The Accident
A gasp, followed by immediate burning coughs. My throat was extremely scratchy, and my chest ached painfully. There was extreme pain where my ribs were, and my entire body was fuzzy. My senses evaded me; everything was blurry, my hearing was fading in and out, and every breath I took seemed to be harder to grasp than the last.
I was lying on something soft, but it had a firmness to it that I couldn’t place. My head went side to side slowly as I did my best to gather my bearings. I could feel the cold of the wind more acutely, causing chills to run through my body. The cold air felt like something you’d feel being fresh out of the shower.
I looked to my left again, and everything was still just a blur of dull colors. Someone was there. I tried to reach out to them, and they glitched, replaced by a dark cave of some sort, fog surrounding everything, making it even harder to see. My hand flinched away. The image of the dark cave gone again, the person back in my midst. I looked to my right, and there was another person bustling about. The silence was deafening. Something was off. Why couldn’t I hear anything?
The only thing I seemed to be hearing was the sound of high-pitched ringing. I tried to reach out to them, too, wanting to be told something. Once again, a dark cave replaced them. A cold feeling washed over me, a bead of sweat forming at my hairline. My breathing picked up, unease settling in me. I wanted to scream. I took my hand back, slower than I thought. My limbs felt numb. There they were again. We were moving? What was...I couldn’t ask any more questions, as my mind went blank, and everything went dark.
Beep.....Beep....Beep....Beep....
Bright lights. The sound of beeping. The smell of cleaning products. The feel of extreme cold air. Everything was still blurry for a few seconds. The colors morphed into shapes, those shapes turned into figures, and then, within a few milliseconds, a clear picture of people filled my mind. There they were sitting in chairs across the room or beside the bed I lay in. I looked at my wrist, seeing the IV placed into my arm that led to the IV stand and heart monitor. I looked to my left a small plant sat on the bedside table. The flowers were dead.
“She’s awake,” a voice spoke, their words laced with joyful concern.
“Nurse!” someone called out, the sound making me cringe inward. Too Loud.Unpleasant.
I don’t....who are these people? I stared at them, my brows furrowed in confusion, my face pulled into a grimace as I looked at all the people near me. No one looked familiar. Why were they here? Why am I here? How did I get here? I tried to sit up, my arms weak, my back aching from lying on it so long, and my legs felt limp. I wiggled my toes and felt relief when they moved. Someone came to me to help me sit up.
The moment their warm hands touched my skin, they disappeared, a dark image replacing them. I was alone again. I was sinking. I reached my hand out, panic filling me, as I tried to swim upwards. Every scream allowed for more water to invade my lungs. Sputtering couches couldn’t save me. My body convulsed, air nowhere to be found.
A figure zoomed by me, freezing me in my torment. For a moment, my drowning had been forgotten, my mind only able to focus on the thing I thought I saw. The touch of something brushing my leg made me scream out, making me remember I was underwater and I was dying.
I sat up abruptly, my abdomen screaming in pain, my head pounding. The sound of the heart monitor was too loud, and the lights were too bright. Everything was too much. Sweat adorned every inch of my body, making my hair and clothes cling to me. My entire body shook, and the cold feeling never went away. I pulled the thin blanket over me more, every part of my body protesting.
“Nora?” someone questioned. Nora? Who was Nora? I tried to find who the voice belonged to. I had done this already. I had woken up. I had heard the beeping of the monitor. Saw that I was connected to an IV. Remembered the faces of the unfamiliar people.
“Nurse!” Deja Vu filled me, a shiver wracking my entire body. I’d done this already, no? I went to speak, but nothing came out. My throat was dry and felt scratchy. The moment I noticed the sensation, a burning feeling filled my throat. I need water. I looked around, trying to find a source of water. Those few seconds felt like minutes, the burning sensation only getting worse. It was like every sense I had was connected to that one burning feeling.
My skin felt dry and cracked, and I looked at my hand, noticing how pale my skin looked. Between my fingers had turned white from dryness. The door of the room opened, and in came a man wearing black scrubs with a white scrub jacket over him. He walked toward the edge of my bed and checked my IV drip.
He handed me a cup, and I took it without hesitation. I peered inside the cup, seeing a clear liquid, and immediately downed it. The water ran down my throat, easing the burn, and in the same breath, made my skin feel rejuvenated. My skin was still overly pale, but the ash I thought I saw was gone.
“Welcome back...again, Vanora. How are you feeling?” his deep voice reached my ears, lower than I’m sure he was speaking. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I couldn’t find the words. Something was wrong. I looked around the room again, counting the number of people who had been in here before the doctor showed up. Five. Three women and two men. They all looked worried. Their relief was evident, but their concern was never-ending.
“Hello?” the doctor questioned, waving a hand in my face that startled me. It didn’t look right. I turned to him, my eyes slightly wide. I glanced at his hand only to see that it was completely normal.
“How are you feeling?” he asked again, his eyebrows tilted in as he too started to feel worried. I opened my mouth again to speak. “I-” That was all I was able to get out before the flash of an image replaced the bright room. It was fleeting. There one moment, gone the next. I blinked a few times. I swallowed harshly, as my eyes went between the doctor and the unknown people.
“Why am I here?” My voice was timid, a meek whisper underlined by something undefined. It could be the rasp of having a dry throat for so long. Why had my throat been dry in the first place? Why am I even here? Who are these people? Something wasn’t right.
“You don’t remember?” someone spoke up. I looked at them, the source of the voice. Black hair, grey eyes, frail body. I looked to the doctor for help. Remember what? My heart began to speed up, the sound of the heart monitor alerting everyone.
Beep...Beep...Beep...
“Remember?” I repeated. “Who are you?” I asked. This was too much. What is happening? I don’t understand.
“Vanora, calm down. That is why I am here. It seems you’ve experienced an extreme case of amnesia,” the doctor spoke calmly. Amnesia? Vanora is what he’s been calling me. Is that my name? I looked back at the man standing beside me, waiting for him to explain.
“There was an accident,” he said. A flash of bright sky and blue water. “The waves changed suddenly, and there was no way for anyone to know what would happen.” Sucked in, the water crashing over me, over and over and over again. Drowning me, pushing me deeper and deeper into the deep sea. “You were rescued but unconscious and not breathing.”
I couldn’t scream—images of being stuck in the dark water, surrounded by nothing.
The feeling of the water entering my lungs caused my chest to burn. “You were dead for five minutes before paramedics arrived on the scene.” Silence. Darkness and silence ensued. No sounds, nothing to see, nothing to touch, just pitch black.
“You were in a coma for two weeks. You woke up and went back to sleep. It’s been two months since then. These people are your family.” Family? I looked at them again as they all stared at me with saddened looks. The man beckoned them over to get closer.
“This is your mother, Idina.” Blonde hair, blue eyes, short and stubby frame.
“This is your father, Sander.” Tall, brown hair, brown eyes.
“Your grandmother, Esmeralda.” The woman I noticed first. Frail, black hair, grey eyes.
“Your older sister, Margelisa.” Dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, petite, kind of tall.
“And this is your uncle, Anderson.” Tall, brown hair, brown eyes. A replica of my ‘father’.
“How could she not remember?”Idinaasked the doctor. Her voice was broken, tears in her eyes, as well as everyone else’s.
“We’ll have to run some tests, but being clinically dead for five minutes before receiving proper help and managing to be in two comas, no matter how long, can do a lot to a person. I will not lie...this will be a tough time for you all. It seems she doesn’t remember anything, not even who she is as a person...” He droned on, and I felt tired. Unable to sit up anymore and keep my eyes open, I lay back and went to sleep. Maybe everything will make sense in the morning.
