"Oh- look. She's not dead after all."
She clutched her throat, gasping, drinking the cool air into her lungs ravenously. A face appeared between her and the dingy ceiling above. She recognized an expression of concern.
"She hit her head so hard though. Hey- hey are you still with us? Can you talk?"
She didn't know. As she looked around the room words appeared, fizzling to life behind her eyes. She had to focus to catch them. Door. Feet. Inside. Pain. The thoughts scrambled around and then found the correct area to process in her brain. "Yes."
"Do you remember what happened? We heard there was a rock slide but we don't know how that could have happened- no one else got hit."
Did she remember? She shuddered as a memory filled her.
----
Heat spewed out from inside her, viscous as boiling honey. There was no air. No air at all. She couldn't move. What- who held her in place? She struggled but the heat burned more brightly with every twist of her head. She was going to burn alive. No. She wouldn't die like this. She refused. She could fix this. She must fix this. The heat washed back. She could hear the angry roar behind her fading as a mist of other voices rose around her. One was the same, over and over. Come to us, come to us, come to us. But if she focused, she could hear others.
Come to us
I'm scared! Don't let me die of this disease!
Come to us
I have to live on- please please
COME TO US
Anything. Anything for my freedom. I cannot die in here!
Dirt everywhere. In her eyes, her nose, her mouth, pressing on her from all sides. So cold. All but her face. Something warm oozed onto her cheeks.
I cannot die in here!
----
She blinked.
"Opal it's an easy question. Do you remember or not?"
"Opal?"
A snort. "Even if she's alive her brain is broke."
"I'm Opal?" She sat up. The first face smiled at her and its body scooted away to give her room.
"Yes, your name is Opal. I'm Kait- that's Spark. We're both happy you're alive."
"Actually, I'm just shocked."
Words were coming back to her more quickly, along with a pounding headache. She looked down. Hands. Messy. The nails- her nails were broken in places, dirt ground into the beds and into the calluses and scratches too. She rotated them back and forth, curiously. Kait offered her something. A cup. She sniffed. Water. Opal swallowed it down in three gulps and wiped her mouth.
"No but really that hit she took should have killed any normal person."
"Stop. You're being rude."
"I'm not." Spark's dark eyebrows lowered. The word flashed in Opal's mind. Annoyance.
Opal took in her surroundings now. This was called a house- or at least a cabin. A building. It was barely a room. There were other small thin cots like the one she sat in. Two had other people, both looked unwell.
"Where am I?"
"The infirmary. I was about to take you to the morgue though."
"Spark!"
DU LIEST GERADE
Hell of Earth
HorrorOpal knows nothing. She's been told she cannot go outside the barrier because its unsafe. She's been told monsters aren't real. She's been told she was almost killed in a rockslide. She's been told that's why her memory is gone. But if that's the c...
