Realities

2

I must have left sometime soon after that. The next thing I knew I was back in my valley. It was quiet, no shelling. I think that was what woke me up. I had gotten so used to the shelling that the silence held a great deal of menace. I woke up in the valley but not where I had left it. I knew where I was and struggled home. It was no longer daylight and I stayed far off the roadways, having no wish to get hit.

Unfortunately for me I hadn't gotten far enough off the road where a ditch ran close too it. I hadn't dressed for walking at night since I had left during the day. Although I hadn't intended to go anywhere. So it was understandable that the driver didn't see me in my dark clothes.

I see headlights coming at me and feel the impact of the car before I fall unconscious.

The sound of sirens rouse me enough to tell that I had been flung into the ditch. The colored flashing lights of the emergency vehicles hurt my head so I close my eyes and fall unconscious. I heard someone talking to me but I couldn't rouse myself enough to answer. The pain of being awake was more than I cared to deal with.

The next thing I remember is the pain of being moved onto something. I figured it out after a few seconds of muddled thought, the ambulance gurney. Then the pain overcomes me again as they roll it across the bumpy ground and into the ambulance.

Some idiot flashed a pen light into my eyes and makes the pain take steps to make my life miserable. Now I'm in pain and wanting to vomit. I hear a voice reassure me that we will be to the hospital soon. I didn't care, I was falling into the dark oblivion that awaited me.

Too much has been happening. How am I even alive? I swear I died in that other valley. The captain must have taken my body back to where he thought he'd found me. He was off by a lot, but close enough. But if I was dead than how come I'm alive now? Although the way things are going I won't be alive much longer in this place either. Just what is going on?

The questions made my head hurt so I stopped thinking them. The EMT asks me something but I couldn't understand him. I must know him from somewhere though because his voice is familiar. It pulled at me but it wasn't enough to make me wake up.

The next few hours were a blur. There were times that were crystal clear, usually because the pain forced me into wakefulness. There were other times when the blessed oblivion swallowed me. I had no idea what was going on and didn't care.

The first thing I remember clearly is someone asking for the Jane Doe they had brought in the night before. There was something about that voice that nagged at me but I couldn't think straight enough to figure it out.

That  I could hear voices must mean I'm not in a regular hospital room. That I was in a hospital I figured out from what I remembered the EMT telling me and the memories of the car hitting me.

The privacy curtain is pushed back and someone comes in. I'm still too groggy to easily open my eyes and my brain tells me that it will hurt if I do. It was that that finally made me open my eyes. I never give in to pain.

The man that entered doesn't speak just quietly watches. When he's sure that he's not waking me up he ventures into speech. "You were too out of it last night and didn't have any identification on you." That was it.

"You can't complete your reports without my name?" I smile a bit at that. I should have known that was why he came to check on me.

I thought I had kept out all the emotion from my voice, but maybe he caught some of my bitterness. Or maybe he just understands human nature.

He shrugs. "It always helps the billing department out if they know who they are billing. But in your case the driver of the car will be billed." He comes closer to the bed.