Evelyn's Pendant

13.

I slowly open my eyes to a bright room. The sounds of beeping machines fill my ears like sirens and my body feels numb.

    I inhale sharply as I realize where I am and what happened. "Evie?" My throat is scorching and my face aches from attempting to speak.

    "Lillian?" an unfamiliar female voice says next to me. My vision is blurry. "You're going to be okay. You made it."

    "No!" I wheeze out.

    "Doctor Howard, hurry up with those nurses!" the woman yells next to me.

    Doctor?

    I try to move - I try to escape, but my limbs feel like they are nonexistent. I can't move a muscle. So I scream at the top of my lungs, not caring for the fire engulfing my throat.

    "Lillian, you need to calm down!" the woman says.

    I stop screaming for a moment and moisten my throat enough to get words out.

    "No! This wasn't supposed to happen! Let me go! Where's Evelyn?"

    I hear more people stampede into the room and an alarm goes off. I think I can feel some movement coming back in my arms, so I try to push myself up, but I blink a few more times and am able to see a blurry view of them being tied down to the bed I'm lying on. I hyperventilate and start screaming once again.

    "Hold her down!" the woman orders the other people. "Elizabeth, get the Haloperidol, now!"

    I feel a sharp sting in my arm and within seconds, I get the overwhelming urge to sleep and fall limp on the bed, I still breathe heavily.

    "Okay... That should sedate her for a while," the woman says, winded. "She needs to be transported to California, right now."

*

"Ah!" I inhale sharply as I awake again. Immediately, I feel a sharp pain in my ribs. Below me is an uncomfortable mattress and the room I'm in is dim. I let out a big sigh as I take in my surroundings. The walls are padded and the only source of light coming into the room is the light coming through the window on the white door. There's a TV in the corner of the wall protected by a thick layer of some sort of clear plastic or glass.

Where am I?

This looks slightly too cozy for a jail cell. I take another deep breath, and all of a sudden, I get hit by a wave of nausea and excruciating pain. Everywhere hurts; my legs, face, ribs, arms... Every part of my body is sore, stinging or throbbing. I feel like I got hit by a train and have the worst hangover all at once. I groan as I try to push myself up, but realize my left arm is stuck and not moving. I try to turn down my stiff neck to look at it and that won't work either. I take my right arm and grab at my neck; it's covered in a tight brace. I take a few fast breaths as I start to panic.

I use all of the weak strength left in my right arm to push myself up to a sitting position. My body begs me to stop, but I can't keep lying down. I look at my left arm, which is in a sling across my chest and in a white cast. My right arm is covered in yellow blotches - healing bruises, yet very swollen and sore. I groan and tears well up in my eyes as my head aches and my throat feels like I swallowed a knife.

I slowly force my sore legs to the edge of the bed and gently put my feet on the cold floor - the only parts of my body that don't feel terrible right now. I notice I'm wearing a pair of black leggings and grey socks that have the sticky padding on them so I don't slip. The room spins from the movement, but I suffer my way through it. I need to know where I am.