Coma

I bet you can’t climb that tree, Lillian” You hear your older brother, Nate, say, putting his hands on his hips.

You scoff, how dare he look at you like that! It’s because he's a boy, You think.  You puff out your chest and walk up to the binervia tree your older brother was talking about. To you it looks like it reaches to the heavens, like that story your mother tells you at night. You take a deep breath and grab the closest branch with your chubby arms. You pull yourself up kicking your little legs to balance yourself out. You have to be careful though, you don't want to rip your pretty birthday dress. You continue like this until you are about halfway up, when you peer down at your nine year old brother you see his mouth open wide as he watches you scurry higher and higher up the tree. You throw your head back and laugh, then you decide that you’re bored of this game so you start climbing down. Your eyes are alight with joy of beating your older brother when you are only seven years old! Lost in your giddiness you step on a weaker branch when you are about five metres from the ground. When you feel the branch snap under your weight your hands fly up trying to catch onto a branch above your head but you aren’t fast enough. With a terrified scream you tumble down the tree and knock you head on a branch. Something wet dribbles down your neck. You hit the ground and your head hits a rock. You should have stayed awake; you should have waited for Nate and for your mum. You shouldn’t have climbed, but you did and now you just want to sleep, just for a minute, you think, but that is your biggest mistake.

*** Eight Years Later ***

I woke up about five minutes ago. I know that because I counted to sixty, five times, it was hard though because I couldn’t use my fingers to help me. I can’t move my fingers or anything else on my body either. I tried opening my eyes when I first woke up but it didn’t work.

Someone started talking to me, “Lillian Balsin, you have been in a coma for eight years from falling ten metres down a tree before knocking yourself out at the bottom, you are now fifteen years of age as of today.”

What’s a coma? I got my eyes to open after a lot of hard work but I couldn’t see anything because the lights were hurting my eyes. I felt a soft hand grab my own and squeeze it. As my eyes got used to the brightness I let my eyes go slowly around the room until I saw the person holding my hand. She had blond hair like me but she had brown eyes and I have blue.

 “Lillian? Can you hear me?” she said. I didn’t know how to answer her because I couldn’t move so I just stared at her and I blinked twice.  How else could I tell her?

“Look up if you can hear me,” she said. I did as she said and looked up to the roof.

She gasped happily and hit a button. A few minutes later three more people came in and started looking at things next to me.

“Call the parents,” one said. “Keep the life support going,” said another. I wondered what life support was. I heard mummy and daddy talking about it once when Nanny was sick, but I never got told what it actually was.

I was starting to get tired again so I started to close my eyes but someone hit me on the face making my eyes fly open and tears grow in my eyes. No one had ever hit me before except mummy but only when I did something very wrong. What did I do wrong this time? I just wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t sleep now because Mummy had just run through the door! Except she looked older, more like Nanny. A boy ran in after her, I thought I knew him; he looks like my brother, but he’s too old. I looked around at everyone in the room until I saw the one that looks like Nanny.

“Hey baby girl.” she said carefully. She held my hand and smiled at me even though she was crying at the same time. She sounded like mummy and she called me the same name mummy did.

“Who are you?” I tried to say but my voice wouldn’t work i just sounded like my frog did when it was sick once.

Nanny lady quickly got me some water and helped me drink it. the cold water was really good on my sore throat.

“W-Who are you?” I asked her once she put the glass down again. she looked at me sadly and started to cry harder.

“It’s me, Baby girl, It’s Mummy,” she said through her tears.

My mouth went into an O shape as I realized who she was, it’s Mummy!! I thought happily then I remembered the other boy that was in the room, “who’s he?” I asked once I had spotted him. I crinkled up my nose, I don’t like boys.

“That’s Nate, Baby girl, your brother, do you remember him?”

I scrunched up my nose as I tried to remember. Nate… Suddenly I remembered, I saw my brothers face through the leaves before I fell..

I jumped, shaking myself back to the present, when someone touched my shoulder, I looked at my older brother “Nay-Nay!!” I said excitedly, I was so happy now my family was here, everyone except Daddy… “Where’s Daddy?”

Mummy and Nate  looked at each other, “Daddy is gone, Lilly,” Nate said to me gently.

“Where’s he gone?” I asked happily, “did he go on another work trip? He’ll come staight back now though, right?”

“Not quite sweetie, he’s gone to heaven,” Mummy said.

“He’s dead?” I asked, I started to breathe harder.  How could he die? He can't die!  I started to see black spots again  and I fell back asleep as five more people in white came in.