Bold Words

Day 27: Suit - Bed - Admire

With his heart pounding like tribal drums in his ears, he shot up. He growled as pain shot through each muscle in his body and any attempt to open his eyes was met with dizziness and a kaleidoscope of color that whirled together into what looked like a messy finger painting. His hands fell back, pressing into what he could only assume was a bed. Looking for stability, he didn’t find comfort in the thin or hardness that he felt beneath him, maybe he was just getting the wrong impression, he couldn’t see, maybe he was freaking himself out… or maybe desperation was seeping in and he wanted to pretend he knew where he was, but as he heard a long, low pitch beep, he knew he knew nothing about where he was. It was actually as he heard that beep that he realized he didn’t know anything at all.

Opening his eyes again, he felt resistance, mentally and physically. His eyelids stung as his lashes peeled apart, tears pooled in his eyes, and it took moments after his eyes were finally open to realize an image of any kind. As if dropping a print into developer and watching the image take form, he was finding that he wasn’t actually blind. He blinked again and again, each time getting an image faster and faster and more clear than before until finally he could see immediately.

He heard the low, slow beep again, tubes filled with unknown substances stuck into his arm, his chest, his neck, his back. He yanked them out, grabbing as many as he could at a time, his skin pulsed, but he knew he didn’t want those things in him.

The low beep continued, this time without a pause, but he ignored it—or rather, he didn’t even realize the sound was there.

Tossing his legs over the edge of the bed, he assumed since he could see, he could walk. Wrong assumption apparently as he stumbled over himself, weak in the knees, and fell to the floor with the echoing sound of his bed sliding against the floor, forcing wheels to move against the breaks. The IV was on the floor, clear liquid spilling on the floor, yet the curtains that surrounded his bed were left undisturbed.

Pressing his palms into his crown, hoping the dizziness would subside again. Instead he felt the burn in his throat as it rose, gasping and heaving until stomach acid splattered against the sterile, white tile.

He coughed, desperate for something to calm the burn in his mouth.

He ran his arm over his mouth, calming himself as he wiped the leftover dribbles from his lip before attempting to stand once more, this time more careful than the last and with a lot more success. Watching the ground so he wouldn’t step on anything slick, he took a stumbling step. He pulled the curtain open, slowly peering out, there were a number of other small units surrounded by curtains, he assumed it as lines of beds. A clipboard sat on the all just outside the curtain. Glancing at it, he saw the name Cradle, Aliss on the paper and assumed that as him.

He stepped out from behind the curtain. He passed curtained bed by curtained bed, stopping as he saw a nurse a few feet in front of him. He stared, but she wasn’t moving, she looked like she was in a hurry though, her hair as flying back like she was running, her back leg kicked in the air, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Aliss carefully walked closer, keeping an eye on her, waving his hand in front of her face, but there was nothing, no response. He looked passed her, there were more. An echo of low beeps echoed through the room in unison.

Aliss sped up as a bad feeling sunk into his skin. He wasn’t sure how well he could run, but something told him he needed to move faster. He tried not to look as images of red, pale skin, and sterile beds tried to slip into his eyes and catch his interest. If nothing else, the glimpses that he got were beginning to panic him more.

Come back to me—where am I? What was I doing? I know I know this!

As Aliss rounded the corner out of the room and ducked behind the door, the low, long pitch became higher and faster, he heard footsteps, he heard voices, and there was a change in the air, but he didn’t dare look back in that room, he already know the answer to the question; they were moving again.