Ty's head hurt; like, really hurt. So did his chest and stomach. And he was really hot.
"Infection..." The word came into his mind; but it wasn't in his own inner voice, the one he'd been listening to for the last hundred years of darkness. It was familiar though; he felt he'd heard it at some point in the past. Still, the time seemed so long, he might have been dreaming. It was getting hard to distinguish between the two, especially since he didn't know where he was or what was happening. There were no markers to the days, except perhaps a slight red tinge to the blackness. He faded in and out, and couldn't even remember his previous thoughts; he must have been here forever, wherever this was. But then where was the voice coming from?
He knew he had a body, or something that resembled what the word 'body' stood for in his mind, but sensations in it were strange; like when you press your hand against your leg for a long time, and then it still feels like it's there once you move it. A sweeter voice came drifting through the gloom, which Ty knew he had a tag for, but he couldn't quite place it.
"What does that mean?" Well, that's a stupid question, Ty thought. Everyone knows what it feels like when your hand gets left behind. Didn't they do that study? With the pins and stuff, when the...
The other voice interrupted him. The tone was low and sonorous and the voice had moved. It was nearer to the sweet one, the woman's voice.
"It's quite common in case of this sort." What sort? What was he talking about? Were they not talking to him?
"Especially ones of high trauma and multiple surgeries." Now Ty was slightly scared. He tried to work out the scenario; but his mind was getting fuzzy again. He couldn't remember how the conversation had started.
"Honestly Ty is quite lucky." Ty; that was him. "Not having to go through all this at the moment. But he's fighting, Mrs Borden. And, as ever, all we have to do is allow him to wake up in his own time."
What were they talking about? He had dreams; this wasn't a dream. Therefore he was awake. Why did he need to wake up? A word flashed across the darkness: mum. Mum. His mum was out there, that was her; she was the other voice. Then why couldn't she hear him? Why were they talking like he wasn't there?
He cried out as loudly as he could, holding the shout until he felt like whole world would have heard. But there was no answer, no voice at all, neither near or far away. Ty wanted to cry, wanted to throw a tantrum, wanted to scream and throw himself on the floor. But he couldn't; he was frozen. Now words came faster across his mind, in twos and threes. Trauma, multiple...frozen, move, dark... He latched on to two and held them in focus, even though they were more terrifying than all the rest. Paralysed and blind. It explained everything except the pain. He must be nothing; a shell of a person.
But then why had the man said 'wake up'? They were wrong; he couldn't wake up. The mist of darkness and pain and heat was too heavy, it couldn't be moved. As if in confirmation small sparks of pain danced up what he thought was his arm.
Then a voice came from his left, lower down, near his ear, and his arm sparked again. "Come on Ty. For mummy's sake; please." And he desperately wanted to; but it was impossible. He might as well be dead. Emotion overwhelmed his fragile brain; Ty sank back into a dream.
