Sara heard things in echoes. A door opened and shut. She heard the door knob turn and click when it ended its rotation—all the sounds overlapping each other.

She heard voices, hushed tones that spoke nonsense. Sometimes the voices were merely muted, other times they carried hints of annoyance. Sara opened her eyes to see who was speaking and found herself alone in the darkened interrogation room, even the monitors turned off.

There was no disorientation when Sara opened her eyes and found herself in the sterile concrete room. Every coherent thought she had was centered on escaping it and most of her high moments were spent wondering why she just couldn't float away to safety. Float away to Michael. To Lincoln. To Veronica to see if she really was dead now.

Heaven knew that was the impression Mark had last left her with.

Eyes open and eager to hold on to the small level of clarity she had, Sara eyed her bindings. Excruciatingly simple, yet so effective. Just simple leather bands across her wrist and belted to the side of the chair.

Her neck ached from sleeping upright without support and her throat was long past dry. Each breath was painful and accompanied by a slight wheeze. If they kept this up any longer, they would have to intubate her. In her half-high state, the thought of a feeding to go along with her catheter seemed humorous. Ridiculous. Made her seem so inhuman—more like a vessel.

Maybe she was. Maybe that was all she was and for some unknown reason that thought made her laugh, tears appearing in her eyes and trickling down her face as her body shook progressively harder at the thought of her body being wired to live like something out of a sci-fi movie.

And for what? Why were they doing this? It was ridiculous.

Suddenly, Sara heard singing and stopped laughing to listen more closely. Then she realized she was the one who was singing:

"The tubes go in

The tubes go out

The tubes play pinochle in you snout."

She started laughing again. Tears streaming now. To her left she heard the echoes of voices and knew they were talking about her. They were probably looking through that little window on the door and monitoring her. Gauging her. Trying to decide if she had gone loony on them.

Loony? She'd give them loony! If she was lucky they would decide the morphine regimen they were giving her was a bit higher than necessary and cut her back. That would give her a few more lucid moments, although Sara wasn't quite sure what she'd do with those once she had them.

Still, it would be a change and Sara was up for that. Time had long since become immeasurable, but if the aches in her back and butt counted for anything, she had been there a long time. Pretty soon she would get sores if they didn't allow her to change positions, and for some reason that made her laugh. And sing.

She must still have been high, because Sara hadn't even opened her mouth to sing with the congregation in church when she was a kid. Some people had the gift of song, and Sara wasn't one of them.

Which made it all the more hysterical that she was singing one of her favorite childhood songs—the song she had always been too shy to sing except when she was by herself— at the top of her lungs:

"Did you ever think, as a hearse goes by,

That you might be the next to die?

They wrap you up in a big, white sheet,

And bury you down about six feet deep."

She heard a key push into the lock.

"They put you in a big, black box,

And cover you up with dirt and rocks,

And all goes well for about a week,

And then the coffin begins to leak!"

The door clicked open, but Sara pretended not to notice and continued to sing like a drunkard.

"The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,

The worms play pinochle on your snout!

They eat your eyes, they eat your nose!

They eat that jelly between your toes!"

A man in a white coat stood at her side, injecting something into her IV. Within seconds Sara's tongue was too lazy to articulate much of anything, not to mention finish her song, which was just as well since her vocal chords no longer seemed to want to vibrate.

God, she felt glorious. Like heaven above was opening its gates and letting her in free of charge.

'This is a nightmare, not heaven,' Sara reminded herself and then went under.