Shards

Chapter 2

It's quiet. 

Not the same quiet it was mere moments ago, when my thoughts were there to guide me. No, this is worse. 

My eyes open and I wince, expecting the bright lights, but they are gone, replaced by a grayish hue, rendered by the soft light filtering through the cream-colored window shade. 

Rising from my bed with some difficulty, I examine the room. My left foot is in a cast, the kind you'd have everyone sign in elementary school. There are multiple wires connected to my arm, and the only sound is the continuous beeping from a heart monitor on my bedside. 

I pull the wires off, and the beeping stops. 

My throat is dry, and my head begins to throb, but I ignore it, forcing myself to standing, leaning heavily on the drab gray wall. 

My mom isn't here. She must've gone home--who knows how long it's been since the accident. 

The accident. The facts don't come rushing back at me, but the memory of the pain does, my leg breaking once again, real-time. 

I slump into a chair, the one my mom had been sitting in. It's cold, and stiff. 

A warning alarm is going off in my mind, and I know, from nothing but a tingling in my wrists, that something is wrong. 

I scoot over to the window, pushing back the shades to find a solemn garden that is, once again, empty. Today is a foggy day, the sun barely visible through a thick layer of gray, and I suppose it's going to rain soon. 

Below, a door swings in the wind, slamming against the side of the building. I wait for someone to come and close it, but no one comes, staff or patient. Hospitals are not usually this empty. 

There is a small collection of things on the table in my room, gathered by mom, I assume. I leave them behind, knowing that my phone must have been ruined somehow, and that is the only possession I'd care to have here. 

Outside, I find a walker abandoned along the side of the hallway, and take it, using it to stabilize myself. My foot still hurts, a stabbing pain every few seconds as I step on it wrong. After a little bit I find my rhythm, the way to experience the least pain without actually hopping. With that advancement, it doesn't take long to reach the lobby, following the signs. 

I haven't spotted anyone yet, but I'm sure it was nothing big. The staff is gone--but it must have been something like an evacuation. Maybe there was a fire, one not serious enough to get all the patients out of the building, too. Or maybe they just forgot me. 

Either way, they will be back in soon. 

Through the lobby windows, there is no one in the parking lot, save for a few cars, less than I know there usually is. 

But that's fine, too. They must have driven elsewhere. 

Maybe there was a gas leak, or my injury is worse than I thought, and I'm hallucinating right now. Maybe the nurse, Abby, is tugging on my arm, telling me to wake up, and I just can't hear her. 

I close my eyes, trying to focus on that future, but when I open them again, nothing has changed. 

The front door is open, swinging in the wind just as the one in the garden had been. As I close it, I get a taste of the air outside, and feel goosebumps grow on my skin. Surely, it hadn't been that cold yesterday. 

Or maybe it had been longer--days, weeks, even months. Maybe the seasons had changed, and with them the weather. 

All of a sudden there is voices, faint but there. I turn to the stairwell leading downstairs, heart pounding. 

Someone is yelling; a male voice and a female too, and I'm sure they wouldn't want to be interrupted in the middle of an argument, but I don't really care. It's their own fault for being loud, really, who wouldn't go looking?

The door leading to the stairwell is iron and heavy, but once I'm through it, the voices are louder and I can almost make out what they're saying. 

"--forever!" one finishes, then makes a point I can barely hear, the sentences choppy like waves in a storm. 

"Of course--forever! There--options!" says the female voice, giving her side of the argument. 

Then I push through the second door at the bottom of the stairs, and suddenly the words are not as faded. 

"Don't say forever!" the man snaps. "It won't be forever, nothing is forever, don't be such a fucking pessimist!"

"Oh, don't pretend you're all smart, using those fancy words! No one believes your lies, Jamie."

I step into the room, the two people in full sight for the first time. There are more people, too, and they see me, watching silently, eyes wide as dinner plates. 

The boy, Jamie, is around my age, if a bit older and taller, chubby in the way that suggests he plays football, but maybe not very well. His hair is a dirty blonde and grown out but not enough that it lays flat, and his tan face is scattered with freckles. 

The girl is older, maybe in her thirties. Her hair is tied in a French braid, but little strands of brown are escaping, fluttering around her face as she moves, gestures exaggerated with anger. Her skin is a little bit darker, but not by too much, her eyes the same shade as her hair. She is pretty, but not in the makeup sort of way. 

They pause for just a second to look at me, taking in the newcomer, and I wonder how they must see me. All of us here (save one lone older woman) are wearing unflattering hospital gowns, and yet I know I'm not the picture of cleanliness and organization. 

"Who are you?" I ask, running a self-conscious hand over the top of my head in an attempt at soothing the bedhead I've surely developed. "What's going on?"

The arguing woman takes a step to the side, begrudgingly letting the boy take the lead, although the look in her eyes doesn't look so much surrender as it does triumph, as if she knows that my situation will not be an easy one to handle and she definitely doesn't want to be the one to deal with it. 

The boy takes a step towards me, opposing the woman. "I'm Jamie," he says, as if I don't already know. "And we're all patients here, who woke up like this. We don't know what's going on, either, but," he glances towards the woman, "there are some theories."

My eyes flick from her to Jamie to the crowd of many ten to fifteen people, most of them visibly injured in one way or another. The rest must have a reason for being here, too--not all injuries are immediately visible. 

"So what's your name, grandma girl?" he asks, and I glance down at the walker, deciding on sending him a glare instead of discarding it. 

"Sadie," I say, hesitating for a moment. "And I'm not falling for your bullshit. What's going on here? Where did everyone go?"

His welcoming smile is wide enough to rival the ponytailed nurse from earlier's, and it falters for just a moment. I'm happy to know I've got a reaction out of him. 

"That's what we're trying to figure out," says Jamie. "You'll fit right in around here. Come on, sit down, I'll introduce you to everyone."

I'm a doubtful person, but I am not stupid enough to think I'd find my answers without these people, so I sit. 

And I listen. 

hope you enjoyed! next chapter out TODAY! DATES CHANGED : D

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