injects a substance into the drip. The scene of the room disappears, and I am again falling into the abyss. The nothingness envelopes my senses, cradling me like a baby in a warm blanket. Then someone’s lips brush against my forehead and I surrender, not knowing if the truth is going to be ruthless.
Gradually, I begin to hear voices whispering, annoying my aching head. I wake up again with a frustrated sigh. Inhaling and exhaling the air into my lungs, I open my eyes. My mum is the first to run to the bed with tearful eyes.
She looks at me, whispering my name, and her lips quiver as she squeezes my hand. Her face full of shadows and her gaze is empty, ashen with sorrow, watches me with so much love and... Is that pity?
I don’t rush to talk to her or acknowledge her in any other way. She tells me my kids are ok and they’re now walking. She babbles so fast, as if she is afraid that if I close my eyes, it will be forever. So, I let her, watching her pale face tinted with emotions.
My mother gets more and more upset as she tells me about my kids. I become so tired of her rushing words that my mind starts to spin and twirl like a hurricane, until the darkness draws me back with its warm hands, and I fall back to sleep.
When I wake up again, this time, Aisha is singing a lullaby to my girl. I watch my sister with Liane, reading the book, singing every word to her. Liane listens to her in wonder. My daughter looks older, her hair much lighter when before. And I swear her eyes are changing into beautiful green jewels too. When she finds me staring, her face transforms, eyes sparkling. I smile with love at my beautiful daughter.
“Ma-ma…” she says, lifting her palms towards me, repeating syllables again. Aisha locks her blue eyes on mine with some strange emotion passing too quickly to catch.
“Hi, you’re awake!” She brings Liane close to me, letting my girl crawl up to me like a kitten and she curls up beside me. Spooning my little girl, I kiss her head.
“Are you in pain?” Aisha asks me, concern lacing her tone, as she removes my active daughter from my embrace. “If you are, you can press that button here, and the pain will go away.”
For some reason, I want to feel the pain. I need it to stay sharp, since my mind feels foggy and thoughts fall through the gaps. I’m missing something or someone. The pressure gathering in my brain makes it impossible to remember. For now, I admit defeat. Instead, I watch my girl play with my sister and talk to me, but then she starts to wail.
Everything starts to spin and ache, and my breathing becomes labored. Aisha presses the button for the nurse, and before she comes, I feel like I’m falling back again. After so long living with my nightmares, the silent darkness is comfortable space. The nest made for me to rest and get stronger.
His face emerges from the fog above me. Looking down at me, he tries to talk, but I can’t hear him. I smile at him, whispering his beloved name, as the darkness claims me again. This time, I hold his name close to my heart, feeling loved and content. Curling into a ball, I keep my hands over my heart. I feel it shroud me in the warmth, healing my fragile body and mind.
We will be together again.
Sometime later, Leon’s voice draws me back to reality. My eyes snap open, and I find him pulling at my covers as he stands on his two feet, bouncing, insisting on waking me up. I smile and try to talk, but my throat is too dry.
“Let me help you.” I turn to see Lucas, unshaven and with overgrown hair, bending to pick up Leon. Something is wrong with him. He’s avoiding my direct gaze, his face lacking color and the warmth I’m used to.
Marine helps me raise the bed, and he passes me a glass of water. Wordlessly, he hands Leon over to me, smiling sadly at my son. Leon fists the hospital shirt, pressing his little chest against me. My little boy’s giving me a hug, and the emotions are coiling inside me, ready to burst free.
Calmly, I stroke his hair, and I whisper how much I love him. Lucas tries to hold my son off me, who is trying to get even closer. Although I suffered from many injuries that still need to heal, I don’t feel a single one of them. I’m too numb from the drugs they’re giving me, too confused to understand what happened to me.
“How did I get here, Lucas? What happened?” He doesn’t meet my eyes, as he pretends to be busy with my son. “Talk to me, please.”
Lucas stays silent, his lips pressed in tight line, refusing to tell me.
“Lucas?” He blinks, hearing my voice break, and clears his throat, clutching onto my son as if he can shield him. He peeks at me, smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He repeats what the doctor already told me.
“Wait until you remember, Cassandra. Rest. You’re still healing, you need time.”
He sits next to me, a silent presence, giving comfort or taking his. He’s looking after my son, who is trying to climb and grab everything in his way. A lone tear trails down his cheek, but he stays silent, unmoving. I grab a book from the nightstand and start to read to Leon, who finally settles.
Clapping his little hands, he listens to my words as he babbles. Before the last words leave my mouth, I start to drift. Lucas brushes his lips against my forehead. “Sleep, Angel, rest your soul, get stronger.”
