What Makes Life Worth Living

Chapter 1: Shock

Pain.

At first it was all I could register.

A pounding, sharp pain in my head, as if someone was performing a violently powerful drum solo using my skull as the instrument.

As I started coming more into consciousness I managed to pinpoint where the worst throbbing was coming from.

Like most of my fellow students, I was used to getting various headaches from either stress, staring at a computer screen all day or the occasional binge drinking. I could vaguely remember an article I had read about the location of headaches and the cause, something I had decided to skim through when a particularly intense migraine had come my way. Plus I had been bored.

And right now the painful hammering at the back of my head was telling me Nothing.At.All.

I tried opening my eyes only to be momentarily blinded by some extremely white lights around me.

I groaned as the pain seemed to worsen wondering what the heck had happened.

"Ana!", I heard someone shouting besides me which worsened my headache again. "Nurse! Nurse she's awake!"

"Please wait while I go get the doctor", the sound of heals clicking on the floor started slowly fading away.

"Honey can you hear me? Please talk to me."

I tried opening my eyes again and this time the lighting was slightly more bearable. I turned my head sideways, my head still hurting like hell, and squinted my eyes, trying to view something through that harsh lighting. "..mom?", I murmured, my voice sounding hoarse and my throat feeling dry as if I hadn't drank any water for days.

My mom, a short and plump women in her 50's , was sitting besides me and holding my hands. Her face was contorted in great worry and her eyes were brimmed red, as if she had been crying for a long time. At the sound of my voice some of the worry on her face seemed to disappear and she smiled brightly towards me.

"Ohhh thank god", she exclaimed, "I was so worried for you Ana. You fainted in the middle of class and have been unconscious since." She then brought one of her hands to my face, gently caressing my cheek as if she was reassuring herself that I was now awake.

Class? I vaguely remember attending Mr. Collins course on Green's Theorem and feeling faint throughout it. Seemed like I lost consciousness at one point. I remembered that my class was at 10' in the morning and, judging by how parched my throat was and the insistent rumbling of my stomach, it looked like some time had passed since then.

"How long was I out?", I managed to ask my mom.

A sob seemed to try and escape her mouth as she answered, "You've been unconscious for 6 hours honey. Your dad and I were so scared, we -", her words sounded constricted, "we had no idea when you would wake up again and neither did the doctors. If - if you hadn't woke up I don't know what we would have done.", her gaze reflected how scared she had been of losing me. I squeezed her hand to try and reassure her.

"Don't worry mom, I'm okay now. I'm sure I just fainted because I didn't get enough sleep and food lately. It's nothing serious.", I smiled to try and show her everything was alright even if I had no idea myself.

I shifted and tried to touch my head with my other hand to understand why the hell it was still hurting so much.

"Careful!", said my mom stopping from touching the back of my head, "you hit your head pretty hard against a desk when fainting, and while it did not require stitches you've gotten yourself a pretty big bump, so you shouldn't touch your head too much or it will hurt even more. When the nurse comes back we can ask her to bring us some ice to put on you."