Skeletons in the Closet

Chapter 4

I'll never forget this feeling. Not ever. You don't forget pain like this.

Lying on my back, the hospital lights were a blur, whirring past me at an incomprehensible speed. Fading in and out of consciousness, my journey down that hallway felt like a lifetime, though I was only there a brief time. Faces appeared, hovering over me, though their expressions were far too out of focus for me to make out. They seemingly appeared at random. Before I had a chance to grasp my situation, darkness enveloped me once again.

By the time I'd come to, I was in a room of my own. Nurses and physicians were standing over me, though my eyes refused to focus, rendering them as nothing more than blurry, jumbled masses in my eyes.

That blurriness had spread to my ability to comprehend, because though I could hear their voices, I couldn't make out much of what they were saying. Words would leak into my consciousness here and there, but not enough for me to comprehend. I remember hoping that all of it had just been a bad dream, a nightmare. Maybe I'd even laugh about it.

All I knew was that I was in pain. I could feel myself drowning in a sea of hurt, gasping to keep my head from becoming submerged.

The pain was something I'd never felt before, an excruciating, blinding pain that seared through my skull. Sharp, stabbing pains in my side and right arm that seemed to pulse throughout my entire being like a flame that threatened to engulf me. I was glad to continue drifting in and out of consciousness; it helped take me away from the agony even if only for a short while.

When the darkness took me once more, it felt like an eternity had passed. I awoke at some point during the daytime, sunlight pouring into my hospital room. The pain remained despite having been given something to help dull it. Instead of that sharp, stabbing pain, it had become something of a dull radiation, a consistent discomfort throughout my body. After a moment or two, my eyes finally came into focus, allowing me to take some stock of my surroundings.

I lie by myself in your standard hospital room: white everything from ceiling to floor. On the dry-erase board directly in front of me, I could read that those attending to me were a nurse named Amber and a physician by the name of Dr. Renoit. Fluorescent lighting permeated the room, battled the natural sunlight. There were a litany of flowers on the table just underneath the dry-erase board; the standard calling card of well-wishers.

My body didn't feel like my own; aside from the pain, I couldn't feel much of anything, almost feeling as though I wasn't in control of my own functions. I tried to turn to my side, but couldn't muster more than a flinch before pain and exertion dragged me back. Everything felt like too much; exhaustion threatened to drag me back into the darkness before long.

My head swam as I lie in that hospital bed. Why was I here? What had happened to me? How long had I been here? A million questions raced through my mind and I tried to will the doctor into existence so that he could answer them for me. The madness of uncertainty, of not knowing how I'd ended up in this predicament, was almost as bad as the physical suffering I was enduring.

But before I knew it, my body was at its limit and I felt the cloud of darkness enveloping me once again, wrapping me in its embrace like a familiar blanket. I drifted into the black, lost in myself once again.

When I finally regained consciousness some time later, I could hear muffled voices in the midst of conversation. They sounded very distant and unclear, but I could hear the concern and urgency in one of the voices. The voice of a woman, middle-aged or so. A woman who sounded wholly familiar. My mother.

"How long is she going to be here?" my mother asked with a sense of urgency in her voice that I had never heard before. Her voice was almost shrill and the stress that permeated her body gave her an aura of sorts. It was joined by anger, sadness and fear; a combination I'd never quite heard out of her before. It sent a chill through my body that froze me completely, frightening me even more than simply not knowing how I'd ended up in the hospital.