Strange words are coming from his mouth, but before I can understand them, I am succumbing to the darkness.
Eventually, I wake up
to an empty room. The flowers have been changed and just a few bouquets are left. I know I’ve been in and out of consciousness and restful sleep for a week now. The therapist comes to do massages and exercises to wake up my muscles. Doing small things is painful, but I push with vigor, as if my heart wants to be somewhere else.
My mum’s avoiding coming. Every single time she sees me, she starts wailing, and I don’t know why she is so upset looking at me. Raine avoids coming as well. Something is wrong, but no one is talking to me.
I had a concussion, so my mind doesn’t yet work one hundred percent. The small test the doctor performs on me every damn day tires me out the most. They ask me every day if I recall what happened. I ask them what day, and get pregnant silence instead of the true answer.
Since I’m alone, I decide to use this opportunity to go to the bathroom on my own. Honestly, I am tired of pissing in the bowl they bring—it is stripping me of my dignity. The pain shocks me as I try to sit. My heart palpitates, telling my brain to stay put.
Stubbornly, I tell my brain to shut up as I stand on my two feet that are shaking like leaves. I push my frail body, one step in front of the other, until I reach the private bathroom. The light comes up automatically, blinding me for a moment. I try to breathe through the pain while a dizzy spell begins to blur my vision. But I stand there, too stubborn to be defeated. The dizziness finally passes and my eyesight clears up, the pain dulling into an annoying sharp throbbing.
Finally, I lift my gaze towards the mirror, and for some time, I look at the person, confused at what I’m seeing. I don’t recognize her at first. This battered woman, with colored bruises and a swollen face, looks back at me in disbelief. Shocked to the core, I trace the jawline and chin that don’t match the recollection of my image.
I stand, shaking, with horrified eyes. In an effort to distract myself, I trace the glass of the mirror with my broken, still swollen, fingers. The unfamiliar image doesn’t go away as I pat the mirror. I don’t look like Cassandra anymore. And why do my eyes have green hues breaking through my pale blue color?
I feel lost. My body begins to shake, vibrating in distress, and I choke, tears breaking from the strange eyes. An animalistic wail shatters the silence as the fear of something I can’t wholly grasp crushes my spirit. Spooked by the weird face, I knock on the mirror. I see immense horror reflected back at me. I beat the image, and then I scream. It doesn’t reveal my face and it’s not a dream. Who are you?!
The pain’s spreading through my limbs and core, like electric currents, and it explodes inside my soul. I try to wake up from the strange reality. Tingles spreading in my limbs announce the darkness pulling me into its comfortable embrace.
Before it can take hold of me, though, I see him running to my aid. The worried face looks strange, as if he’d been pulled apart and put back the wrong way. Something doesn’t seem right. He isn’t mine. People dressed in blue and white clothes rush into the room. I try to destroy the cruel reality in front my face. Extreme fear seizes my lungs as my heart tries to escape my chest. Something breaks inside me, and I begin to collapse, feeling the nightmare lying in wait.
Gradually, the angry ache loses its edge, but something prompts me to hold onto this feeling. The puzzle that is bothering my psyche needs to be solved before they steal it away from me as well. A heavy premonition settles in my bones, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.
Why, my love, did you let them break me? Why is the woman I once was, no longer here? Before I can find the answers, the darkness envelopes me in its waters.
Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh… Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh…
Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh… Beep… Beep… Beep… Whoosh…
I know why they look at me so strangely. My children, when I woke up, started to cry as if they were watching someone alien. Only my voice is left unchanged. The familiar voice somehow made them trust me. My family has probably been bringing them here to get used to their mother’s new face.
That small tidbit escaped my fragile mind at the time. Apparently, the brain can conjure any actuality if it needs to survive. Depressed, I only make an effort when my family brings my children. My heart wakes from the impassiveness for them.
Unresponsive most of the time, I wait for recollections to come back with the missing pieces. Detached from myself, I lie in bed, listening to my family chatter. The fake smiles I see every day make me want to shut out the world and get away, so I retreat into myself. In my head, I live away from the cruel reality.
I’ve composed my own safe harbor, where I can wait and heal my body, until I rise to find the missing piece of my heartbeat. I definitely know that my heart is missing one beat in the usual rhythm and my soul needs to reunite with it.
So why, my love, do you avoid me? Why you don’t come to visit? I don’t know what I have done to deserve this treatment, but I promise, my heart, I will earn you back.
