Vale

Chapter Eleven: Rain

Rain woke up in a hospital bed. It was the least surprising thing that had happened to her in the past two days. She was hooked up to a couple different machines that measured various things she wasn't very interested in. Her mom was fast asleep in an uncomfortable hospital chair and a rerun of some outdated family sitcom was muted on the TV hanging from the wall.

Rain tried to sit up, but the throbbing in her stomach prevented her from moving. She felt gauze under her hospital gown, covering the stab wound that Arreon had given her. Maybe that was proof enough that she had somehow traveled to an alternate reality where people lived in mud huts or huge castles.

Or maybe she actually had been in a drug induced coma for the past few days. She had had pretty vivid dreams before. It wasn't a long shot that her messed-up mind came up with a strange fairytale land.

"Mom?" Rain's voice was no more than a croak. She took a sip from a glass of water that was set on the nightstand next to the hospital bed. "Mom?" This time her voice was stronger.

Rain's mom, Willow, woke up instantly. She was a woman of only thirty-four, but at that moment Rain thought she looked sixty. Willow had deep rings under her eyes and Rain could tell that she had been crying from the smudged mascara.

"Oh, honey," Willow cried. She was up out of the chair and planting kisses all over her daughter's face in an instant, her frizzy auburn hair getting stuck in Rain's mouth. "I was so worried!"

Rain let her mother pod her. She could imagine that Willow must have been through hell, though Rain wasn't really sure if it compared to what she had been through. "What happened?" she finally asked after her mother had sat back down.

"You were in a car accident, sweetie, on Highway 34. You were going too fast and your car flipped over into the forest." Willow handed Rain a pudding cup and a disposable spoon that was sitting on the nightstand. "You don't remember?"

Rain tried to think back as she tore the aluminum off of the pudding. She didn't remember much from that day. She drove to school and made it there safely. Then she left school early, but highway 34 was in the opposite direction of her house. Where had she been going? "No," she finally said.

"There was a witness," Willow went on. "She had pulled over and was cleaning it out when she saw you driving down the road. She said it was like you didn't even see her car until the last second."

"I-I don't remember." Rain turned her attention to the pudding and devoured it, not really tasting it.

"There was a search party combing the forest looking for you," Willow continued. "Apparently you were passed out under a bush when they found you."

Rain just nodded and stared at the wall thinking that it was entirely possible, and easier to digest, that she dreamed up her whole experience in Burn. So it wasn't due to a coma. That didn't mean anything. Trauma to the head could easily be blamed.

"When did they find me?" she asked.

Willow got out of her chair and paced the room, avoiding eye contact. Rain could tell that her mother was trying not to cry.

"A couple hours ago," she said as her voice wavered. "They think that after the accident someone must have found you..."

Rain closed her eyes. She wasn't prepared for this. She was determined to believe the dream she had was drug induced. She was supposed to have been at the hospital for the past two days. But, what if she was so traumatized by whoever had taken her...What if it had been a coping mechanism? "Mom..." she said, not wanting to believe it.

"I'll go to the cafeteria and get you some dinner," Willow said, ignoring Rain. "I'm just glad you're safe." She smiled sadly and then left the room.