Matters of the Heart

Chapter 32: The Sound of Silence

Chapter 32:

The Sound of Silence

Emily didn't say anything at first. She could hear her pulse pounding in her head. A wave of dizziness wafted over her. She knew that there was no way that what she was seeing was real. There was no way this was happening. She opened her mouth to speak, but the part of her brain in charge of speech didn't seem to be working. She muttered out something that wasn't even remotely coherent.

Her vision started to blur. She felt like she was looking at a mirage. After a few seconds she came to the conclusion that she was just high as a kite. She had to be hallucinating. It had to be the drugs. Or another nightmare. She would wake up any minute now and Ali would be by her side, holding her...caressing her cheek, her bright blue eyes pulling Emily back into reality.

She felt a weird strain on her chest and the room started spinning. She closed her eyes and took a breath. Her heart monitor continued beeping rapidly. Emily was waiting for a doctor or a nurse to come in and check on her. She knew that they'd come running as soon as they heard that she was unstable.

"You know, the problem with machines is that we've become so reliant on them that we've forgotten how fickle they truly are. Without a power source, they're basically paperweights."

Emily heard the machines suddenly stop and her eyes jerked back open. She'd been hearing that heart monitor as background noise for almost 24 hours straight. Hearing it stop didn't feel right, dream or no dream. She looked at the machine and saw that the screen was black.

"People have gotten so lazy. There's just no substitute for real human contact. And believe me, I should know. I spent enough time underground to appreciate human interaction."

Emily could still hear that horrible voice, but she wasn't looking at the person standing over her. Her eyes were on her heart monitor. She clumsily tried to reach up and turn it back on, but something caught her wrist. The grip was more powerful than she expected it to be.

She stared at the gloved hand gripping her wrist and her gaze drifted upwards. The surgical mask was back on her assailant, but Emily could still see the steely eyes that had been haunting her nightmares.

She could feel her heart thumping in her chest. She knew she had to pull herself together. She didn't want her heart giving out on her after everything she'd just gone through. She'd already had this dream. It had nearly killed her last time. She wasn't going to let that happen again.

"This isn't real." Her words came out slurred. Her head was swimming from all of the anesthesia. "I'm dreaming." Emily mumbled, pulling her hand free. "I still have anesthesia in my system." She closed her eyes again.

"You sure about that?"

Emily felt the tied opening at the top of her hospital gown flutter open and then she felt two rubbery gloved fingers tracing the outline of her incision. Without warning, those fingers gripped one of her sutures and tugged on it roughly, pulling tight against Emily's incision. It sent a sharp pain through her chest.

Emily's eyes opened wide. Her right hand shot up towards her chest, knocking the unwelcome fingers away from her tender flesh. The sensor on her finger measuring her oxygen level slipped off as she bent her knuckles and laid her hand against her incision in a move to try and protect herself.

"You're not real," she said, a firm tone in her voice, trying to convince herself...because she was the one dreaming this after all.

She set her jaw and narrowed her eyes, staring, waiting for this nightmare to end. She was still convinced she was unconscious. Maybe she was still sedated. Maybe she hadn't woken up and seen Toby and Joyce. Maybe she was still on the operating table. Maybe she was dying right now and that's why she couldn't hear the heart monitor anymore.