The Pauras (SEQUEL)

We've...Met

The next time I woke up, the feeling of weighing 100 pounds was down to an extra 50 pounds on top of me. I strained to hear anything in the room, but I couldn't sense that anyone was there aside from the heart machine. I felt the silky sheets underneath me. Wait. I felt them. I felt them running under my fingers. My fingers were moving! I then tried opening my eyes, feeling the muscle starting to twitch and the skin pulling apart.

At first, I saw a narrow gap with back surrounding it. Slowly I opened them more fully, my vision still blurred but the outline of black was gone. The room slowly came into focus and I recognized it as the guest bedroom I had been staying in before. The walls, warm in their color ignited a happy feeling in me. I turned my head to see I was positioned in the middle of my bed, wires running over the top of the sheet to my right and hooked up into a computer that looked like Plankton's wife.

My eyes followed the wires back to where I was laying and I saw a white remote sitting next to where my right hand was resting. Slowly, I pushed my hands over the controls until I had a grip on the remote and tried to pull my arm up. It wasn't easy. As soon as I used the muscle it felt like there were pin pricks crawling all up my arms. And there was a soreness in my shoulders. I used only my forearm to rest the remote on my stomach as I read what it was.

There were five buttons in total on the remote, the top one labeled call. Then in the second tear there were four buttons but they seemed to be grouped in sets of two with a small line dividing them down the middle on both sets as if it were a volume up and down button.

I dragged my pointer finger over the buttons until I reached the one at that top that had been labeled call. There was no noise, and I wondered if I hit it right. I tried again and again but nothing seemed to be happening.

Then there was the sound of boots running up the stairs down the hall. I couldn't even try to guess at who it was. It almost seemed like there were multiple people, and one of them was wearing heels. They rushed down the hall until I saw Marcus run through the door, concern on his face before we met eyes and he smiled.

"You're awake," he said, leaning over the bed and kissing my forehead, taking my right hand in his. I slowly nodded my head up and down, a smile playing at my lips as well. I tried to see the people who had come in with him, but Marcus was so close that I couldn't see past him, though he saw me trying. "Oh, right," he said, not letting go of my hand but moving to the side a bit so that I could see.

I saw Marissa first, a red dress on and her hair in a bun. She looked beautiful, but there was something different about her. She was smiling, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. She walked over to me and planted a kiss on my forehead, flattening out hair around my face. I smiled back at her.

"I am so glad to see you are awake, sweetheart. I thought-I thought you were-" Marcus put a hand on her shoulder and she stopped her sentence, moving out of the way. I wanted her to stay but Lukas was the next in line.

"You gave all of us quite the scare," he said to me in his usual banter, but then his face turned the most serious it had ever gotten before. "We missed you making life hard for us."

"Lukas," Marissa scolded, but I smiled and even shocked when I heard the small, slow laugh come out of me. Everyone turned to me as if I had won an Oscar. Marcus's grip on me tightened.

"I..." I tried to start speaking, but it was raspy. "I...missed you....too," I finally got out. Everyone gave me smiles until they looked at the door when someone else had walked in. It was a woman in her mid thirties with dark brown hair swept into a neat but stylish bun, a white coat over a black dress and matching heels, and a caring smile.

"You must be the ever famous Roseilin," she said, pushing past Lukas and leaning over me, checking my temperature with the back of her hand as she talked, then pulling her hand away and giving me a kind smile. "I'm Dr. Melonie Reed," she said.

"We've...met," I said.

"Ah," she remarked as she pressed a few buttons on the monitor, "so you were awake, then."

"Yes," I replied, turning my attention to Marcus. "Why do you...blame...yourself?" I asked. The room became tense and Marcus wasn't able to meet my eyes. Marissa stepped around and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I think that we have all said our hellos, and we are overwhelming Roseilin. Lukas," she said, looping her arm through his as she blew me a kiss, leading them both out of the door and leaving just Marcus and Dr. Reed in the room with me.

"How much did you hear? How long have you been able to?" Marcus asked me.

"Only that one...time," I said. I could feel myself getting the hang of my vocal chords again. "You blamed Dr. Reed for....not seeing I was...awake. And you blame yourself...for...what?" I asked.

"Did you mean it when I asked if you remembered anything?" he said.

"I only remember two things, and neither of them...make sense," I said. "There was a...dark room. And you were there...but I don't remember...anything else," I admitted.

"It's okay," he said, sitting down beside me and giving me a smile. I saw the stress in his shoulders, causing them to lock together and his neck to appear tense.

"Roseilin, you suffered three incredibly bad traumas that day. When I said that you were a miracle I really meant it. One of the traumas was to your head, causing this memory loss."

"Is she going to regain her memory?" Marcus asked.

"There is a possibility," Dr. Reed said, but she pursed her lips. "I really don't know. Your brain was inactive for somewhere between two and three weeks. We made sure that you had enough oxygen, but there is no telling what the side effects are going to be until we can run through a couple of tests," she explained lightly.

"When will that...be?" I asked.

"Not now. Just opening your eyes, moving your hands, and using your voice have probably already drained most of the energy that you have stored up. You can feel yourself getting heavier as time goes on," she said, explaining exactly how I was feeling. "You are going to need to take at least these next couple of days to sleep and start waking up more often. Marcus and I will check up on you and make sure that you are spending some time awake and trying to build up your ability to expend energy again, but it is going to be a slow process."

I nodded my head in understanding, looking over to Marcus with a smile, "That means you're...my bitch," I said. Marcus smiled, a chuckle coming out of him as he sat there looking at me. "Admit it," I said with an even wider smile, biting my lip in happiness. "Admit it, Mr. Thein," I said.

"Fine," he grumbled with a smile. "Yes, I will be your bitch," he said. I smiled in triumph as I looked at Dr. Reed who was regarding us with a smile.

"Thank you, Dr. Reed," I said. "for taking...care of me while I was..." I really didn't know how to end that sentence, but she put her hand on my shoulder daringly anyways.

"No thank you's needed. Just rest for me, okay? I will be back soon to check on you." I smiled at her, watching her go out of the room as I laid there. I looked to Marcus, remembering how sad he had sounded earlier.

"How long have I been out?" I asked.

"Four weeks," he said quietly.

"I woke up on day 24," I stated in astonishment. "It's already been another 4 days?"

"Five. It's day 29," he said. He then moved to my left side where there were no wires and the bed was flat. I noticed that he didn't take me in his arms, but instead laid beside me with a look of sorrow on his face. "It was torture. I thought you were gone," he admitted.

I brought my left hand up to his face, gritting my teeth against the straight uncomfortableness in my shoulder.

"Don't try to move your arms," Marcus said, holding my hand and moving it back down to where it was. I shifted slightly to him, my eyes beginning to close but I wanted to fight against it. I wanted to fight against leaving him again.

"It's okay," Marcus said. "It's okay, get some rest. I will be here when you wake up," he said. I let my eyes close, but not before I whispered something out to him.

"I love you, too."