Coma Girl

                                               Coma Girl

                                   Written By: Lilac St.Madden

THE DREAM ZONE

There was a night that everything changed. My health, my family, my friends, and mainly, my thoughts.

Now they say some thoughts are invasive. I've had my fair share of those. But for some reason, those intrusive thoughts seeped into my dreams, somehow causing me to fall into a coma, because of utter shock and confusion, causing stress to my brain.

Now I'm confused as well. But I'm in this coma, helpless, forced to listen but not speak, be touched but not touch, be seen but not see. While I'm stuck in my flashes back to reality, I thought I would tell you what I'm going through at the moment.

While I'm in this coma, I seem to be in another detention. Scientists say you cannot tell the difference between reality and dreams, so technically dreams are nightly visits to alternate worlds.

So I cannot escape from this coma unless I solve some of these issues here in this reality.

There's a way out, but I can't find it, though I know it's somewhere here. The whole world here is just one giant room, filled with wires, like wires you would find behind your TV. The floors are dark shiny hardwood, the walls are light brown, there's many doors, but to get to these doors you must climb through the wires. Which isn't that hard, but you can get strangled if you move the wrong way. I cannot explain how this place even is without sounding insane. But I want you to imagine yourself as an ant, and you're in a really big room, filled with giant wires. It's like this room is for giants. But this room is the whole world here. Each door will lead to another room, but then back to the main room. Now the first room I ever went to was the piano room. It's silent here all the time. Except for a whistling sound and echoes all the time. When you speak it's normal though. But music is never played here. In fact I don't think people are ever here. I've seen people here but only at night, besides the net of people stuck in coma's, which is constantly guarded. There's a door at the end of the main room, it's full of chairs, I've seen blurred out figures sit in those chairs with their eyes closed. Over the weeks I've realized that this place is a dream generator, that's the waiting room. See, after these people have been sitting for a while they leave through another door, and tonight I'm going to go through that door, and try to get out of here.

When I said nobody's here that isn't in a coma or asleep, I meant nobody human, there's a room I was originally in, called the room of nets. It's one giant net, and all these people are stuck in it, it's other people in comas, there's millions of people stacked up, and the worst part is that I know those people on the bottom will never get out. After they turn to dust, that's when life-support is unplugged.

I'm not sure how I got out, I think my curiosity saved me. While I knew that the guards would stop me from leaving to assess the outside world, I snuck out anyway. I know they have been looking for me, they're odd creatures, they're cards that hold spears. One is a 10 of hearts and the other is a 10 of diamonds. They're stubborn to say the least. And I'm honestly afraid of them, it's not every day you're being held in another world with playing cards as security. But I've easily escaped them, they're not too smart. However each night I would climb the largest cord all the way up to the ceiling and sit there until the guards left, that's the only way I could hide. But my goal is to get out of this reality as soon as I can.

I stayed in the piano room all day, contemplating ways to get out. I decided to leave that room though, and head into the room that the figures are in every night. The blurry, dark, silhouettes.

I found a door leading out of that room, into a long dark hallway, matches were scattered across the floor, like hay would be across a barn. As I kept walking the piles of matches became taller. It was only the light from the main room that was keeping the hallway from going completely black. I think the scariest part of all this was that I didn't know where this hallway led, and if the piles would continue to grow.

Eventually the pile slimmed down, there weren't many left. But another door was before me, I opened the door knob as the main room's door shut, there was a thick blurry glass wall. Full of smudge fingerprints. I heard talking, the room was completely dark, I looked up, the room was filled with glass windows, with little spaces in between. A greyish light from the windows were the only things lighting up the room, with black floors and black velvet walls.

How would I ever leave this place? I don't even know where I am.

Sand began to emerge from the floor as the hard cold wood began to crumble. The sand grew, and began to rise. It was so compacted at the top that I was lifted up, the compacted sand I was sitting on began to spin around, and stayed still once it reached a window.

The room was a dark cylinder, the white lights from the windows lit up the dust and sand particles floating around. There were so many windows, the cylinder room was taller than three skyscrapers stacked onto each other.

The sand settled, became like concrete, I stood up to look in the window that was before me. I squinted to see through the many layers of blurry, smudged glass. I heard a voice, as I pressed my ear against the window. I heard my mom's voice.

