Awakening

Darkness.

Blinding lights.

Vague shadows moving across a blurry white background.

The steady beating of machines.

Then…

Open.

At first everything seemed blurry, indistinct patches of light and dark shifting into and out of my vision. Then shapes appeared, and the world around me resolved into a scene both easily recognisable but completely unfamiliar.

I was in a hospital bed. The room around me was sparsely furnished, and mine was the only bed in it. There was a potted plant sitting across from me, standing atop a low wooden dresser on the wall opposite to me. Turning to my left I noticed a small cloth armchair beside my bed, standing between it and the room’s single window. The blinds were drawn, leaving only a small gap that was difficult to see through from my angle, but it was clear that the window took up almost all of the left wall. A thin beam of white light shined across the room ahead of me, wavering, as if unsure if it should be there or not.

I started suddenly as I heard the click of a door handle, and I swivelled my head to find the room’s door swinging open on the far right. I could feel my pulse quicken and my heart begin pounding at the unexpected noise. Calm down, I thought to myself as a woman stepped through the entrance and started towards me. She was wearing a set of blue medical scrubs and she smiled kindly at me as she made her way across the room.

“Good to see that you’re awake, love,” she said as she lifted up a clipboard at the foot of my bed. I hadn’t noticed that earlier. I nodded mutely as she glanced at the clipboard and then back at me. There was a slight crease between her eyebrows for a moment, then it was gone and her expression returned to what seemed more and more to its default cheery state.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, but it felt as if there was something more behind that question than just politeness. I bit down on my lower lip and shrugged.

“I’m feeling fine,” I said, raising what I hoped was a smile on my face. I felt sluggish, as if my muscles had decided they were tired and didn’t want to fully wake up today. Coordination felt a bit strange too. “What am I doing here?”

The nurse (she seemed to be acting as one, and had the right uniform on besides) nodded at me. “You’ve been in a coma, dear. It’s been two weeks already, so it’s good to hear that you’re feeling okay.”

She took the seat at my beside before continuing. “Now, I know this might sound silly, but could you tell me your full name and your birthdate?”

I felt the corners of my lips twitch upwards slightly at that. A wave of laughter rippled through me - I managed to keep it silent but it would’ve probably been pretty obvious to her. She smiled patiently as she waited for my response.

“Yes that’s alright, that’s completely fine,” I said, composing myself. The nurse nodded encouragingly at me to go on. I straightened up in my bed, shaking my head as I firmed my lips together to stop myself from giggling. What was that? It was unexpected, though I suppose it shouldn’t really have been, but either way it definitely wasn’t of the humour-esque variety. The nurse slapped a hand to her forehead suddenly and looked sheepishly at me.

“Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Louise. I’m the nurse who’s in charge of looking after you and making sure you’re all fully recovered before we let you go home. It’s nice to meet you.”

She brushed a lock of hair aside and I saw the name tag it had hidden behind it. LOIUSE GORDON, RN, it read. Then on the next line, in regular writing; Registered Nurse. I grinned back at her and held out my hand.

“Nice to meet you Louise. My name is Cecilia Wang, and my birthday is on the 17th of September,” I said. I realised I hadn’t said which year I was born in, but I figured that this would be all they needed from me anyhow.

“It’s a pleasure, Cecilia.”

Louise was pretty, I thought. She looked like she was somewhere in her late twenties, with long, flowing black hair that went all the way down to her middle back, waving a little in the slight breeze coming in from the window. Her figure was slender in a way that most people would probably find alluring, and she had on a pair of small dolphin earrings which I found endlessly cute. I spent a brief moment wondering what I looked like right now and my mind drew a blank. Guess I wasn’t great at visualising then. Her voice floated up at me and I snapped out of it.

“Do you remember how you got into your accident?” Louise asked. I shook my head.

Accident? I guess that explains why I was in a coma. Was two weeks a long time to spend in a coma? I wasn’t sure. Louise nodded and noted it down on the clipboard.

“That’s alright,” she said. “It’ll probably come back to you soon enough. I’ll let you know now so you won’t be in for a shock later, but two weeks ago you were involved in a car accident.”

I nodded. That seemed to track. I mean, car accidents happen frequently enough, right? And they were definitely more than enough to be able to send people into a coma. Probably. Louise glanced back up at me.

“What’s the last thing that you remember, dear?” she said.

“Ummm…”

I thought back to the first thing I thought of when I awoke. Had I been remembering something from before my accident? I couldn’t remember. I frowned and kept searching through my mind. I mean, worst comes to worst, anything would do right? So long as it wasn’t too far away from the time of the accident, in which case it would prove that my memory was intact. This situation felt so familiar I almost had to laugh. But why did it feel like that? I’m sure I had never been in a coma before. Probably from a show somewhere, I figured, though I couldn’t remember which. I shook my head. These thoughts were not helpful.

“Sorry… just trying to find something, haha”

A worried look entered Louise’s eyes. I ignored it and tried to smile.

“Aha ha, umm…. errrr…”

I tried not to panic as a deep sense of dread rose up within me. This couldn’t be happening, could it? I felt my breathing grow rapid and I worked to slow it down before speaking. This really couldn’t be happening. There’s no way. I glanced towards Louise, who was looking increasingly more concerned. I tried a reassuring laugh, but it made me feel even worse. I swallowed before I spoke.

“I don’t remember anything,” I said.