by Matt A Byron
She opened her eyes, whiteness glared back. She closed her eyes; there were sounds, something but not loud as if she were under water. Silence again.
A voice. Gentle. She tried to open her eyes. Open. Closed. A flash of light. Open slightly, small light, blurry. She blinked a few times and opened her eyes. She was in a room, white walls, white ceiling. She was in a bed; wires were connected to her left arm. The voice again, familiar, calling to her.
“M? Hey.”
She bobbed her head to the right and saw Melissa sitting next to the bed. She tried to speak, but she hurt.
“Don’t try to talk. You made it sis.”
Melissa leaned forward.
She took a breath, tried to clear her throat, a few sounds came out.
“You,” Emery more mouthed than spoke.
“I will always be here. I’m so glad you made it. It wasn’t your time yet, M.”
“Boy. The boy in the store.” Her voice was shaky, a faint whisper.
Melissa leaned closer.
“The boy? I didn’t see a boy. Maybe he was a spirit.”
Emery tried to shake her head but only managed a slight tilt to one side.
“There was a boy,” she took a breath, “he was crying, but he wasn’t gray. He saw me.”
“I think you have fine-tuned that antenna we talked about. You can interact with the spirits now.”
Emery closed her eyes for a moment and then looked at her sister. Melissa looked radiant, glowing almost. She felt safe with her here.
“I want to go.”
She tried to move, but a flaming pain shot through her midsection.
“Don’t move. You were shot, sis. You’re very lucky. Hey, I’m going to let you get some rest.”
Emery reached up to grab her sister’s arm, but her sister was already up and out of the chair.
“Don’t reschedule that appointment.”
Melissa looked at her for a moment, her eyes unblinking.
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
Emery closed her eyes and fell into the dark abyss one more time.
A little while later she opened her eyes and saw a woman in a pink outfit walk past the foot of the bed and check the machines on her right. The woman wasn’t immediately aware that she was awake. She had a coppery taste in her mouth, and her lips felt cracked.
“Hey welcome back,” the nurse said turning towards her.
She hated hospitals. The last time she was in the hospital was when her parents were clinging to life. That didn’t end so well so hospitals always reminded her of that feeling of loss. That feeling hung close to her now.
“Here you go,” handing a cup towards her, “have some water.”
She reached up quicker than she thought and almost bumped the Styrofoam cup out of the nurse’s hand.
“Sorry.” Her voice cracked but carried a higher volume than she was expecting.
“It’s normal. You may feel a little disoriented, and your depth perception will be out of whack for a little while, but everything else looks pretty good.”
Clutching the water she tried to sit up but instantly felt the pain on the lower right side.
“Don’t try to move too fast. You are still very tender. Let me adjust the bed.”
The nurse pressed a button, and a motor came on lifting her upper body three-quarters of the way to where she could see the room more clearly.
She sucked on the straw, and the water rushed into her mouth and splashed down her throat. The coldness was refreshing. She looked around the room, the empty chair to her right, the nurse was writing something down on her clipboard. She felt dizzy, a tight searing flame burned in her abdomen.
“On a scale of 1 to 10 can you describe your pain level? 1 being no pain at all and 10 being extremely painful.”
She reached over to put the cup back on the tray and her lower half ignited causing her to shut her eyes tight. She let out a deep breath and opened her eyes and placed the cup back on the tray.
“When I don’t move I would say it is about a 7,” she spoke through clenched teeth, “when I do it’s about a 20.”
The nurse scribbled down some more notes on her clipboard.
“I will get you some medication to help with the pain. The doctor will come by shortly to speak with you.”
The nurse placed the clipboard in a slot at the foot of the bed and turned towards the door.
Emery raised her arm to get her attention, “What day is it?”
She stopped and took a step towards the bed.
“It’s Friday. You’ve been out for four days. It’s good to have you back.”
The nurse then turned and left the room. The light in the room wasn’t too bright, the septic smell was nauseating, and her head thumped a little behind her eyes.
She thought about Melissa, she felt so alone and couldn’t wait for her to return. She kept on seeing the images of the gunman in her mind, recounting what happened as if a movie was set to loop mode on a particular scene. Everything happened so fast, parts of it were a little hazy. She thought about what happened just before she blacked out.
She was shot, that part she knew. Melissa pushed her towards the door, but it had been locked or stuck when they had first tried. Why had she forced her back to the door? They had never opened the door. Somehow the door opened, and Melissa must have seen it and pushed her towards it.
How was the door open when before it wouldn’t budge? Then she remembered the boy. Had he been a spirit? He couldn’t have been. Spirits always appeared to her a little out of color, a gray tint and they were always oblivious to everything, including her. The boy seemed as real as the gunman, and he saw her.
