“She’s not in there, man,” Mike said. “And if she was, she’s not gonna come to the surface for you.”
“Oh, I see, so you think she’ll wake suddenly to your soft, whispering confessions of love, do you?” Mr Smooth said sarcastically. “Do you have any idea what she and I—”
“Stop it. Both of you,” a woman said. “It’s three o’clock. Take yourselves home and get some sleep.”
“Fine,” Mike said.
“Fine,” the other man said, and I heard his breath, felt it suddenly close to my face, though there was no one in this room. I held my own breath, scrunching my eyes. “Ara?”
But before I had a chance to answer him again, the surface quaked suddenly under me, my legs tilting through the earth, angling my entire body away from existence. I reached out, panicked, grabbing at imaginary branches as my head followed my feet, sliding downward. There was no wind and no trees for which to show my descent, but I felt it—felt the earth rising up under me.
I tensed all over, ready to hit the surface, but nothing ever came—only the emptiness of my eternal, hollow Hell.
I didn’t bother to cry this time as the darkness swallowed me, and hope had been lost so long that I’d never truly allowed it back in. I simply existed. In the dark. Alone. My body alive out there somewhere, an empty vessel in their living world, while my soul was slowly dying beneath it.
* * *
“I don’t know. She’s struggling to breathe.”
I frowned, clearly having woken to the middle of a conversation.
“I know,” Mike said. “They’re gonna put her on a breathing thing.”
The smooth voice sighed. “I don’t want that for her—she’s been through enough.”
“I know, mate, but it’s for the best.” Mike’s warm energy emanated from his voice somewhere near. I wished I could feel him, like, actually touch him. “I can’t lose her. I’d rather see her with a tube down her throat than in a coffin.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little selfish—prolonging her life merely to save your own grief?”
“Only as selfish as to wish she’d die so you don’t have to wonder where she is, what she’s doing, for the rest of your life,” Mike spat.
“You know nothing about what I wish for this girl,” his smooth voice cracked like a volcano erupting. I could hear the rumble of anger raging too close to the threshold of release. “If I could heal her, I would, but you don’t know what she may be suffering in this sleep, Mike. For all we know she’s—”
“She’s unconscious. She suffers nothing.”
All was silent until the smooth voice said flatly, “You don’t know that.”
“Look—” Mike said; I could imagine him rubbing his face roughly in the pause that followed. “We’re getting off track. Right now, what’s best for her is—”
“For us to let her go. Stop sticking needles and tubes in her, trying to make her body live a little longer. She’s gone.” I felt something touch my head. “Her body is the only thing left of her.”
“She might still recover,” Mike offered.
“Recover?” his voice pitched high. “Look at her—does she look like she’s going to recover?”
“Stop yelling.” Mike’s tone of reason made my heart soar with desire to be on the receiving end of one of his lectures. “If they hear you, they’ll make you leave. One at a time in here, remember?”
There was a short pause. “It’s five in the morning. Technically, it’s my shift.”
“Don’t start this again, Da—”
“Look, I’m not saying you have to go, just—” Suddenly, my hand returned—just my hand, with a sharp, cold sensation travelling right through each bone in my fingers. I tensed. It hurt, like holding onto ice or snow a little too long. “Just don’t talk hope, okay? I can’t bear to even hope.”
The silence lingered a while, and all I could focus on was the deep burn of cold in my bones. I wanted to push it away—to make it stop. It branched out from my wrist, slowly trembling up my arm and along my collarbones. I tried to hold my breath, but my lungs weren’t there, a hollow void occupying my chest instead.
“Maybe you should take a walk. You look…stressed,” Mike said.
“You’re right. I’ve been here too long. I’m losing my mind, I—” The cold in my hand suddenly came away, replaced by a warm touch that melted the chill left behind. I knew it was Mike. I remembered touching him once, but not the reason why. I wondered if we were friends or if he loved me maybe. Whatever the reason we’d touched, I liked it. I wanted him to know I could feel him; wanted him to know that, despite the fact that I couldn’t talk to him, I was still here. Somehow, I was still here.
“Is she…smiling?” Mike’s voice peaked on the edge of excited curiosity.
“It means nothing,” said the smooth voice. “It’s just a muscle reflex.”
“No,” Mike said. “No, she is smiling.”
The smooth voice sighed.
“I’m here, baby girl. I’m here,” Mike whispered in my ear, the warmth of his breath brushing against my hair. It was pleasant—not at all like the cold that had brought me back into reality.
But though the cold was gone, I stayed, in my mind—aware, in this consciousness—surrounded by the black pit of nothing. I could even smell him now—Mike; he smelled like…a feeling. Like…home.
I wanted to go home. Wanted to be like Dorothy and find my magic slippers—wish my way back. I shut my eyes tight and imagined them. Red ones, like the movie, not silver, like the book, and clicked my heels together, repeating the words Dorothy used as a spell to get home.
“What’s she saying?” asked the smooth stranger.
“Something about...?” Mike paused, then repeated my words. My words. They could hear me.
“Do you think she’s dreaming?” Mike asked.
“Perhaps. Or trying to find her way home,” Mr Smooth suggested.
I tried harder, cupping imaginary hands tightly together, praying he’d hear me again.
“Look at her skin.” A hand fell on my brow, a warm one. “She’s pale. Do you think she’s turni—?”
Silence.
An empty chill stole the hum of the world and a flat, dense darkness consumed my hope, like a vacuum sucking a hole in my belly.