Give Me a Break

Crashed

I drifted in and out of consciousness, and I could only feel the cold. Oh, the cold. It seemed to reach inside me and curl around my heart, encasing it in ice, freezing my blood and sending a chill through my broken body. A voice floated around my head, dancing among the snowflakes that rested on my lips, but melted into the blood that dripped from them.

"Viola!" It was frantic, panicked, and it jarred my fragile state of ice. "Viola, oh, my god, Viola, please..."

I heard another voice, and another, and another, until they piled on top of each other into a large tangle of words, and sounds, and I couldn't make them out anymore.

"Viola, help is coming. Come on, come on, stay with me, you're okay..." the voice broke, and I could feel a warm hand holding my frozen one. "Please."

The voice whispered again, but all of a sudden it was gone, and I was standing alone, in a field of snow, no longer cold.

I stumbled, turning around, clutching my hands to my chest. A red scarf was there- I didn't remember owning one. Suddenly, another voice stabbed into my consciousness, a cold tone from behind me.

"Hello, Viola," It said. I whirled around, squinting, desperate to find the source. "Don't worry, you'll be alright. I'm here."

"Hello?" I yelled into the white. "Who's there?"

"Me," the voice said again. "It's me, Viola."

Someone tapped me on the shoulder, and slowly, I turned around, taking in the female form before me.

"Mom?"

I breathed, blinking hard and looking again. "Mom, where are we? Why are you here? What hap-"

"It's not important," she said, interrupting me. "What's important is that you're alright."

I shook my head, holding it in my hands, blinking hard once again. "No," I replied, taking a shaky breath and letting it go. "You're dead."

The silence hung between us; the air felt thicker by the second. My mother clenched her fists and narrowed her eyes. "So are you," she spat through gritted teeth.

I felt as if I had been hit in the chest with an anvil. Or... a car...

"No." I stated firmly, shaking my head. "I'm not dead."

"Maybe," my mother mused, her voice saddened now. "But you're here-"

"NO!" Screaming now, I shook my head, feeling hot tears streak down my cheeks. "Let me GO!" When she reached out to take my hand, I slapped it away, turning and running. Closing my eyes, I sprinted, only to run into her again.

"Viola..." She stood, sad, automatically ten feet away in a second.

"No," I spat, choking on a sob. "No, no, no, no, NO, NO!"

"Viola!" A different voice jarred me, and I was suddenly no longer in the snowy field. Warm hands held my own, and the rest of me was strapped down to cold metal.

"Get her scarf off!" another yelled frantically. "We need the defibrillator! Addams, NOW! Her heart!"

"On it!"

My heart...

I couldn't feel it beating, only the cold that seemed to surround it.

"She's lost a lot of blood, are you sure?"

"If we don't get her heart beating now, she'll be dead by the time we get to the hospital!" The voice snapped against the chilly air, and I tried my hardest to move.