A/N: A does of reality to the comatose conscious, when the body and mind are so disconnected from one another and so much time has passed. "In my restless dreams, I see that town…"
Ch1: In my restless dreams…
White. Everything is white. Until something flitters by, back and forth, back and forth. No rhythm. A shade, flickering like rising smoke. I feel compelled to touch it.
I can't move my arm, or the other. It bites, and holds me fast. Just like my neck. No matter how hard I try, there's no control. I'm choking, only this time its worse, its fire and needles, my whole mouth is painfully dry. A panicked noise emanates from a box above my head. I hear more noise from far away and its getting closer. This is worse than the hellish dreams, this time, I can't do anything, I'm completely powerless. I'm awake.
"John. John. Listen to me, listen to me." The voice is stern, unwavering, and accompanied by a pale face, then another. I don't know this face, but I know the voice.
"John I need you to calm down and listen to me. Just breathe. Breathe." They're squeezing my hand.
"Anna, draw up the diazepam."
The soldier in me wanted to obey orders. The survivor in me wanted to know who the hell Anna was, and the fuck was diazepam.
'Anna' returns, and for some reason everything is feeling numb and slow. I close my eyes, trying to sort out each of the sounds while the voices talk among themselves. I find myself breathing again, even through clenched teeth. The voices soon fade and everything is quiet again. I feel something brush over my face, and something squeeze my hand again. I squeeze back. God it fucking hurts.
I don't know how long I'm lying like this, but I finally feel…functional in a sense. I force my eyes open, back at the white vastness. I finally see the first recognizable thing through all of this nightmare –my damn nose.
Amazing to think, we take something so simple for granted.
Each blink I take is so tiring, like a ton of sand has been poured over my whole body. I take a moment longer to focus on my surroundings. I see the outline of the foot of the bed, I can see the vast white blanket covering my body. I go to move my left arm, where I felt the hand squeezing mine, and hear metallic clatter. I want it off. NOW. Like yesterday.
"John, take it easy. I need you to trust me."
Trust. How could I trust what I didn't know? There was only so much blind faith a solider could withstand before he questioned where the orders were coming from. A dog can only be beat so many times before he bites back.
I want to say something, but it only manifests itself as a grunt. It's frustrating. Despite this warm numb feeling, I feel a twinge of anger rising. All I can manage is a heavy sigh. Even doing that hurts too.
"I know, it's frustrating. Hopefully we'll be getting that collar off of you by the end of the week."
My eyes wander toward the sound of the voice. This time I can make out the face clearer than I had before. Yellowish hair, dark eyes. A small nose. A grey shirt, shapeless, loose. An earnest look. Female. We stare at one another for what seems like forever.
"Uff." It sounds foreign, pitiful. Like a sick animal about to die. I pull with my other arm, eliciting a metallic rattle.
"Ey wont, itf uff." I felt like I was out of fucking breath. Who knew four words could be so strenuous?
"We had to restrain you while you were in a coma. You were shouting and ripping everything out." There's a feather light brush against my knuckles, and slowly the bite around my wrist loses its hard, flat teeth. One by one I can articulate my fingers. Steel rods jouncing down the length of my forearm. This small freedom never felt so good.
She leans across and undoes the next restraint, settling my arm along my side. It's unsettlingly numb. I feel the coldness where her fingers left, and nothing more.
"You've been out of it for a while. We nearly lost you several times." The female continued, her words, carefully paced. The cadence makes it clear.
"You really are a fighter John."
There was so much I wanted to ask. I needed to know. And why did she keep calling me John? It felt kind of right, but it felt kind of wrong too.
"I'm going to get you something to get you started." She touches my shoulder before she leaves. Leaving me in this white room, where the flat smoke wisps across the ceiling, cut by bars of flaxen light. I turn my head as far as I can, as far as I dare, to the distant wall where the light is the brightest. The window is closed, but the vent is on, the curtains fluttering under the slight breeze, the shadows shifting above.
A/N: Tired to research what it was like for people coming out of long term comas to write this. I wanted the fragmented feeling, the sensation of waking up in middle of a car accident.