The next time I wake up, I have company. It’s my dad who came to visit me. He is standing, watching the view through the window in silence for a while. He turns around, shaking his head, and his eyes fill up with tears as he comes close to my bed.
“There is not enough time for me to make up for the time we lost. I don’t know if it will have any impact anymore, but as a father who left you when you were a little girl and then betrayed that trust, I must tell you. Please, honey, don’t give up on your own children. Take it from me. Hold onto them as if they’re your lifesavers in the raging sea of loss and pain. You must find the strength and rise to live again. This face is just a shell, and it will be any shell you want it to be. Make it capable of withstanding the torture of sorrow, the power of sadness drowning you in depression. Be a dragon, burning with fire to live, and a brave lion with a desire to survive.”
This is probably the first meaningful and thoughtful speech he ever made. He brushes my hair away from my face, pieces that escaped from the braid my sister Aisha made. The strong message vibrates through my heart as my confused mind fires off the warnings of something else. After that, he sits in silence, as we both get lost in our own thoughts.
The stitches I see on my legs, and my arms and my aching ribs, tell me all about my injuries. Since the first attempt to reacquaint myself with my new face, I haven’t tried to look at myself again. There are too many missing pieces for me to feel connected.
As I come back from therapy, feeling tired and aching, I find Leif in my room, looking like Bigfoot. Sad eyes are hiding behind overgrown hair. His green-mixed-with-brown eyes watch me with apprehension, filling with tears, and his nostrils flare.
I stand from the wheelchair they used to bring me back into the room, and I slowly walk towards him. Dark emotions run across his features, like spooky shadows, and stop me in my tracks. I try to decode the message behind them, but he grabs my arms and gently pulls me to him, wrapping me in a bear hug before I can crack their meaning.
“Hey, kitten.” He chokes on his words. Whatever he planned to say gets stuck in his throat. He trembles as he gently holds me, aware of my injuries. Leif strokes my back, as if my presence gives him some sort of consolation. Too scared to ask why he is so tormented, I stand there, returning his embrace and breathing in his leather and motor oil scent.
“Are you sniffing me, kitten?” he asks, half-joking, as he tries to lighten the mood.
“Yeah, I missed you. Where have you been?” Leif picks me up gently and takes me to my bed, sensing that I am at my limits. He takes off his jacket and leaves to wash his hands and face with cold water, returning only when he is composed enough to talk to me with the fake smile. I lift my hand in protest, and I angrily shake my head at him.
“If you came here to be the fake ass, go away! I am done sitting with people who lie straight to my face. No one is here to be honest with me. Why, Leif? Why so many secrets around me?” I whimper, feeling betrayed by the man who always told me the truth, no matter what.
Leif’s eyes well up with tears, as he envelops my trembling body,
shuddering as he sobs with the torment etched in his bones. I wrap myself around him and let my friend’s pain become mine. For now, I invite him to wail next to my troubled heart.
“Night…” His uncontrollable emotions cascade off him, like a waterfall full of sorrow. I squeeze him, trying to contain our heartbreak with my weak attempts to control the force of his pain.
I know that something is wrong and he’s incapable of telling me the truth. Then he lifts his head, brushing my alien face with his hands and kissing my forehead, tickling my sensitive skin with his long beard.
“Beard needs to go, Leif!” Eww! He pecks my mouth, laughing so hard at my disgust that he falls on the floor before I can grab his hand.
However, as he sits there, I see deep pools of agony, which stirs questions. I am overcome with the unexplainable need to hold him, and raise my arms towards him. Some unreasonable desire to fix whatever the troubles he is going through prompts me to act.
“Come here, Leif.” I demand him to comply, my protectiveness awakening.
He stalls for a moment, hesitant, until he climbs in next to me, lying down in the hospital bed. When the nurse comes in, she doesn’t complain. Instead, she gives me medicine for the pain and leaves again, sadly smiling at us.
“Eventually, you’ll have to tell me,” I whisper to him as he kisses my forehead, my mind drifting to rest.
Before I succumb to sleep, I hear him say, “I will not, for as long as I can. I’ll keep you safe.”
A lone tear escapes my closed eyes, traveling between my breasts, and I remember the weight of something nestled there.
The heartbeat rhythm next to me is not the one I’ve lost. I listen to it, hoping that my friend will help me find the missing pieces. I feel a camaraderie towards this rebel brother, who must help me solve this broken puzzle. My children are waiting for me to become a whole mother. Someone’s voice whispering in the wind tells me to fight and never give up. I try to catch it, but it slips again.
Entwined IN YOU (In You #2) Page 18