Darkness

DARKNESS

What …. what … what’s that smell?

Darkness.

That smell …

A bubble of fear explodes in my brain. I need to …

So tired.

… sleep.

Darkness.

No! Wake up! That smell!

Trying to open my eyes.

I can’t. Need to sleep.

Darkness. Again.

I dream I’m camping with my parents. Long, long ago. Both gone now. We’re sitting around the campfire …

Drifting. Trying to remember.

BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP!

That sound … one continuous shriek … my head pounds … what is it? I’m afraid.

But I know that sound … it’s …

Cough! Cough! Cough!

My throat itches. I need a drink. I try to open my eyes. I feel so fuzzy. I open my eyes to a slit. They’re streaming. It’s hard to see around the tears. I’m …

Cough! Cough! Cough!

What’s happening?

My eyes try to focus. I’m not at home. Not in my own bed. I’m … somewhere …

Somewhere that is extremely hot. And smokey.

Maybe I’m in hell. I feel a smile on my lips.

I shut my eyes again, and wipe the tears from my face. My smile fades.

BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP! BEEEEEP!

But that sound. It’s a screeching, ear-splitting beeping. It’s urgency pounds at my brain.

I know that sound. It screams danger. It’s a … it’s a … My brain knows this sound. But my head hurts so much … I can’t think …

Cough! Cough! Cough!

Smoke detector! … it’s a smoke detector!

Thank you brain.

… Which means …

Cough! Cough! Cough!

FIRE!

My eyes fly open, and my heart hammers in my chest. My head pounds. The pain is crippling. I try to sit up, but the movement is too much. I lean over the side of the bed and vomit. I lay back down, and shut my eyes, willing the world to stop spinning.

I have to get up. I try again. I vomit again. I scan the room. Poisonous black smoke curls across the ceiling.

FIRE! MOVE!

Slowly, so slowly, I move into a seated position, my head between my knees. I do not vomit. The nausea recedes just enough to allow my eyes to scan the room. There’s a door on the far side. I try to stand, but I can’t. My legs give way, and I fall to the floor.

GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!

I crawl to the door, and grab the doorknob. I pull my hand back, the smell of my singed skin making me gag.

Hot! Too hot! Danger!

The fire is right outside the door.

I look around. There’s a window. I crawl towards it.

Please, please, please. Let it be open.

I rise up, my legs shaking violently, threatening to drop me where I stand. I place my hands on the two handles and heave up.

Nothing.

I try again.

Still nothing. It’s painted shut.

“Oh God, oh god, oh god!” I say aloud, panic creeping up my throat. I drop to the floor, my back to the window.

Cough! Cough! Cough!

I feel the heat on the floor. The fire is close, too close. I have to get up, the smoke creeping across the floor is now covering my legs and lower body.

Not good.

“It’s glass, Sophia,” I tell myself.

Yes! Yes, it is glass. Glass breaks.

I look around the room. There’s only the bed, a dirty sheet crumpled at the foot.

Where am I? I stop and look around.

NOT NOW! BREAK THE GLASS!

The floor is burning my feet. I hop from one foot to the other. I realize I have no shoes. Or pants.

OHGODOHGODOHGOD!

I stagger to the bed and grab the sheet. Back at the window I use it to cover my elbow which I smash against the glass. I watch as the glass shatters and the shards rain down on the the ground, two storeys below.

TWO storeys below.

Fresh air floods the room, while the acrid smoke billows out the window. And the fire breeches the door.

Fresh air feeds a fire.

I’m choking—not just coughing, now. My chest feels like it is squeezed in a vice. I struggle for each breath.

I smash the rest of the glass out of the window frame and tie the sheet to the handles of the window.

Flames are licking the walls, moving with horrifying speed towards the open window.

I crouch in the frame, looking down—two storeys down. I turn and hang off of the side of the building, my hands clutching the sheet.

It has to hold me.

The flames make it to the window, igniting everything it touches. Including my sheet. I try to repel down the building. Hand under hand, hand under hand, as I lower myself towards the ground.

The fire quickly burns through the sheet. I’m free-falling.

Darkness. Again.

I feel movement. I’m in a vehicle. But I’m lying down.

Am I dead?

I weakly raise my hands to my face. There’s something over my face. A mask.

“You’re going to be okay,” a man’s voice says.

A man. There was a man … Before …

I grab the mask off my face and retch over the side of the bed. Nothing much, just a hideous gob of black phlegm.

I shut my eyes and lay back down. A pair of hands place the mask back over my face.

“You were in a fire. We found you unconscious on the ground. It looks like you fell.”

I open my eyes and look towards the the voice. He’s in a blue uniform. I think I’m in an ambulance. Hopefully, I’m in an ambulance, because I feel like I’m going to die.

