Travelling the White Line

Prelude

The first thing she heard was the sirens. 

Violent red and blue flashes drowned her vision in between slow blinks. The blurriness fluctuated as she raised a hand to her face and extended her slender fingers, watching the bones move underneath her pale skin.  She tried to focus on her index finger, but her sight shifted.

A woman in a dark blue shirt spoke in urgent, muffled tones that she couldn't hear. The voices coming from all around her came crashing in and out like waves on a stormy day.

"Can you hear me?"

Where am I?

She tilted her head to the side, exhaling slowly as she let her eyes close again. She was a foreign visitor in her own body, unable to control whether she spoke or slept.

"She's too incoherent, we need to get her into emergency now."

The voices started to sound too distant to be real, blending into a swelling cacophony. She tried to cling to them - to hang onto every drifting word - but her body forced them to lapse into silence.

*

"Can you tell me your full name?"

The fluorescent light was piercing in the white room. She was perched on the edge of a bed, her bare feet dangling above the floor.

My name?

"Do you know what day it is?"

She looked for the source of the voice. A middle-eastern woman wearing a white collared shirt peered at her over half moon glasses. Noticing her own clothes, she realised they had been replaced with a hospital gown.

"I don't know my name," she murmured.

"I didn't catch that," the doctor said, putting a stethoscope to her ears.

"I don't know my name," she tried again feebly. The doctor's brow furrowed.

"Thats okay." She said gently, shuffling her chair forward. "Your name is Celeste. Do you know why the paramedics brought you to the hospital last night?"

"No, that's not my name," she shook her head, the fogginess starting to clear. "It's Celestial; Celeste for short."

"I think you may be confused-" 

"My name is Celestial."

"I'm sorry," the doctor said, shuffling through the documents on her lap, "I don't have that on my chart."

"Do you know where Leon is?" Celeste asked. The doctor could see the distress in her eyes.

"When the paramedics found you, you were alone on Thirroul Beach. Who is Leon?"

Celeste paused, trying to remember what had happened on the beach. 

The fight. Leon was in a fight.

"Celeste, are you okay?"

Celeste looked up at the doctor, her face blank.

"I don't remember where he went," she whispered, her voice shaking with the threat of tears, "I just remember the gun."