Anna

5 - Waves

Sirens screamed. She wanted them to stop. They seemed eternal, like a never-ending warning. Fear clasped her throat closed. Darkness coaxed her further in, suffocating her.

Her bursting lungs filled with air again. Strange voices flowed in an endless stream of echos, moving in and out like the waves in her book.

What was it called, again?

Can you hear me?

Voices continued to echo. They grew louder and louder until they roared like crashing waves. Water pulled her under. She could not breathe again. An alarm blared in her head. It grew louder and louder and louder until it stopped.

Her eyelids parted. Strangers' eyes and foreheads surrounded her, half their faces shrouded by masks. The brightest light blinded her from above.

She thrashed against the waves, but they held her down.

Don't move settle down hold still it won't hurt.

Stop, stop, stop!

It was quiet.

No, it wasn't. A faint beep... beep... beep... lulled her back to sleep until gentle and comforting words floated to her ears.

Open your eyes.

She wanted to. Desperately tried. But when the gentle voices spoke their comforting melodies, the waves softened and sent her floating through a tranquil ocean.

She forgot to open her eyes.

When the voices calmed the raging waters that threatened to drown her, she tried to listen, but her mind felt foggy. She let them soothe her until she found the strength to open her eyes.

A bright light passed across her vision, then back again to reveal His blurry figure standing in front of her.

It was just Him. She was not sure if she should scream. She blinked long, slow blinks until her vision was only hazy around the edges, and she saw the person in front of her was not Him.

She still did not know if she should scream. But she was so tired that she decided against it.

The realization dawned on her that she was not in the basement. She needed to run, but her limbs were too heavy to move.

Mumbled words were consumed by the ringing inside her head. Her voice was lost somewhere at the bottom of her raw throat. Her chest tightened. Her body ached.

"Relax."

She did not relax, but the waves swallowed her whole, anyway.

Then gentle words came back.

This time, she remembered to open her eyes. But instead of bobbing along with the waves, she felt like she'd been washed inland, left stiff and tired against a sandy shore.

Through hazy vision, she saw the owner of the soft, gentle voice next to her, reading a book out loud.

She knew that book. Blue. Ocean. Waves.

A woman with golden brown eyes as soft as her voice and as warm as her dark skin looked up from the pages.

"Hey," the woman said, her words smoothing over her ears like honey. "It's alright. You're safe."

Behind the woman, a window drew her attention. An actual window facing outside. She squinted and blinked slowly against the daylight.

"Am I dead yet?" Her own voice sounded strange and foreign. Based on the ache that thrummed at the back of her skull, she doubted she was dead. But her foggy mind clouded her surroundings, which made her wonder whether what she saw was actually there or not.