Control

34

Slowly, my senses began to return, the haze lifting from my mind. I could hear voices, but they sounded far away in the distance and muffled. I felt hands on me, my arms, my head. A sharp jab in the crook of my right elbow registered in my brain, but I couldn‟t actually focus long enough to really care or notice the momentary pain. Under my back, I felt a firm mattress. I sensed I was no longer on the CT table, but couldn‟t focus my eyes enough to actually discover where I was. I blinked rapidly, each time hoping my eyes would adjust. They didn‟t, at least not entirely. The edges of my vision were blurred, each entity smudged into the next. Dark hazes contrasted the brightness of the room. My eyes tried to acclimate to the surroundings, but it was hard as nothing in the room stood still long enough for me to focus on it.

I closed my eyes again, trying to slow everything down. I was breathing rapidly, the edges of my mouth damp as if I had been drooling. The gown around me was tight and contorted. Probably a result of my seizing. I was being held slightly on my side, my legs twisted around each other.

I felt people all around me. Someone was at my right side, near the spot on my elbow that felt the jab. I could feel their hands working at the site, and a moment later, felt the area cool ever so slightly. They had started an IV, I deduced. With my eyes closed, my ears slowly started to clear, my hearing improving. I heard no voice I recognized, but that didn‟t mean anything.

My brain felt tired and hazy. Despite my exceptional memory, I couldn‟t seem to recall the last few moments. My last clear memory was of the CT scan starting. I remembered feeling strange, slightly nauseous. Although the hectic environment around me was registering in my mind, none of it came into clear focus. I couldn‟t zero in on any one task for more than a few seconds at most.

My body was tired. My muscles, still tight with the occasional twitch, ached and burned. My stomach was twisting uncomfortably, in part from the pre-seizure nausea, in part from clenching during the seizure itself. My face was damp from perspiration, my hands clenched at my sides.

Even with all this, the one thing I could notice clearly was that my feet were cold. I mentally wished that someone would cover me back up, because it was freezing in this tiny room.

I tried to relax, to let my body and mind come back to the here and now.

After a few minutes of thinking about nothing other than my breathing and my ice cold feet, everything around me seemed to calm. My breathing slowed, my muscled loosened, and although the voices and activity around me was still slightly frantic, the edge to it too had lessened.

"Carter?" a voice called. It sounded familiar, but my still foggy brain couldn‟t quite place it. "Can you hear me?"

I took a deep breath, that being the only signal I could give other than a small flutter of my eyes. I felt so tired suddenly that all I wanted to do was sleep. I wasn‟t sure if that was because of the seizure or because of the medications they were pumping into my system.

Someone forced one of my eyelids up, a bright light shining into my pupil. I struggled against it, childishly, pulling my head away. The person let go, the light disappearing behind my closed eyelids. I felt a touch on my wrist, a cold metal on my chest.

"He‟s alright," the voice said again. "Take him over to the treatment room and monitor him for an hour or so. Give him some time to come out of it."

Another flutter of activity, a shutter and a bang, and I felt myself moving.

I must have fallen asleep shortly after that, because when I awoke, I was in a small white room with no windows. A rhythmic, annoying beeping sound filled the room, and as I moved I could feel I was connected to wires. I forced my tired eyes to stay open and looked around. My vision was still slightly unfocused, but I could make out my surroundings.