Psychopathy

Chapter 57- Awakening

"Te... Te..." she stammered, unable to get anything past her dry throat. She heard Teresa calling for someone, and suddenly, she was by the bed. Ciara looked over at her, but even through the blurriness, she could tell that it was Teresa. She was there. Finally, after so much time, she was seeing her sister again. It looked like she had tears in her eyes, but that might just have been because of Ciara's own blurry vision. She wasn't sure.

"You're awake!" she cried, and Ciara started to look around. It was true, everything was still far too bright, but she preferred the light. It was in the dark that bad things happened. The light was safer. The dark was where she went when she made a mistake. The dark was where she went when she had been bad. The dark meant incoherent visions and hunger and thirst and accidents and bleach on her hands. The dark wasn't safe, so Ciara took comfort in the burning light. "You're awake..."

"Wa... wat..." Ciara still couldn't speak. Her throat was too dry. How long had she been gone? How long had she gone without a drink of water? She could feel tubes and wires on her and wondered what they were for. What was this place? Teresa must have understood what she needed because she disappeared for a moment. When she came back, she held a cup in her hand, putting the straw to Ciara's mouth. Though it was a strange sensation, she drank her fill. It had been so long since she'd drunk water from a cup. For so long, she'd had it straight from the gallon jug.

"Is that better?" Teresa asked, and Ciara nodded. With some water in her system, she was slowly starting to come back down to reality. Her eyes were getting used to seeing again, and the brightness dimmed and the blurriness cleared. She looked around, taking note of everything. She was in a room of some sort, and Teresa was the only other person in it. But nothing else made sense. Everything else was unfamiliar. So many things she felt that she once knew, but had forgotten. Things that had once been fixtures in her life that she now couldn't even remember the names of.

Well, okay. There was one other thing in the room that was familiar. Off to her right side was a computer. She quickly looked away. Computers had once been her safe haven. They were where she lost herself in her writing and entered worlds that she could understand. But now, when she looked at it, she only felt dread. When she was in that house and she saw Ty's computer, she knew that bad things were about to happen. James, in a way, was worse when the computer came out. He had an audience then. When she looked at the computer, all she could hear was her own screaming and the screams and cries of her friends.

She focused on Teresa, reacquainting herself with her sister's face. It was so long since she had seen it. For the most part, it was only because she regularly saw Ty that she remembered what Teresa looked like at all. But now that she was seeing Teresa again, she could see the small differences in her sibling's faces. Those small differences were enough for Ciara to look at Teresa and not immediately think of Ty.

"Do you need anything?" Ciara was taken aback by the question. Did... did she need anything? She had a choice? For so long, the only question that mattered was what James wanted and needed. Was she allowed to tell Teresa was she needed? Or would her requests just be thrown back in her face? Would thinking of herself make her bad? "Is the bed comfortable enough for you?"

"Bed?" Ciara asked, looking down at the soft thing she laid on. A bed? What was she doing on a bed? She slept on the floor. Slowly, other images and names started to creep into her mind. She wasn't just on a bed. She had pillows and a blanket. Why were those there? She didn't need them. She didn't get them, not even when she was good. If she wasn't sleeping on the floor, she was sleeping on the table. That was her place. That was what she got, and asking for anything else was sure to end in punishment. Would she be punished for being in an actual bed?

"Yes. You're in a bed. Do you know where you are?" Teresa asked, and Ciara shook her head. "You're in the hospital, Ciara."

"Hospital?" Now that she looked around, it did seem like a hospital. The concept was foreign, but she vaguely remembered hospitals. She had seen enough of them as a child. But this one wasn't familiar. "But this... it doesn't look like North Platte..."