Maybe God sent him down here to bring me to heaven.
But if I'm really dead, then where is Mommy?
And Damien?
My angel is running. I roll my eyes to the right and there is a nurse next to me and she's running too. Her white nurses cap bobs up and down on her head as she runs, her red curls bouncing beneath her cap. Then it hits me. I'm on a gurney. I'm not back at Oakhill am I?
Nausea circles the pit of my stomach. Please don't let that be where I am.
No.
I can't be back there.
I can't be.
I know this because I felt like I was running in the forest, dodging trees and my own screwed up hallucinations for days. Maybe even weeks. And I know I can't possibly be back because I've never seen either one of the people on my sides rolling me down the hall at Oakhill and I know every person in that horrible place.
“Get a crash cart ready!” my angel shouts. “Where's Dr. Pizzuto?”
“Here.” There's
another deep voice added to the equation and it’s followed by the shuffling of papers. “What's the diagnosis?”
“She was hit by a car and sustained a number of injuries. Fractured arm. Broken ribs. She's bleeding internally. It's a miracle she's alive. She was already severely dehydrated and there's nothing in her stomach. I don't think she's eaten or drank anything in at least a week. There are also cuts on her feet that are infected.”
“You've done a good job assessing the patient, Elijah. You'll make a fine surgeon someday.” He pauses. “How did she get here?”
More papers shuffling. More shouting. “Prep OR two!”
“We need to open her up and cauterize the bleeding site in her stomach. If we don't she'll bleed out.”
“Tell me how she got here?” the second doctor repeats his previous question.
“The couple who hit her dropped her off at the door.”
“And they didn't even bother to stay to see if she'd live?”
“No, sir. One of the nurses who retrieved her suspected that they had been drinking. They claim she just ran out of the forest and stopped in front of their car.”
The tiny bit of strength I had gives out and my eyelids drop down. I try to open them again, but I’m too weak to even do that. I can still hear all these voices echoing around me. I don't know where I am or what's going on. I have the vague notion that I'm in a hospital, but the last few months have been a blur. I've been tranquilized to the point where I've felt like a robot and I can't be sure of anything anymore.
Frantic shouts are everywhere combined with loud footsteps. There must be several people in the room. A woman shouts, “Page the anesthesiologist!”
All of the commotion is messing with my head. It's like I’m here in the moment but really, not. It's almost like I'm standing off to the side somewhere, but I've been blindfolded and I'm only able to hear and not see.
Open your eyes again! Look around!
I keep yelling at myself, but no part of my brain seems to want to obey.
I wish someone would remove the blindfold. I wish someone would fill me in on the certainty of my situation and let me discover where I really am and not allow me to assume it on hunch.
Someone hovers over me, peering down at me. I can't bring myself to open my eyes, but I can feel their body heat and behind my eyelids I can see their body casting a shadow over me. “Does anybody know her name?”
My angel speaks. “No.” His deep voice is somber. “She had no identification on her. She was dressed in a hospital gown when she was dropped her off. Until we can actually speak to her, we have no way of knowing who she really is, so we've listed her as Jane Doe.”
The person still hovers above me and I swear I can feel his eyes as they scan my face. “What the hell were you running from, young lady?”
I can't say anything, but if I could I'd tell him this; if you spent months in the place where I was, watching people die and fade away into nothing…