Bliss

23 - Sky

I'm in a dream.

The sky is pitch black. I am standing on a rock with trembling legs, my feet threatening to slip over its wet surface. The waves surge, in and out, like the wind.

I don't feel it. I don't feel anything except the salt of the ocean on my tongue and the cold air running over my skin like a thick, choking coat that seems to be two sizes too small. The sky is pulled taught and so is the ground, and I'm too afraid to move because I might get thrown off, into the water.

Thunder rolls through the sky, buzzing like a lawnmower, sucking the world up like a vacuum as it rumbles and growls.

"I told you to stay away." Harry's voice matched the timbre of the thunder. Deafening, vibrating against my chest, throwing weights upon weights over my head as the rock shook under me, and then dissipating only to do it again. "I warned you," he says.

Lightning strikes the rock; a sword.

"I warned you, Sky, so why are you still here?"

"I warned you, Dr. Rich," the nurse says. "I warned you, and you didn't listen."

"What am I supposed to tell my wife? I can't just say that our son doesn't want to get an education anymore. She will go crazy." Dr. Rich is cleaning his medical tools with a white, wet cloth in his gloved hands. "Something has gotten into him, and I don't know what it is."

"He's a teenager," the nurse replies. "Everything is getting into them at this point. They don't like to be cooped up. They like to think that life is short and they better run away as soon as they can. I'm telling you, life is short, but that's no excuse to throw a potential future away. We're kept safe here. If he wants to swim all the way to the coasts of Asia, he can, but you have to make sure you let him know that he's going to lose everything if he decides to run away. Besides, my daughter was . . ."

I close my eyes, wanting to block their conversation away.

I fall asleep again.

"I warned you, Sky."

Kssst. Phump. Kssst. Phump.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A heart monitor. A mask over my mouth. And I can feel my stomach with my hands. There's a new scar, running over the old one, twice as long and barely grazing both my hip and armpit. There are tubes in my stomach, sticking out like extra limbs.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"How long have you been awake?" Dr. Rich asks me, scribbling into a clipboard. He's not wearing his mask, just his white doctor's coat and the blue scrubs underneath.

"All night long," I reply. My lips and tongue feel dry, so much that it's hard to move them. The taste of raspberries is gone but is replaced with something sour, and I realize I haven't brushed my teeth.

"It's been three days since the operation. I think we're ready to send you home."

They bring a wheelchair into the room and a nurse helps me into it. The doctor tells me that I should avoid using my legs for the rest of the week.

"We realized it wasn't another strain of the virus. Sure, it's still there, but part of it was because of the over-stimulation of the muscles around the area," he says. "Take it easy for the next few months. Avoid running."

"But I love to run," I say half-heartedly. There's no point.

"If you keep doing it, it's going to kill you sooner than it should," he says grimly. "Now, that's not say that the virus won't come back. We repaired as much tissue as we can but we predict that, give or take, you have a few more years."

"A few?" I ask. The nurse disconnects me from the heart monitor. Flat-line.

"Three."

"I have three years left to live?" I ask.

"If you survive it, five. The periods of stability will get shorter with each strain," the doctor says. "Don't look at this as such a bad thing, Sky. Make the most of your life while you still can. It won't hurt to get married, to move on. Who knows, maybe things will change."

"We both know they won't," I say quietly.

"They might," the doctor says. "They're changing right now. It isn't every day that you see a soldiers waiting all night long for someone like you. There might be a war out there, but there is also a battle in here." The doctor pats the spot over his heart. "Be strong, Sky. A right mindset is sometimes enough to flip everything around."