Nightingale (Sequel to Solider Boy)

Thirty-Eight

Where am I? Melody heard beeping noises all around her, but  her world was black. Her arms, she assumed where somewhere by her side, but she couldn't feel them. They were beyond her ability to control. 

What happened?  She wondered as Anthony's tear-filled eyes and the trembling barrel of a handgun flashed through her mind, along with the sharp memory of lead tearing through her insides. I was shot and I'm still alive. I was shot twice in my chest at close range so it's likely I have entrance and exit wounds. Unlikely that it missed vital organs, most likely targets are the heart and lungs, the gun wasn't aimed high enough to hit my liver. She started to run over possible conditions she could have suffered from the wounds, but quickly gave up. She didn't have enough information to narrow down the possibilities of what happened.

Why can't I open my eyes? Am I still under general anesthesia? Did they have to go in again? If I was critical enough at first, the only priority for surgery would have been damage control and then waiting to see if my body was strong enough to withstand more surgery...Not for the first time, she wished she could open her eyes, if her doctors knew she was alert and aware to some degree, maybe they'd start filling her in on the details of her treatment. 

Gradually, as Melody laid there, unable to do more than listen to the sound of beeping machines and the sound of her heart and breathing she decided she was going to find a way to mark time. She had no clock and no way of knowing if it was night or day, but she wasn't completely without tools. She had one thing. The few noises around her that she could hear; the small beeping of machines, the dull thudding of her heart inside her chest and the steady rush of air in and out of her lungs where available to her. They were a way to mark time and Melody was going to use them. The passage of time was her only source of information right now, besides what her memories were able to tell her and she intended to make full use of them. Anything was better than just waiting in the darkness. 

And so, she began to count her breathing, keeping a strict tally in her head as time slowly went by.  It was only when she hit three-hundred and twenty breaths that things became to change. If only a little. A slight sense of feeling began to trickle back through her body. Her arms were in fact at her sides. She could feel them and instantly, Melody tried to move them, wiggle her fingers-anything to indicate that she was alert enough to understand what was happening around her, but her efforts failed. The blackness was still too strong for her break through and free herself.

Five-hundred and eighty-nine breaths. A new sound joined the beeping and the sounds of her still living. The sound of shoes on tile floors.

One thousand and three breaths later and she began to become aware of the dull pressure up her right arm. It wasn't heavy, but something was there, pressed against her skin. It's probably an IV, Melody reasoned as she mapped out her limb in her mind's eye and the points she felt the pressure were usually where IVs were tapped to the skin.

One thousand and five hundred breaths and Melody was aware of pressure on her face. An oxygen tube she was sure. Given where she had been shot, it wasn't a far fetched possibility that she'd damaged at least one of her lungs. 

Outside the sound of machines, Melody was also starting to hear voices, some familiar, but they were too far away and her mind was too clouded by drugs to make any connections. All she could infer was that they were part of her team, they had to have been standing close to her room for her to even make out the fact that they were there and talking.

Two thousand breaths later and to say Melody was getting sick and tired of being in this darkness, barely able to feel anything and unable to talk or communicate in any way was an understatement. She needed to know what was going on. She needed to know what happened to her in surgery. She needed to know how bad her injuries were and how long she had to recover. She needed to get to a phone too. She needed to talk to James...