“What’s your name?” asks the man in the blue uniform.

“Sophia,” I croak. A coughing fit wracks my body.

“Okay, Sophia. I think you’ve suffered some damage to your lungs. We’re almost at the hospital now. Is there anyone we can …”

Darkness.

Beep … beep … beep …

I know that sound. It’s rhythmic and almost soothing. I feel myself drifting off …

Darkness.

Beep ... beep … beep …

“Sophia? Sophia, are you awake?”

I am awake. I want to tell the voice I’m awake. But I can’t. There’s something in my mouth. I am unable to make a sound. I move my hand toward my face.

I feel a hand on my wrist, gently tugging my hand down. The hand is soft.

I open my eyes. At first everything is blurry. But I blink a few times and my vision clears.

It’s a woman attached to the hand gently holding my wrist down. She’s wearing a white coat over green scrubs.

Doctor?

“Sophia, I’m Dr. Connor. You’re at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.” She pauses and looks at me. “You have an intubation tube in your throat, so you won’t be able to talk. We had to intubate you in case your lungs suffered any damage in the fire …. A few days … x-rays … burns … broken bone … puncture wound …

Darkness.

Beep ... beep … beep …

I recognize the sounds. Machines beeping and whooshing. Voices. Talking. Their soothing sounds lull me back to sleep.

Darkness.

Beep ... beep … beep …

My head pounds with every beep. My body aches. I start to cry. I want someone to make the pain stop, but I can’t speak and I can’t move my arms. I’m helpless. And in pain.

“Sophia,” says a voice I remember. I open my eyes. It’s the woman from … before? It’s … it’s … Doesn’t matter who. She just needs to help me.

She stares intently at me. “Are you in pain, Sophia?”

I try to nod yes, but a white searing pain fills my head, forcing me to screw my eyes shut, tears squeezing out between my lashes.

“Okay, one second, and I’ll get you something to help with the pain.”

I lay there, with my eyes shut, willing the pain to go away.

Leave pain. Just let me die.

I hear someone—the woman in the white coat, maybe—at the side of my bed. Then I feel a soft warmth flowing through my body. The pain recedes. It doesn’t disappear, but it moves far enough away to allow me to drift away.

Darkness.

Beep ... beep … beep …

Still here. I swallow—I can swallow!

I open my eyes. The same woman is at the foot of my bed, an iPad in her hand. She’s typing something …

“Water,” I croak.

“Sophia!” she says, genuinely surprised.

“Thirsty,” manage to say through cracked, parched lips.

“Ice chips for now,” she says walking to the side of the bed. She grabs a large styrofoam cup. There’s a small spoon in it. She scoops out the ice. I open my mouth, and she tips the spoon, allowing the ice to slide into my mouth.

The cold is shocking, but shocking in the best way. The relief is almost unbearable. I swish the frozen slivers around in my mouth, letting the melted ice water dribble down my throat.

I look at the woman … doctor? “More,” I whisper.

She repeats the process. It feels just as wonderful. Then a third mouthful of ice. I ask for a fourth.

“I want to wait a couple of minutes—just to make sure you can keep it down,” she says.

I understand. My stomach is roiling. But the ice is so … so regenerative. I close my eyes.

“Sophia? Are you awake?”

I nod my head, not opening my eyes. The light is low, but it still hurts my eyes and makes my head pound.

As I lay there, eyes closed, she recites my injuries. From the fire—smoke inhalation, second and third degree burns on my feet and legs.

The burning sheet.

From the fall--two broken ribs, a broken ulna on my left arm, and a bruised coccyx.

“But, there are other injuries that happened before the fire and fall,” she says looking at me intently. She takes a big breath, and continues. “You have severe head trauma.” Pause. “As far as we can tell, you were struck on the head at least three times with a blunt object. We think it was a tire iron.”

Explains the searing head pain.

“… severe concussion …”

Drifting.

Darkness.

Beep ... beep … beep …

I open my eyes. There’s a woman and a man in my room. The woman has pulled up the room’s only chair and is sitting beside the bed, writing something in a notebook. The man is leaning against the window ledge, arms folded across his chest, watching me.

The woman looks up at me and smiles. It crinkles the skin at the corners of her mouth. Her warm brown eyes are friendly. I’m not afraid of her.

“Sophia. I’m Detective Terry Waits, and that’s my partner, Detective Carlos Ito. We’d like to ask you a few questions.” She pulls her phone out of her pocket and presses a few buttons, and hands the phone to Ito. “We’re going to record this interview, okay?”

“Okay,” I whisper.

She looks at her notebook, scanning the page open on her lap, then she returns her gaze to me.

“Sophia, what happened to you?”

“I have no idea,” I say, knowing it’s the truth. Sort of.