Dream Of Me

Chapter 11

I woke up with a start the next morning. I felt it. I knew that I had dreamt something. It was foggy, and just out of my reach. Every time I felt that I was coming close, the memory turned to mist and evaporated. I huffed a sigh of frustration, then remembered what Micah and I had talked about the night before. Meditate. I had to meditate and remember this dream. This was the only thing we had to work with right now, and it was up to me.

Laying back down, I rested my hands on top of each other on my stomach and began to breath.  One...two...three...four...breath out. I repeated this just as my therapist had taught me to do. I let random thoughts and worries float by, trying not to pay special attention to any of them. I focused on breathing, on counting, and on the feel of my stomach rising and falling.

Beep...beep...beep

There was beeping in the dream. I knew that. I reminded myself to stay focused. Breath.

"Possible brain damage...hard to tell."

A woman speaking. She sounded close, but I don't recall seeing anything. Only hearing.

"The driver was intoxicated."

I continued to breath. To see if anything else came. After a few minutes of nothing I slowly opened my eyes and sat up.

The hospital...

I was in the hospital during that dream! I knew it. I mean, I didn't know it. Not for sure. It could just be something that my mind created, knowing that I had been hit by a car. But I had heard the same beeping before waking up here. I had heard Oli's voice. How could I have forgotten that?!

I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what we could really do with this, but I felt a glimmer of hope. It was something.

I shot up out of bed and changed as quickly as possible. I noticed I hadn't changed out of my clothes last night either, but somehow things like PJs had become pretty insignificant considering my situation.

I had remembered that Micah mentioned he was in the room next to mine, though I didn't remember whether or not he had mentioned which side. I took a guess and went for the room to my left, knocking on the door likely a bit too aggressively.

A disheveled Micah, in flannel pj bottoms like everything were normal and we weren't in some strange dream purgatory, answered the door. The haze of sleep left his eyes as he realized it was me.

"Well? Anything?" He asked, backing away from the door to let me in.

I nodded, and in doing so observed that he was shirtless. Heart jumping, face as red as a firetruck, I looked up and away as I walked in. Focussing on his room instead of his shirtlessness. I heard a soft chuckle come from him. He definitely had noticed my reaction.

As I looked around the room I began to wonder how long he had been here. There were drawings on the walls. Some half hearted, and some very detailed. I noticed one in particular of a girl and a boy sitting next to each other by a creek.. I pretended not to notice. We had business to discuss.

I walked over to the bed and sat down. Thankfully, he was putting a shirt on as he walked over to sit with me. I can't say that I minded the site of him without it, but I didn't need the distraction.

"I did have another dream, and I remembered it this time. Micah.. I think I'm still in the hospital." I said it tentatively, waiting on him to doubt me.

He looked thoughtful. "Ok, explain a bit more. Why do you think so?"

"Well, in the dream I saw nothing. But, I did hear a beeping. Like some sort of machine. I then heard a woman talking about possible brain damage. Also, she mentioned a drunk driver."

He looked at me, waiting on more. At that point I realized that he needed more context to understand. I drew my legs up onto the bed and crossed them, leaning towards him to explain.

"Before I came here, right before actually, I was going to work. I was crossing the street and a car came speeding towards me. Well, it hit me and before I woke up in the room, you know the white room with no doors?"

He nodded.

"Before that I heard the same beeping, someone talking about the accident, and also my little brother Oli." Tears threatened to spill at the mention of my little brother, but I shook them off. I waited on his response.

"So.. what you are saying is that you..the real you.. or at least part of you.. is still in the hospital? Possibly, unconscious?"

"Yes" I answered determinedly.

I was fully aware that the theory might sound crazy. But after everything I'd been through in the last two days crazy was relative. I was also aware that by suggesting that I was still alive and in the hospital unconscious, in a sense i was pointing out the possibility that Micah himself or this whole situation wasn't necessarily real. That there was a possibility that this could all be in my imagination.

Then the thought came to me, "Micah, how long have you been here? Do you know?"

"I don't know exactly. I didn't necessarily keep track towards the beginning, but I started shortly after I got here and I think it's been about 3 months."

"Okay, and do you remember anything from before you got here? Like right before? Do you know what happened, if anything happened, or if you just kind of... showed up?"

"In a way, I just sort of showed up. I mean I know that before I wasn't feeling well. See back home I'm a type 1 diabetic..." He said it hesitantly. As if he didn't want me to know.

I put my hand on his in a gesture to try and let him know that it was ok to tell me. If he only knew the things I was not telling him about my life outside of here..

"I'm thinking that maybe I'm in a comma. I mean, traumatic brain injuries can cause Comas right? I'm no doctor, but I've heard of these things before. Do you think that could have been a possibility for you?"

He thought about it for a moment, then seemed to come to realization. His eyes widened a bit and he looked up to meet mine.

"Yes, actually. Something that can happen with diabetics,  type 1 or type 2 but most commonly with type 1, is a diabetic coma. They call it diabetic ketoacidosis. The only problem with that is that normally it only lasts for a few days sometimes not even that long depending on how quickly it's treated. I've been here for months. If we're assuming that we're in a coma, then that would mean that once we woke we would be home right?"

"Yeah, that was my thought. Do you think maybe this place is keeping you under? I mean if we're going with this theory then we have to assume that either when you wake up you forget about this place or nobody that ends up here ever wakes up. Otherwise we would hear stories about it."

We both sat quietly contemplating that fact for a few minutes. I realized that my hand was still on his, and my breath quickened a bit. He seemed to realize this at the same time and flipped his hand around to hold mine.

"We have a theory. A possible explanation. That's more than I've been able to figure out in three months. We are getting somewhere.  Now we just have to figure out how to wake up.."

It felt like a daunting task, but there was no other option other than to waste away here. To become one of the droids. That is not what I wanted. Oli needed me, and I needed to live my life. So did Micah, and everyone else here if they were indeed real and not just something made up by my comatose, possibly damaged brain. I didn't let myself think on that for much longer. If it were true, I would face it when I needed. For now, we needed a plan.