Murder Recall

Miracles

While I was recovering in the hospital, when Doug, Maya and Tara came to see me, I noticed that Doug was looking around my bed and the surrounding area. He was searching but didn't appear to find anything. He was probably checking for surveillance equipment. Maya and Tara would also check when they came. They were discreet so that their searching would not attract attention but be assumed to be part of their ensuring I was being properly cared for. My suspicions were roused. Somehow I just knew that I didn't have a concussion. I felt fine, so I faked it, and pretended to sleep most of the time. I wrote plenty of philosophizing and creative ideas in my journal so that they would not suspect that my written memories on the Dawn West marketing incident were being removed. My sight and reading ability were tested when the police noticed the backwards way I wrote in the journal. It was assumed the concussion had resulted in lasting brain disability. I never spoke about these things with Maya or Tara. I just knew they knew, and that they knew I knew. I'm empathic but not a mind reader. I also pretended that I had a balance problem and faked vertigo whenever I walked to the washroom or was allowed a bit of exercise. I never swallowed the medication given to me and secretly flushed the pills down the toilet. I faked memory loss. When questioned, by the doctors or the police, I wouldn't remember anything of the day in which I was at the park opening. My journal was a pad with pages that could be removed. My writings were examined. I pulled pages out myself, crumpled them up and trashed them so that missing pages would not seem suspicious. The police laughed at my journal and they laughed at me. I heard them talking when I pretended to be asleep. I couldn't make out the words they were saying. Their tone of voice and the sound of sarcasm explained for me the relaxed attitude they had about watching over me.

One early morning a frightening lightening storm was directly overhead. The day before had been unusually hot and the storm brought freezing wind and large hail. I watched through the window while sitting up in my bed. At times it seemed like the dead of night, it was so dark, and then the lightening would illuminate the ominous cloud. Lightening was striking the grounds around the hospital causing small fires which quickly extinguished in the pounding hail. Suddenly all the lights went out. The nurses ran around panicked in the near pitch black, screaming that all the medical equipment stopped working. An emergency backup system went into effect and then that apparently was struck by lightening as well. I learned later that, sadly, patients died as a result. Quickly the corridor became clogged with smoke. I was coughing from it. The two policemen guarding me each held one of my arms and said there was an evacuation. They were coughing too. There was great confusion as all the patients were being taken to the emergency stairs and those who couldn't walk, were carried out. People were screaming and crying. When we got to the stairs, the smoke was much thicker. It was overcrowded and despite orders being shouted, there was group panic. People were collapsing from smoke inhalation. There was fire in the stairwell. The only way down was through the flames. People were crushing against one another. First one of police holding onto me fell and then the other. They were big men requiring more oxygen than a small person like me. No one was holding onto me. I stumbled over the bodies lying on the stairs and I rushed right into the flames. I desperately wanted freedom. My clothes caught on fire. I couldn't breathe. I got to the bottom of the stairs and squeezed past the fire-fighters heading up. I wasn't stopped. I supposed that the fate of one person was not as important to them as the fate of the many further up. I got outside, stripping the burning clothes off me and rolled naked in the hail piling up on the ground. From extreme heat I went to extreme cold.

The hail I rolled in melted and soothed my burns. The freezing air eased the pain in my lungs making it easier to breathe. I lay still as someone in a white medical coat came over to me and checked my pulse. She dropped my wrist and hurried inside to get more patients out. The hail continued to fall and hurt dreadfully as it pelted my skin. The patients outside were not under cover and were screaming from pain. I got up and ran. The world seemed to have stopped around me. A truck arrived and was unloading blankets for patients. I grabbed one and kept running. No one stopped me and I soon got away from the hospital area. I wrapped the blanket around myself. I didn't know what to do but if I didn't do something quick, my feet would get frostbite and I wouldn't be able to walk. The lightening was still flashing, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to see where I was.