ＤＩＳＴＯＲＴＥＤ voices rang through my ears. I could feel their presence, looming over me with their grief-stricken tones. A warm hand hovered over my forehead, retracting quickly after a second of contact with my skin.
"She's still burning. Even after three weeks." One of the voices confirmed. Burning? I wanted to ask. I tried to part my lips. But I couldn't.
"What are we going to do?" The other replied.
"I don't know. The doctors aren't even sure when she'll wake up this time." This time? I wanted to question. Yet I couldn't.
"Are they ever?" The first, deeper voice answered, bitterness filled her rhetorical question.
"I think we might have to consider it this time."
"I know..." They both sighed, "I don't trust that woman, but I know."
"We don't have a choice. She nearly took out half the school this time. We can't pretend everything is normal."
The voices were fading. I struggled, trying to speak, trying to ask, trying to question everything they had spoken about right over me, as if I didn't exist, as if I couldn't possibly understand. I tried to move, to open my eyes. But no matter how much I tried, I couldn't.
Soon, the room was silent again. And so was I.
❧
The voices were back again. This time, there was a new voice added to the low echoing symphony of whispered conversations.
"Are you reconsidering my offer?" This voice held an air of calm nonchalance.
The other two sighed, yet neither agreed nor disagreed.
"Here's our card. Contact us if you change your mind." The voice added in a strangely sincere tone, "We can help. Trust me."
A soft click of the door and the fading clacking of a pair of heels brought an end to the conversation.
More sighs. More silence. The voices began to dim. A faint incessant buzzing took its place. I was only able to make out one last sentence.
"Should we? Trust her?"
I never heard the answer to her question.
❧
He placed his forehead on mine, getting ready to repeat the same lie. None of us believed it yet he told us anyway.
"You don't have to worry, honey. Everything will be okay."
The sound of a passcode being accepted interrupted his words. It was now my mother's turn to attempt to cease my tears. She kissed my forehead before looking directly in my eyes.
"We love you, Emmy. Never forget that." She said, her hands placed firmly on my small shoulders, she brought her lips close to my ears before saying the last words I would ever hear from her: "We're so sorry."
I didn't have a second to question the sudden yet brief feeling of a needle in my neck before I was pushed into a small metallic room. The door shut behind me. I banged on the door, I cried, I begged, but they wouldn't answer the confused pleas of a frightened six year old. Maybe I couldn't hear their answers. Or they couldn't hear me. I tried again. Still silence. And again. And again. It didn't matter anymore.
All I got was the faint buzz of silence.
And the faint buzz of beeping.
And then just beeping.
It was getting louder.
And louder.
And louder.
"What's going on?" A familiar voice asks.
And louder.
"She's waking up!"
I gasped. My eyelids flipped open. I blinked once. Twice.
I was awake.
Finally.