Leaving London

Epilogue

Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.

Something leaching through my veins, coursing through my blood, squeezing through my capillaries. My eyelids are dense, as if they're cemented to my bottom lashes with thick glue. Opening them is too much effort, too hard. Today isn't the day to prove my consciousness. I slip back into the realm of nothingness.

Bleep. Bleep. Bleep.

The first hint that I'm properly awake is when I wiggle my toes. They're restricted by some sort of thin sheet, pulled taut over my body. My arms feel like they're buckled to the bed, but I'm probably just imagining it. The clinical stench of chemicals and cleaning fluids burns the back of my throat with every breath I take, as I feel my chest rise and constrict against the thin cover wrapped over my body. I lie like this for quite some time, not quite having the energy to move or open my eyelids, just content with being. I count my breaths, I trace minuscule patterns with my fingertips and dream vividly. There's a clock I can hear ticking in the background - it provides something to keep track of, to mentally hold onto. I count seconds and minutes and hours, the ticks stretching into one another I more exhausted I become. It's around three hours and twenty two minutes after I first started calculating the time that I hear the squeaking of wheels and rustling as a door opens and clicks closed across from me.

"She sure doesn't look too great." A thick New Zealand accent drawls from a few metres away, not a voice I recognise.

"That debris was nasty. She'll have mighty scars down her side, I can count on it."

"At least they got those rocks out sharpish. Imagine the infections that could be caused by those huge chunks."

"I heard some people keep them as souvenirs, you know. Pieces of glass and the like."

"Sara, that's disgusting. Come on, I'll check her vitals. Poor little lamb, I hope she pulls through." This sends a chill scuttling over the small of my back. What if I don't pull through? What if I never properly wake up yet? What's even happening?

"Me too. Waiting Room C is half-full with her visitors, I swear down." She emits a nasty chuckle. I take instant dislike to this second...nurse? I'm guessing I'm in a hospital, from what I've heard.

"Time to send her off back to sleep?"

"Yeah, you've got a lot of repairing to do, don't you?" My skin prickles as a hand lightly taps my arm twice. I want to scream out 'No! I'm perfectly fine, leave me alone!' or, 'What do you mean, sleep?' but I can't even get my mouth to prise open, let alone my voice box to work. The crinkling of a wrapper ensues, along with the snapping of rubber gloves being pulled over someone's hands.

"Sleep tight, sweetheart." I can almost hear a smirk at the end of the sentence, but I get no longer to ponder over why this woman seems to have such an attitudinal problem when an icy sensation ripples through my arm and I feel a long needle withdrawing from my skin. My arm rapidly goes numb, and so do my thoughts.

Bleep.

This time I'm not awoken by the strange machine bleeping next to me, but the sound of hushed voices close to my face.
"Darling, it's us, can you hear us?" I hear the lullaby-soft voice of my mother's whistling out into the room. I urge my mouth to say something, anything, but my mouth feels like it's weighed down with sand. Instead, my fingers clench at the bedsheet under my fingertips and I feel my eyes flicker around under my eyelids.

"The nurse says you're awake, please, Fearne, just say something." The cracking of a voice. Quiet sobs .

I slowly part my lips, mumbling "Mmhmm." before my jaw scrapes shut, exhausted.