Hey guys, I wrote this a long time ago and have been sitting on it for some time. Sorry this chapter is so short, I'll try and make the next ones longer. Review and let me know if I should continue?
"Natara, come sit".
Sit, a command. One you would give to a dog. One I have no choice but to obey. I walk, or more so hobble, across the room to where the woman sits. She's a nice woman, someone I feel like I can trust, maybe. She says her name's Alessa, but I've never met her before. They say she's my therapist, I say she's my keeper. But what I like about her is that she tells me things. What she tells me is that I was in a coma for twenty-one days. That I shouldn't be alive, since it took numerous surgeries to 'fix' me. That I technically should be dead, but no one wants to kill a hero. Apparently I almost died saving Amy and Kai, but I have yet to see them. I have yet to even find out if they're alive. I was told they're alright, but haven't seen any proof. There were other people I was told I asked for, or more accurately one person I practically screamed for.
"Mal!" I had screamed upon waking "Where is he? Is he okay?".
"Natara!".
I looked up, where Alessa is staring at me strangely. I know I must have lapsed, as this happens often. I often forget where I am, and end up being consumed by a memory. Sometimes it's one of a few days after waking, sometimes one of long ago. But what it never is of that day, the day I was almost lost to the flames. The day I can't remember at all. The day I think I lost Mal. Since I woke up I've asked very few questions, but kept repeating the questions about Mal like a parrot. No one answers me, and I've learned not to ask anymore. I think Mal is dead. It would be best if he was dead. If he was alive that would mean he went through the hell I was through during those twenty-one days. The suffocating darkness, the maddening loneliness. Knowing you are trapped in a world unknown, only to later find out it's your own mind…
"Natara?".
Dammit. I must have lapsed again. I try and hide it, I want to show I've made progress. Because maybe if I do, they'll let me see the people I rescued from that fire. Maybe I can see the outside world. I lift one corner of my mouth, then the other. I am smiling, something I only recently learned how to do again. Alessa smiles back, turning on a TV from where she stands behind the couch I sit on. It's a news broadcast, they're taking about the fire. Again. How Mal and I raced in to save the people trapped in the crime lab, Amy and Kai. But they don't reveal our fates, in fact, they don't even mention our names. They just show the wreckage of what I know was once the police station. Talk about how some 'brave people' ran back inside to save others. It's as if Mal and I never existed. But I know Mal exists, because I remember spending the last year-an-a-half with him. Because I heard him. Because the only thing I remember of that day is hearing his scream in the darkness. And I think he was screaming my name.