"Daddy! Daddy!" his little girl screamed as she was whisked away by a dark figure. "Daddy! Help!"
"Lily!" He cried back, trying to run to her, but his feet felt heavy. He tried to swing his arms for momentum, but they wouldn't move. He looked down and saw heavy chains wrapped tightly around his arms and legs. He whipped around to try and break free but saw the chains snaking behind him for miles, disappearing into a bright white light.
The chains began moving, pulling him farther away from his baby.
"Daddy!" He heard as the chains pulled the ground out from under him and he fell face first onto the cold tiled ground.
"Lily!" He tried to call back, but he began choking and heaving, unable to catch his breath.
"Carlton!" another voice called to him from a distance, shaking him.
"Carlton!" it called again.
He opened his eyes. He was back in the hospital. Marlowe was standing over him, patting his back aggressively with one hand and holding out the suction straw for him with the other.
He shook his head and swallowed cautiously before taking a breath.
"I'm okay," He could finally hear himself speaking again. The words were audible when they left his mouth, but slow.
They kept asking him questions, but he couldn't find the right words. They weren't there. It felt like what he was trying to say was always sitting right at the tip of his tongue, but he was unable to form the letters into words.
"Are you sure?" Marlowe asked, still staring intensely at him. He looked down and covered his eyes with his right hand, the light burning his brain.
Pause.
Pause.
"Yes."
The word came out short and monotone.
He put out his right hand to calm Marlowe. She was so good to him. She had stayed by him all day, making sure he was okay. Even after he finally moved out of the ICU a few days ago, she stayed with him. But her energy always felt anxious, worried for what might happen next, waiting for something to go wrong.
In her defense, things weren't getting much better. After careful assessment of his left arm and leg, Dr. Weller hand told him that they did appear to be paralyzed. Not that he needed the doctor to tell him that. He was well aware that no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't seem to make the fingers on his left hand work. He would sit in bed, watching himself make the fingers on his right hand move, studying how it felt and trying to replicate the feeling on the other side. But his fingers refused to cooperate, mocking him in a lazy fist that tingled uselessly.
He just wanted to get out of here. He was so sick of this place. They told him he had been out for a month, but he couldn't process that. It all ran together into one horrible dream after the next. Passing hours marked only by bright lights being shoved in his eyes and a squeezing blood pressure cuff on his arm. But still, even now, the seconds ran together in an ever-present flow of light and sound that pulsated through his disoriented brain, burning everything they touched. His consciousness had cataloged a few more observations, but he continued to struggle to make sense of the colors and shapes and faces that drifted around the space surrounding the figure he had slowly begun to reconnect with his mind.
"I've got your morning meds for you," a nurse with blond hair and big black glasses said after briefly knocking on the door. The dark shadow strolled in behind her, shaking his head.
It's poison. He told Carlton, She's trying to poison you. She's going to kill you and then find out where you live and kill Lily. Why do you think she looks like O'Hara? She's trying to trick you into trusting her.
"Why?" Carlton yelled at him. There was no reason. How could he trust the shadow? The shadow wasn't there. The shadow wasn't real. He tried to remind himself, to bring himself back to reality.
"Carlton, these are the same meds you take every morning," Marlowe said, gently, rubbing her hand over his.
She's in on it, the voice taunted. She wants you out of the picture so she doesn't have to sit here with you anymore. She thinks you're a useless waste of space.
"No!" Carlton shouted back. He didn't believe him. The shadow was lying to him. Marlowe loved him still, right?
"Carlton, you have to take your medicine." the woman said, coming towards him with a syringe of medicine to push through the tube in his nose.
She's gonna kill you! The shadow yelled, with an urgency so genuine it was impossible to ignore.
"No!" He cried out, swinging his strong arm towards her, keeping her away from his tube. "I don't want them! Stay back!" He wished the words could come out faster. He wished he could use both hands to defend himself. He wished he could get up and run away, instead of being stuck in bed, completely trapped.
"Carlton, please!" Marlowe cried, using her arms to deflect his frantic swings as he attempted to throw his body forward, leaning so he could get off this stupid bed. He needed to get out of here with the people who were trying to kill him.
"Carlton, you're going to hurt yourself!" He could hear Marlowe crying from the dark space that covered half the room, but he was more concerned by the two nurses coming towards to push him back into the bed as the O'Hara look-a-like quickly pushed a clear liquid into one of the tubes in his arms.
"Get back!" Carlton tried to fight them off, but the clear liquid turned into sludge in his veins, pulling his chest into the stiff sheets and his eyelids down like an anchor.
I told you they were trying to kill you. The shadow whispered from the corner just before he fell asleep. They're going for Lily next.
When the sleep wore off, he opened his eyes to find Marlowe still sitting next to him, calmly reading something on her phone as if nothing had happened.
"Is Lily okay?" Carlton asked, the words heavy in his mouth and dry on his throat.
"Of course she is, my love," Marlowe said, "she's at home with Shawn and Juliet this afternoon."
He was grateful for his partner for taking care of Lily, but it wasn't the same. He just wanted to see Lily and see with his own eyes that she was okay. His brain had pulled her away so many times, he had no way of knowing what had happened to her while he was out.