BELLEVUE HOSPITAL

"Mrs.Jones?"

"Yes?" Said Mrs.Jones in a dry, crackly voice.

"I'll be your daughter's new doctor, I'm going to do all I can to get her out of this coma. Now what's your daughter's full name, gender, birthday and height?"

"Sarah Caitlyn Jones, female, August 15th 2005, 5'6."

"Alright I'll be back in an hour for treatments."

The doctor left the room.

Sarah laid in the hospital bed, black circles under her eyes, a neck brace, tangled curly hair.

"Are you ever going to wake up? It's been weeks, Sarah."

THE DREAM ZONE

I heard my mothers voice through the window echo up the tower. The concrete crumbled back to sand, and sunk into the floor.

I stood up watching the floor return to normal.

Another door opened, made of gold, the door knob was shiny and new, but the door made a loud creaking sound when it opened. I walked into another dark room, I walked until piles of matches began to appear, I lit one, and dropped it, setting a pile on fire. The light lit up the dark room to a warm tone.

There was a cliff, leading to another dark room below. I stepped off, I began to float, as all the matches from the piles floated up to me. They swirled around me, giving off the warm toned light, guiding me through the darkness. I landed at the bottom of the cliff, the matches burnt out one by one, like a timer. I saw a tall gold ladder, I climbed up that ladder until getting to another side of the cliff.

There was another girl sitting in the level I had walked onto. She was wearing a pink nightgown, she had short blonde hair.

"Hey, are you alright?" I asked.

BELLEVUE HOSPITAL

The doctor walked back into Sarah's room with another patient on a wheeled bed.

"Mrs.Jones, this is Natalia, she's about the same age as your daughter and she's also in a coma. Her parents never returned when she first came here. Long story short Natalia's abandoned, and being in the presence of a lively person may help her."

"And how can you help Sarah, doctor?"

"I'm not sure, Mrs.Jones. We're trying our best."

There was silence for a minute, Natalia laid on the hospital bed next to a big window covered by off toned white curtains.

Natalia's eyes began to twitch.

"No, I can't get out." Said Natalia, still unconscious.

The doctor's jaw dropped.

"NATALIA? ARE YOU AWAKE?"

There was no response.

"I've been here awhile too." Sarah said.

"SARAH!" Screamed Mrs.Jones.

The doctor looked upset.

"I hope you haven't got your hopes up, even though this is a sign of liveliness. After a while of being in a coma patients tend to start speaking in their sleep." Said the doctor.

"You don't understand, It's like they're communicating. And I have never heard of patients talking in their sleep." Said Mrs.Jones.

The doctor left the room.

THE DREAM ZONE

There were echoing voices all through the room.

"We're close." I said.

"How would you know?"

"We can hear voices, just like how at the windows, the glass was between the real world and the dream zone. These voices, they're a flash of reality!"

"And how do we get back?" Natalia asked.

"We break out." I said.

Hours went by searching the room for doors. I finally found one in the 2nd hour.

"HEY! LOOK! IT'S A DOOR!!!"

The girl ran to me, "you found one!?"

"Finally!" I said in relief, I reached for the door knob, butterflies filled my stomach, I was so excited to be getting out of there.

The door was opened from the inside, I jerked my hand off the knob.

"Looking for a way out? Natalia?" Said the 10 of diamonds.

"You too Sarah?" Said the 10 of hearts.

Both cards burst out laughing, they looked us dead in the eye and both said at the same time.

"It's this way!" But pointed in opposite directions. The cards were laughing loudly, the laughing echoed.

BELLEVUE HOSPITAL

"Hello again Mrs.Jones, I'm just switching out Sarah's IV. Is everything ok Mrs.Jones?"

"No. Somethings going on with my kid!"

Mrs.Jones stood up and backed away from Sarah in fear. Her hands were shaking.

"I can assure you, your daughter is just fine, Mrs.Jones."

"Natalia is SPEAKING to Sarah. And Sarah is RESPONDING!"

"It's common for patients to speak, they can hear everything that you say, at some point the patient can respond to things they hear."

"I've never heard anything so absurd in my whole life."

Mrs.Jones said, crossing her arms.

"It's my best guess." The doctor said, shrugging, and leaving the room.

THE DREAM ZONE

The cards were spinning around, switching places, tricking us.

Natalia had enough. She picked up two matches, and gave it to me.