The nurse returned and helped her to the bathroom, assisted her back to her bed, refilled her water cup and gave her some pain medication. Emery disliked medication, she didn’t like how it made her feel, but she hated the pain of being shot even more and indulged one evil over another.
She dozed off for a little while, opened her eyes looking at the chair next to the bed that remained empty, closed her eyes once more. She wondered why Melissa hadn’t come by. She was in a peaceful slumber when she heard a set of three beeps.
Her eyes sprang open, and she saw a nurse different from the one before flipping a couple switches on the machines. She wasn’t aware of anyone else in the room until she heard a man’s voice from the foot of the bed.
“Ms. Hallindale, how are you feeling today? I am doctor Loeshen.”
She turned towards the voice expecting to see an older man due to the baritone voice that announced his arrival, but he was younger tanned skin, brown eyebrows, brown hair cut close to the scalp, thin rimmed glasses looking no older than thirty. He wore a white coat with his name badge clipped onto the outer breast pocket and a blue dress shirt underneath it. She assumed he was wearing pants, but they were out of her view.
She sat up; this time, the pain was not as severe as earlier.
“I’m feeling a lot better. Do you know when I can get out of here?”
He glanced down at the open folder he held in his hands and then closed it. He placed the folder on a small table at the foot of the bed and adjusted his glasses up to the bridge of his nose.
“You have gone through quite the ordeal. You were shot in the abdomen with a high caliber bullet. Fortunately, no major organs were hit, and the bullet passed right through. I would like to keep you here another day or so as a precaution. It may be pretty painful still moving around, and you need your rest.”
The words echoed in the air. High caliber, abdomen, passed right through. This made it real, she had been shot, and she had almost died. She wished her sister was here.
“Has my sister been here?”
The doctor looked away and exchanged a quick glance with the nurse.
“Can I call her?”
The doctor took a breath.
“You should probably get some more rest; your body has endured a tremendous amount of shock and needs
the appropriate time to recover.”
She noticed that the doctor gave another glance to the nurse then looked down and picked up the folder again.
“I have had plenty of rest; all I have been doing since I’ve been here is sleep. Has my sister been here?”
“Do you remember what happened to you?”
She felt her throat close up a moment, and she tried to take a deep breath to get air back into her lungs. Her chest tightened a little bit. What was he talking about?
“My sister saved my life. She pushed me out of the store. She saved both of us.”
The doctor looked at the folder again; he took a breath and then looked up to meet her eyes. Something did not feel right; perhaps her injuries were more severe than he was letting on.
“You took a high caliber bullet in the stomach at relatively close range. Your sister saved you by shielding you from the bullet and pushing you to safety.”
Her sister did push her out the door, but she still was shot. If she was shot and her sister was in front of her, how did her sister escape uninjured? She was about to ask the doctor when he moved to the side of the bed and leaned over.
“You have been through a lot, your body has endured a tremendous stress and your mind is going to have to cope with the psychological effects of such a horrible event.”
She hated hospitals and doctors. Hospitals were a nexus for pain and suffering, and doctors were the ones trying to allude to brighter days and happy summers when all in all they were the ones who administered the pain when you least expected it.
“Where is my sister? What are you not telling me?”
“Emery,” the doctor paused, “when you were brought in here, you had lost a lot of blood. We didn’t know if any major organs were damaged and your chances of survival in the early stages looked very slim,” he paused, “when your sister came in, her condition was much worse.”
Her eyes stung, her heart was knocking fast, she heard the words, but they didn’t seem real.
“What do you mean; she was here yesterday or the day before, sitting right in that chair.” She said pointing to the empty chair beside the bed.
“I worked on your sister for eleven hours. She suffered two shots to the back. One bullet hit her spine while the other bullet passed through her lung and that is the one that struck you. I tried everything I could Emery, I really did.”
Looking at the chair again she felt the tears converging along the brim of her eyes. The air seemed hot and thick, her heart beat thumped loud in her chest.
“But she was here, she was fine.”
“She had lost too much blood. The bullet in the spine was enough to cause permanent paralysis not to mention the damage done to her lungs. There wasn’t anything that could have been done for her, I am so sorry.”
His words echoed in her ears. She swallowed hard, gasped, she felt the air grow shorter, tried to suck in a breath, nothing. She looked up at the doctor who shouted something to the nurse. Her head went back; she felt her chest tighten, even more, no air. She couldn’t breathe. The doctor held something in his hand, a needle. He said something to her that she couldn’t hear; he did something to one of the tubes attached to her arm and she felt her eyes close, open, close, and then nothing.
Chapter Three