Head Down

Chapter 19

KATIE'S POV

It's really hazy. There is no sight or smell or sound or any sense at all really. Is exceptionally difficult to even form thoughts, but I find after a while I can process raw emotion. From what I gather from there, I'm upset and more than a little scared and frustrated with myself FOR being scared and overall there are just bad vibes.......except. At the very farthest edge of my grayish subconsciousness, I can feel a teeny tiny, minute little spark. A light, maybe. It's just.....something. I focus as hard as I possibly can on the out of reach thing -the star- squinting to get a better view, and the longer I try the more clear everything becomes. The more I try the closer it gets to me, wherever it is that I am. It's as clear as anything could get in whatever fuzzy state I'm in that I can't move, but everything else can. As things increase in clarity I begin to form actual thoughts, and the first thing I conjure that's a full fledged statement is, 'Why did I try to save myself?' The thought befuddles me for a moment, but after a few more immeasurable moments of focus I know I've found a way to explain it to myself. This grey haze, it's me. I have spent seventeen years of living in all of this fuzzy dull gray, shrouded in the heavy emotions of pain and fear and loneliness. I've been going with no direction, living in the moment.....up until recently. I asked myself why I tried to save me because really, extremely deep down (here) I didn't have anything to try for. I had nothing and no one to motivate me, for me to care about -and even more importantly, to care about me, for a very very long time. This is both my fault and fate's. So why get up off the floor? Why go through all the trouble of this when I could have just laid down and fallen asleep, and not have I be stuck in the grey anymore. Bot woken up. The answer takes a much longer time -I think- for me to find than the last one, and brings the star ever closer to me. I sure that's a good thing. And when I have what I'm searching for, it only serves to confuse me more. The fact is, it's NOT just dull grey here, there's a star too. I have this amazingly warm thing so close I would be able to feel it if that was physically possible, and it's the only reason I can think of that would keep me alive for so long. The question is, what is the star to me? At the voicing (not technically) of my inquiry, the star reaches me, and I'm catapulted out of the gray haze.

That has to be where the metaphor ends.

NATE'S POV

After my dad leaves I retake my post at Katie's bedside, and minutes later Laura enters. "Hello," she greets me, the same as yesterday. I simply nod -watching Katie- in a similar redundant fashion.

To my surprise, instead of replacing both of Katie's bags, she only places the fresh blood into her arm.

"Won't she be in pain?" I ask cautiously.

"There will be enough medicine in her system to fight that off, and once she becomes uncomfortable we can hook her back up again," she replies, showing me a full syringe of the medicine, prepared on the now empty cart.

"How long will she be awake?" I ask, my spirits rising some for the first time in days.

"A maximum of about twenty minutes," she answers patiently, taking her chair over the bed from me. I don't like the thought of time limits, but it's far better than her being so unconscious. "Some of that time will be allotted to medical questioning, but after that she's all yours," continues Laura.

"When will she wake?" I ask, taking another inquiry from the top of my deep reservoir of unanswered questions.

"Soon. Between five and thirty minutes from now," Laura continues, and I raise an eyebrow at the wide time frame. "It depends on her," she explains, smiling a bit at the good turn in my mood. It's actually not good per se, just in the right direction. NOT utter despair.

"Will she be coherent?"

"That's what the medical questioning is for, though I suspect so."

"How soon will she be able to handle staying awake?"