#DeadLives4Ever

10 - Rosa

"Hey, are you awake?"

Huh? Who was that? I could have sworn I heard a voice – but it sounded miles away.

"Wake up!"

It was a little high-pitched, so unless they had swallowed helium I doubt it was an adult. Maybe it was a child. A boy maybe? No, a girl most likely.

Something was poking me repeatedly in my stomach. Not exactly something I was happy about! "Go away!" I groaned, waiving my hand around limply, feeling only air. I was yet to open my eyes, but I could still tell that whoever was poking me was there, her shrill voice grated through my skull.

"Jessie, get away from her!" croaked another voice.

Jessie? Was that the name of my tormentor?

Well I guess I wasn't going to get any sleep now, so may as well try to get up.

As I tried to open my eyes, my neck burned. I had to choke a couple of times as I felt like something was stuck in my throat. My mouth was really frigging dry and I would have probably asked for a drink if my throat would stop burning. With mammoth effort, I opened my eyes – but my vision looked like I was underwater, everything was all blurry and shit. The more I tried to focus, the more my brain ached. Gradually, an image came together, sorta like when you put a jigsaw together but didn't have all the pieces. Soon, all the swirling images came together to form a coherent shape.

A Dead woman.

It was then my memory reminded me of what happened before I passed out – Malcolm's goons stringing me up by the throat and leaving me to hang. Looks like one of them had come back to finish the job. I tried to back away – but my back was stopped by what felt like a rough steel wall. I wasn't going anywhere it seemed.

"It's all right!" said the woman, she held a hand up as if to offer a sign of peace. In her other hand she carried a cup that had green liquid in it. I could see that she had braided hair and wore a dirty sweater and slightly torn jeans. "I'm not going to hurt you."

First thing was first, I needed to work out where the hell I was. I tried to turn my head, but my neck screamed in agony, causing me to do the same.

"Try not to move," the woman said, "you might have damage to your neck – thank god we got to you when we did. Here, drink this."

She handed me the cup with the green liquid. "What is it?" I ask, unsurprisingly a little apprehensive. Not surprising considering some people tried to kill me not so long ago.

"It's something to help you heal," the woman replied. "We Dead don't heal as good as the Living, so I made this to help out with that."

Even though I didn't know this woman from Adam, I got the feeling I could trust her. I could usually tell when someone wanted to harm me – but I didn't get any vibes like that from this woman. I put the liquid down my throat and, almost straight away, the pain seemed to disappear. I wish I could tell you what the liquid tasted like, but for some reason my sense of taste is somewhat non-existent. I don't know if that's the case with all Dead people, but it seems to be for me. My neck stopped feeling so creaky and I was able to turn my head without it feeling like it was going to break. "Thanks," I said, "how'd you come up with this stuff?"

"I used to be a Doctor," the woman replied. "I try to help people where I can. Although, there's only so much I can do here."

"I thought Doctor's were excluded from segregation," I asked, puzzled.

"Yeah, well, funny thing that..." the woman said with a shrug. "...turns out Live folks don't actually like the idea of a Dead person looking them over. Oh, sorry – I forgot, I should probably introduce myself. I'm Shawna."