Failing Upward

Chapter 17 (part 1): Promises to Keep

I woke from a horrible dream.

Or was this the dream? The room burned— hot bright pin pricks bounced off the stark white walls, stabbing through my eyeballs. The light cast a long shadow, searing my brain and sparking synapses. Yet my eyes refused to focus; my arms refused to move.

I couldn't turn my head.

Every breath like fire. I couldn't clear my throat— my mouth was so damn dry.

Sleep.

All I wanted were peaceful dreams. All I received were phantasms and night terrors. Time held no meaning.

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I'd been fading in and out. Waking to empty space. Seeing little, knowing less. My last clear memory was of Sherlock... of the woods. Moriarty. Irene's betrayal. Moran's cold eyes. My mind was muddled between nightmares. One waking and one sleeping.

I woke once thinking I was back in the hospital bed after the car accident. I heard Bernice joking, but it was only a phantom memory.

The bed was just as hard and unforgiving as the one I'd been in then, except now my backside was raw from days trapped in the same position. No windows in this cubicle. I recalled the sunny ones facing east, and how upset I was when the sun woke me. I'd open the blinds and kiss the windows to have blue skies, daisy curtains and cushy recliners again. The room was small, square and sterile. It looked like a hospital room. Maybe even was a hospital room— I wasn't sure. The bed definitely belonged in a hospital, the kind that needed to immobilize patients. The restraints left me unable to move an inch. Or scratch. Only turn my head. An IV in each arm: one with blood going out, another with fluids coming in. Then there was the catheter. I hated those fucking things. At least I was out cold when they put it in.

I could move my head, but was too weak to do it. Too weak to say much but a few syllables. Not that there was anyone to speak to most of the time.

A pretty nurse came in and out. Nothing like Bernice. She was slim and professional with long brown hair that she kept tied back. She did her job, came in, took vitals, then left. No talking.

Her hands were sure and kind. Sometimes I'd wake and see sadness behind those brown eyes. I'd turn my head away.

Most of the time she came in alone. Sometimes she'd bring in an attendant.

Or she followed behind Moriarty. With Moran.

I heard them a few times, buzzing and buzzing, and I didn't understand, but I wanted to understand. What was happening to me? Moriarty and Moran sounded like that mosquito beating at my window.

I spun and fell. They drained away life one bag of blood at a time. And it kept my brain from firing. I heard them argue... over me.

Enough for today?

He'll never wake up?

How much blood is too much ?

I wanted to know the same.

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Seemed like weeks, could have been days, Moriarty came in again with Moran. They tried to wake me. My eyes refused. First I couldn't, then I wouldn't. I instinctively recoiled when Moriarty touched me. Hate. That was what I felt. Hate oozing out of him. Hate and lust.

Questions. More questions. I played mute, dead and benumbed.

Then Moriarty's sour breath whispered next to my ear, "I know you hear me, Johnny boy."