The small petite woman lay in bed, a bright light flashed into her eyes, making her head pound. The light is gone, than it returns. She tried to focus on it, but her vision was blurred. She tried to move from the light, but each time, something pulled her head back towards the light. She wanted to scream, tell whoever it was to stop. Her head felt like it was being squeezed into a vise. She tried to yell out again in pain, but no words came.
As the light diminished, her brain was able to focus on where she was. She was in some kind of bed. The stark white walls, the hiss and beeps of the machine, the smell of antiseptic was all strange to her. Where Am I?
The more her senses snapped to, the more she remember why she was there. Panic overcame her and she tried to sit up, but something was preventing her from moving. She was paralyzed. That was the first thought that snapped into her fog filled brain. She was paralyzed.
She closed her eyes, tears squeezing out and falling onto her cheeks. And the memory came to her in a flash.
She had been eating dinner, watching TV. The diner sh worked at, had been slammed. Being short staffed, she had found her self working a double shift. Coming home at one in the morning, she wanted nothing more than to just unwind.
She had just finished, when she heard something on the back porch. She snapped her head to the right looking right into her kitchen. There, a patio door was located and she strained to see in the back yard. If something was out there, the motion detector would have gone off, alerting her to something. For a few minutes she sat there, her back rigid. But the light never came on.
She took her plate into the kitchen, chalking it up to an over active imagination. She rinsed off her plate, setting it in the dry basket that sat to the right on the counter. She turned around and when she did, she was pushed into the counter, the end jabbing her lower back. Her throat was snatched by a fist, her air supply cut off. After that, it was just hazy. She remembered being thrown to the floor, the hits of his fist, the taste of the blood in her mouth.
And that was all she could remember.
Her eyes could only see shapes and shadows around her. It seemed they were talking to her, just standing around, but she couldn't make them out. She tried to focus on them, but it was just out of her reach. She closed her eyes. Opened. Focused. She did this for several minutes. The light was making her eyes hurt. She moved her eyes up to the source of the light and realized it was a halo. No. Not a halo. It was a round, domed light. Then it all made sense. The stark white walls, the round light, the people dressed in white. She was in a hospital. She went to move her hands and noticed with horror, that they were strapped down to the rails.
She moved her eyes to the right, than to the left. She was in a room. And someone was sitting next to her bed. She could only make out the shape, not the face. She closed her eyes. She tried to think of why she was here. Why she was tied to this bed. Why her head was pounding so hard. Her heart began to race as a sudden uneasiness over came her.
But when she shut her eyes, she saw him standing before her. Holding the bloody knife in his hand. The drip of the crimson blood from the tip of the knife to the floor. She watched in horror, paralyzed by fear as she saw his eyes turn from blue to black in an instant. This had to be a dream. It just had to be.
There was the light again. But this time smaller. It moved to her other eye staying for just a second. She tried to focus on the face and realized his mouth was moving. She realized that she could hear what he was saying to her.
"Miss. Can you hear me?" He asked, his voice loud and clear.
"Yes." Her voice was just above a whisper. Her throat was dry, her lips cracked.
" You are in ICU at Mount Sinai Medical Center. You are a little foggy because we had to sedate you. Do you know why you are here?"
She shook her head and looked out the window to see rain was falling outside. "No."
"It's probably for the best right now. Is there anyone we can call? To let them know you are here?"
She lifted her arms to see the white wrist cuffs, tears coming to her eyes. She didn't want to look at the doctor. Because when she did, all she saw was horror. His face was twisted, his eyes were black. "No."
He flipped open the chart, writing something down with a pen."Get some sleep OK? I'll have the nurse come in and give you some more meds."
She looked out the window once again, just wishing she could forget everything that had happened to her in the past 24 hours. She closed her eyes, turning her head away from the window and shut out the world.
