The Girl In the Coma

Prologue

What is life?

That's the question that's been puzzling humans since the beginning of time.

If I ask you to give me the definition of life, what would you say? In the Webster's Dictionary it states: life n. pl. lives the form of existence that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms or inanimate matter in the ability to carry on metabolism, respond to stimuli, reproduce, and grow.

I don't know if I like that definition very much.

Is life the process in which memories and feelings are formed? Is that all life is? Or is it more? Less? Is life only what we make it out to be? Or are we all just stuck in a simulation and what we perceive as being life is just our imagination?

When does the definition of life start? When we're born? When two people get together, have sex, and create a child? How about when our minds are able to turn the feelings and interactions we have into memories?

Well, if that's it, then my life didn't start like most people's do.

Being human, we naturally have five senses: touch, smell, hear, taste, and sight. So, naturally, those are the senses that started my life.

I felt the soft sheets beneath my skin. I felt the lights beating down on my cheeks. I felt my hair on my face.

I smelled the scent of chemicals and medicines. The odor penetrated my nostrils like a fire spreading to dry leaves. I smelled a sweet sent also. It was naturally wrong, but it smelled right. Watermelon, a small voice whispered.

I heard a small thud, thud, thud, thud of my heartbeat. I heard muffled sounds of people talking and machines beeping. There was honking coming from somewhere far way. There was a sound of a door opening.

Blood. That's the only thing that filled my mouth, coursing down my throat. It was bitter and coppery. Like I was sucking on rusty pennies that had been in a jar for too long.

Slowly, I opened my eyes.

I was staring at a bright light right above me. The sudden change of perception stung and I quickly closed my eyes again, throwing my head to the side so I felt the warmth from the light on my cheek. All of it felt wrong. I was too warm. I was suffocating. None of this felt right.

I opened my eyes again, this time facing away from the bright light. I was staring at a soft purple wall with a picture of an elephant on it. Out the closed window, I saw a street full of cars and people. There was another honking noise and I realized that is what I heard before.

Slowly, I turned my head a little and looked down at myself. No wonder I was so warm, I was covered in a heavy blanket. Either a heavy blanket or multiple thin ones. My arms were lying at my sides, numb. There were tubes attached to the inside of my elbow and the top of my wrist. I followed them up to see them attached to bags of fluid.

Then I remembered that I still had blood in my mouth. I curled my lips up at the taste, not understanding why it was there in the first place. I tried to swallow but my throat locked up, preventing my spit from going anywhere but right back out my mouth. I spit everywhere, the red mixing in with the white.

There was a gasp and I looked up.

A woman with blonde hair and pink nurse scrubs stood in front of me, holding a pen and a clipboard. Her eyes were wide like she didn't know I was in the room when she walked in. Her mouth was a little open, looking at the reddish mess that was oozing out of my mouth and collecting on my blankets. She was about to say something, but changed her mind at the last minute, exiting the room as quickly as possible.

I blinked once. Twice.

My chest hurt.

There was a commotion outside of my door and the nurse ran back in, closely followed by a man. He was very tall. His hair was dark gray, almost black. His nicely trimmed beard had spots of white in it. Salt and pepper it reminded me of. He was wearing a long white coat with black dress pants and a gray shirt. There was a badge hanging from his neck. He looked at me and smiled.

"Miss Adams," he said. He walked over to my bed, pulling a chair from a corner of the room. "Nice to see you finally awake." He sat down and pulled two tissues from a box that was sitting on a table. "Uh oh. I see we've got a little discharge, now don't we?" He ran the tissues over my chin, mopping up the saliva and blood that was still dripping down from my mouth.

"Katy?" he said.

The nurse hurriedly walked over to him. "Yes, sir?"

"Why don't you go get Miss Adams here a glass of water? I'm sure she probably needs it." She nodded and started to walk away, but he stopped her. "Oh, maybe a small cup a crushed ice as well."

"Yes, sir." she said and walked out the door.

"You'll have to forgive her," he said, looking back at me. "It's her first week and she's still a little tense." He waited for me to answer. His eyes locked with mine. "Well, isn't that something? I have got to say that after twenty years of working with people such as yourself, you are most certainly the best behaved. Most of them wake up screaming or crying. Sometimes both at the same time. But you..." He stared at me. "Yes, you're different."

People such as me? What does he mean?

Wait.

Where am I? What am I doing here? What is he talking about?

He must have seen the panic in my eyes because he quickly put a hand out, shh-ing me. "It's okay." he said. "Everything it okay. I promise. You have nothing to be frightened of. It's okay."

"Wh—" I tried to say something but my mouth felt wrong. My tongue felt too heavy and my throat was too tight. My breathing started to quicken. My chest was starting to hurt again. Where am I? What am I doing here?

"Hey, hey. Shh... Shh..." he kept repeating. "It's okay. I promise."

"Where am I?" I gasped, my voice deep and gravely.

"You're at St. Marine Hospital. You were taken here after your accident."

"What accident?" My head hurt. It was pounding. I grimaced and tried to sit up. He put an arm over me so I wouldn't move too quickly. "What's happening? I don't understand. Who are you? Why am I here? I don't understand..."

My voice dropped away as I tried to sit up again. All the white was enclosing me, making it hard to breathe. I didn't understand. My head hurt, the pain scorching to the back of my neck.

He looked at me, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "What's your name?" he asked.

I grabbed the sides of my face, trying to get the pain to lessen. "I... I don't remember." I said, tears forming in my eyes. "I don't remember anything."