Where am I?
What happened?
What’s going on?
I drift in and out of consciousness: in and out of states of shooting pain and complete numbness. My eyelids flutter slightly but see nothing before once again closing, continually getting sucked back into limbo: floating around somewhere between being passed out and awake.
*
My eyelids flutter once again but this time it’s different: I catch a glimpse of light.
‘Fight through this Laci, break out of this. Don’t fall back again’ I mentally tell myself. I absolutely detest the state I was stuck, I don’t like being caught in the in between. Not having control of my body and not knowing things scared me.
“Guys!” a frantic yet hopeful voice yells out. It’s the first noise I’ve heard in...in…- an amount of time doesn’t reach my mind: being caught in limbo has caused me to lose all concept of time. Had I been out for a couple minutes or a couple hours? I can’t remember how long it has been since I was sucked into the darkness.
“Laci, please wake up” says the voice. Even though it is now whispering as opposed to the cry from before I am able to recognize it to be Chris’ as I pull further out of limbo and into the real world.
He brushes a piece of hair off my face causing a wince to escape my lips as his fingers brush against my left temple. The small pain from his fingers brushing against my skin soon radiates outward into one of the worst pains I have ever experienced. The shock of the pain causes my still closed eyes to instantly overflow with tears.
“Laci?” he questions. I can sense him holding back wiping away the tears that are sliding down my face: afraid of hurting me once again.
“Chris?” My voice is weak and slightly distorted as I slowly open my eyes; his face that is hovering over mine slowly coming into view. His face lights up and an instant look of relief comes across his face as I speak.
“You’re awake! Thank God!” he whispers pulling me closer and tighter with his arms. In my new position I can see the streaks on his cheeks that tears had left as they rolled downward from his eyes.
“Wha-what happened?” I stutter still in the process, still not fully aware of my surroundings.
Chris opens his mouth to speak but his words are quickly drowned out and lost by the stampede charging in our direction.
“Oh my god!” “You’re awake!” “You’re okay!” “We were so scared!” “Never do anything like that again!” Tonia, Sarah, Tom, Alicia, and Jack all ramble at the same time as they crowd around me, not allowing me to determine what words came out of what mouth. Their faces were all, like Chris’, full of relief but there was still the underlying sadness and their tear stained cheeks; especially Tom whose eyes refuse to make contact with mine as they stare down into his empty hands.
“Hey, hey, hey! Give her room!” Andy says forcefully as he pushes through them. “How are you feeling?” he kneels down next to me; the rest of the group follows and sits around us in a semi-circle no longer hovering over me.
“I’m alright I guess” I shrug: I didn’t even know what fully happened. “My head is killing me though” I reach up to rub my hand across my forehead, but instantly pull back wincing as pain rushes through me.
My eyes glaze over and everyone stares as if waiting for me to burst into tears while I come to reality with what had happened earlier. There was only one thing that could cause me to black out for god knows how long and cause my entire left side of my face to bruise: I had missed my hands on a dive, landing headfirst onto the water’s surface. The events of today came rushing into my brain joining together piece by piece like a puzzle until the horrific truth of today became clear to me. I look up and fight past the tears that want to escape, glaring straight at Tom: this was all his fault, It was always his fault.