But he couldn't let Marlowe bring her here. He didn't want his baby to see him like this. A girl is supposed to look up to her father, and right now, he wasn't much of a father to look up to. More of a useless lump, taking up space in a hospital bed.
At least, that's what the shadow told him.
Especially not after what happened last time she was here.
He hadn't been sure it had been real. It had become impossible to tell the difference between what happened in his dreams and what happened when he had briefly opened his eyes, but Marlowe had confirmed it. Lily had been there. And she had seen him like this.
It made him feel even worse. Not only was he missing out on Lily's life, but now she was going to be scarred forever. Because of him.
There was a knock on the door and Carlton heard a sing-song voice say hello on his left side. He turned his head aggressively to see around the dark shadow that had taken over his field of vision. His once perfect eyesight had become fuzzy, gradually fading to blackness as it moved across his eyeline. He felt jumpy anytime someone approached his left side, unsure of who it was or where they were.
"My name is Jessica," the young woman said. "I'm here to do your swallow study."
He looked to Marlowe for clarification.
"We're gonna see if you can eat again," Marlowe said, smiling. "Then maybe we can get that feeding tube out of your nose."
He nodded, silently willing the thick tube to come out of his nose. It scratched the back of his throat every time he coughed and made swallowing even more difficult.
"I have several different liquids of different textures. We're going to see how well you are able to swallow them."
The woman finally moved into Carlton's vision and he saw her pushing in a tray with several cups with a white chalky liquid in them. She began to explain the study to him, but Carlton quickly lost focus, letting her blend into the fuzzy colors that made up the background.
Unable to see his surroundings clearly, mixed with the constant confusion and frustration exhausted his ability to focus quickly, and he found himself tuning out of conversations faster than he did when he was young and bored in school. He tilted his head to look at Marlowe who was nodding intently.
"Alright, Carlton," Jessica said, taking a spoonful out of one of the cups and bringing it to his mouth. "This is the thickest liquid. It's going to taste a bit like chalk."
Carlton opened his mouth, resentful that he needed to be fed.
"Now swallow nice and slowly for me."
Carlton rolled the thick paste over his tongue for a moment before taking a breath and pushing it down his throat. He could see that Marlowe was holding her breath.
"Good job!" Jessica said when Carlton swallowed.
The next three cups went similarly. Take a breath, swallow. Take a breath, swallow. Never in his life had he thought so carefully about how to eat. He felt like a toddler. He felt pathetic.
But that was as far as he got. He could feel his tongue becoming lazy as he pushed down the third spoonful.
"Alright! Let's try the next one," Jessica said in her chipper voice.
But this time, Carlton couldn't swallow properly. He felt the paste run quickly down his throat and he instantly began choking, attempting to but unable to take a breath. He leaned forward, feeling the paste run out the side of his drooping mouth and attempted to spit it out.
Marlowe jumped up next to him, suction straw in hand again.
"Are you okay?" She asked, staring. Her eyes were trying to communicate with him, but he couldn't put together what she was trying to tell him. All he knew was that her anxious energy felt like a black cloud suffocating him. And her eyes felt like fire on his skin. And the sucking of the straw felt deafening on his ears.
"I'm fine!" Carlton snapped loudly, pushing her hand away. Trying to push the dark cloud away. Trying to push the pain away.
He could see her face change and she stepped back quickly.
Pause.
"Go. Please." The words came out in single breaths.
He watched as Marlowe silently stood up and walked out of his eyesight. A second later he heard the door close.
As soon as the door clicked, he felt remorse. He didn't mean to snap. Not at Marlowe. She was only trying to help.
Marlowe was safe.
You're pathetic. A raspy voice whispered in his ear. You can't even swallow without almost dying. You deserve to be alone.
Embarrassment swelled in his chest. Embarrassment for snapping, but also embarrassment for not being able to take care of himself. He couldn't do anything, not just swallow. He couldn't walk or stand or even sit up yet. He had to be turned by the nurses so he wouldn't get a pressure ulcer. It was a team effort just for him to use the bathroom.
"It's okay," Jessica said, softly. "It takes time. Three is good for where you are in your journey. You'll get there."
Carlton nodded, trying to form his next sentence.
"Will you ask her to come back?"
Jessica smiled and nodded, cleaning up her workspace before disappearing into the blackness.
Carlton heard soft cries coming from outside the room, and the embarrassment and regret got stronger. He hadn't meant to make her cry. Crying was bad. That was the last thing he wanted to do. He just wished he could be the man he used to be for her, and right now, he couldn't be farther from it.
He heard the door close and footsteps coming towards him.
Marlowe walked around his feet so he could see her. She sat down on the side of the bed next to his hip. The dark cloud had faded away, the anxious energy dissipating into palpable sadness that made him feel cold.
"I'm so sorry." He said, focusing hard to make the words come out the way he wanted them to. He wished he could move his voice, but it stayed sharp and monotone as he said the words.
"It's okay, baby," Marlowe said, rubbing his shoulder and chest. "I'm sorry too."
She kissed him softly and rubbed his hair that had grown almost completely over the large incision where his skull used to be.
"I love you." He offered softly.
"I know."
