The Crack in the Sky

Chapter 1

Lyssie

I can’t open my eyes for a few seconds. They’re stuck; my eyelids are fused together, like at the end of a horrible nightmare, when you realise that you’re only dreaming, but there’s nothing you can do. This has happened before, normally when I’m ill or after an injury, and I know that all I have to do is wait for a few moment, but it’s difficult. I can feel myself starting to panic, and I have to breathe slowly and keep still, but I’m shaking, I know I am.

It feels like an age, waiting, but eventually, I’m able to prise my eyelids open, although they feel heavy and full of sleep dust. I relax and stop trembling, rubbing my palms over my eyes to clear them, and sit up, trying to ignore the odd throbbing feeling in my head and chest. It’s only as I rub my eyes for the final time that I realise that I’m not where I think I am. I’m not in my bed, I’m not in my house, I don’t think I’m even at school, or at a relative’s. The walls are a sickly off-white and the floor is laminate, I think, a horrible speckled grey colour. I’m sitting on what could be a mattress, although it doesn’t feel like anything anyone could sleep on, and my blanket is made of starched paper. It’s the smell that gives away my location: bleach and old soap and metal. Oh my god, I’m in a morgue. I’ve died and I’m on a slab. No, there aren’t beds and broken TVs in morgues. I’m in a hospital. I’m in a hospital, and I don’t know why.

I scramble from the bed, suddenly paranoid that something awful has happened. Where are my family? In fact, where is anyone? The hospital ward in completely devoid of people apart from me, but there are other beds, lots of them, which should be occupied. As soon as I’m standing, I wince, feeling like I’ve pulled every muscle in my body, and tense up. The throbbing in my head increases, and I can feel a stinging in my lower arms, like I’m being pricked with a needle. I must have slept on them or something. I try to relax my muscles tentatively, breathing out slowly, and the pain subsides a little. I take a wobbly step, and deciding that I’m okay to walk, I go to the end of my bed so that I can get a better look at the ward. It’s still utterly deserted and eerily silent, like I’m in a horror movie. Oh god, what if I am? What if there’s been a zombie apocalypse or this is the hideout of some serial killer or- no. I shake my head and try to think straight. Things like that don’t happen in real life, there’s going to be some logical explanation and I’m going to feel stupid for panicking.

“Hello?” I try to speak, but my voice has come out as a faint croak, like I haven’t spoken for a long time. When did I last speak? How long have I been here? Hours, days, weeks? I don’t remember falling asleep. Where was I before? School, I assume, or home, maybe? The last thing I can remember at all is being in the car in the morning with my mum and brother, driving to school, possibly. Was that this morning, or yesterday? Or even further back? What time is it, anyway? I can’t hear a clock ticking, but I can’t hear anything at all. Maybe I’m deaf, is that why I’m here? No, I heard myself talk. Can deaf people hear themselves? I feebly slap at a pillow, trying to make a sound. Yes, I can hear. I cough and try to speak again.

“Hello? Umm, Doctor? Nurse? Anyone?” I sound clearer this time, but it doesn’t make a difference, no-one responds. I hobble over to the next bed and call again, trying to ignore my aching muscles, and the next bed and the next, until I’ve reached the closed white doors at the end of the room. I stumble into them, falling through into the corridor as they swing open and pull myself back up using a bar on the wall. I really do ache. What did I do, jump off a building or something? The corridor is as empty as the ward, and every sound I make echoes off the long white walls. It’s eerie: I don’t like it at all.

“Hello? Please, anybody?” I call again, limping down the hall, peering into the windows on the doors, searching for any sign of life. I keep calling into the silence, my voice growing hoarse as I carry on through the identical, endless, blank hallways, growing more desperate. There are tears pricking behind my eyelids, and I have to blink rapidly to get them to stay, but I’m still panicking. My situation is more than just curious now; I’m getting scared. What if something awful really has happened? Like a psychopath on a killing spree accidentally missed me when they got everyone else, or a gas attack, or a disease? Maybe an evacuation before a terrorist attack? These options have become more plausible as I become more desperate. It could be some vile reality TV show, maybe, but I’m under eighteen, they can’t legally do that, and I certainly haven’t signed anything.