We scraped the matches against the wall, lighting them.

"There is one way you can be defeated." Said Natalia, as the light from the match reflected onto her face.

The cards held their spears out directly at us.

"You can't get close enough." Said the 10 of diamonds.

"Yeah. Goodluck." The 10 of hearts said, laughing.

Natalia threw the match, I threw mine at the 10 of hearts, as the cards begun to burn.

The hands of the cards twitched, sticking the spear out into the air, trying to stab me. As the 10 hearts burned to the ground first, the 10 of diamonds burned slower.

"5 second head start." Said the 10 of diamonds. Almost as a warning to run.

We began running.

"You realize if I kill you with this spear, you will disappear from the real world, right?"

Me and Natalia sprinted as fast as we could. I saw the spear getting closer to Natalia's back.

The word "no" flashed through my mind almost a million times.

"SARAH! ANSWER ME!" I heard my mother's voice echo.

I looked over at Natalia, and I watched the spear stab into her back.

"NO!" I screamed, crying, as the card burnt down to ashes.

She laid there, the spear next to her, in the pile of ashes.

"Don't give up, Sarah. You don't know me, so don't stay here for me." Said Natalia

"I'm not leaving without you!"

"You have too."

I stood up slowly, looking into the darkness.

"Mom?!" I yelled, sobbing.

BELLEVUE HOSPITAL

Mrs.Jones was standing over Sarah when Sarah screamed for her.

"SARAH!?"

The doctor ran in, "what's going on?"

"SHE'S WAKING UP!" Mrs.Jones screamed.

The doctor looked at Natalia's bed.

"Where's Natalia!?" The doctor yelled in fear.

Mrs.Jones stood over Sarah, sobbing. Her tears hit the blanket like rain drops.

"WAKE UP!!!" Mrs.Jone's screamed, as more tears fell onto Sarah's blankets.

THE DREAM ZONE

Rain began to fall, I heard my mother's screams.

"I don't know how to get out!"

"OPEN YOUR EYES!" My mother's voice echoed.

A white light opened up at the top of the room, in the shape of a circle.

I glared into the light, without blinking.

The room began to spin, I felt myself lifting up. I continue to stare at the light. I was about to reach the very top, when suddenly, a beeping sound filled my ears.

I blinked, and I was laying in the hospital bed.

"SARAH!!!" My mother screamed, hugging me, while I was still sobbing, I turned my head over to Natalia's bed, which lay empty.

1 WEEK LATER

I was back in school, but I had gotten a reputation. Kids at school called me the coma girl.

Papers were being passed around by teachers, I wasn't sure why.

Mrs.Bradely handed me one, it was a missing flier. I read it aloud.

"Natalia Cooper. Missing. Last scene at Bellevue hospital in a coma after being abandoned at a bus stop by her older sister Kelly Cooper."

I folded the flier up, I knew what I had to do. Even if the chance of getting her back to life wasn't possible. I could try. At this point nothing would surprise me. I was in a world of sand, windows, matches and echos for weeks.

I walked up to the girls who have bullied me since 4th grade, the girls who call me coma girl.

"Punch me, as hard as you can." I demanded

"Glady, but not here." The girls laughed, shutting their locker doors.

"After school then?" I asked.

"Wait, coma girl, you're serious?"

"Yes, one-hundred percent."

"Why though?"

"Don't ask questions." I said.

The end of the day came, I was scared. I didn't want to feel the pain. But I knew that if I got back, I could save Natalia. Even though she could be dead. I wouldn't be surprised if somehow she's still alive in that world.

"You sure you want me to punch you, coma girl?"

"In the back of the head. In 3, 2, 1.."

Everything blacked out.

When I returned to the dream zone. The net was empty. Except for one person, who sat at the bottom of the net.

"Natalia?"

"Sarah? What are you doing back here?"

"I wanted to save you, how are you alive?"

"I'm human, humans cannot die here." Said Natalia.

"How is the net empty?" I asked.

"Everytime someone falls in, I tell them how to get out. I watched you get sent back, and I realized I could stay here and help everyone else too."

"So you're never coming back?" I asked.

"Everything happens for a reason, I was meant to save people, you were meant to be saved. Coma girl." She smiled.

THE END!!!

Copyright: Lilac St.Madden, 2022, reedsy publishing.