As You Were Read Online Free Page B

way to the warmth of the hospital lobby. “Okay,” he said evenly. “But I left the motor running. I need to go park my car. I’ll be right back.” He started for the mechanical doors, his rubber soles screaking on the linoleum with each step.
    He did not return.
    The fog...a mass of suspended murk, solid to her attempts toward escape; yielding, as it enveloped her, teasing her consciousness. The question, Where am I? broke from her lips, but its sound was caught in the undulant haze. She stretched out her hands and felt nothing but the cool mist, and a panic swelled inside her. Let me out! she screamed. Help me! Someone...please help me...
    It seemed she wandered in the fog for hours. Days. Then finally, the fog drifted away from her, leaving in its place a murky void. She lifted her palms toward her face—
    Her eyelids lifted, as the fog dissipated. No darkness...white, now, only white; her mind a labyrinth of thoughts and meanings, colored by a need for reason, as if flung from one world to another. Gradually, her senses gained control of her emotions. Walls. The white is on the walls. The walls are in a room. I am in the room. A white room—
    She wanted water, but again, her throat failed her. It seemed she had blinked the void gone, like Samantha on Bewitched, and she was left alone in the white room. Bewitched? She didn’t know what her brain meant, now. Her arm came into view. Wasn’t it her arm? An I.V. needle taped onto the top of her hand faded into her awareness, as did the plastic tube under her nose, its two rubbery prongs a mild assault on her nostrils. The cold, overly pure air from them incited a need to yank the contraption away from her face, but she could not get the message through to her hand. Unless it wasn’t her hand.
    She wanted to sit up; her tongue pushed at her arid lips. Her mouth tasted... old? She wanted to brush her teeth. She concentrated. Lifting a trembling hand, she tried to pull the tubing from her nose, and was prevented by the clipped plastic object on her finger. She rubbed her finger against her side, knocking the clip off her finger, and a nearby machine began to beep. She glanced at it. Lights. Moving lines. Dials . She dragged the rubber prongs from her nostrils and let her hand rest on her chest. The air smelled of disinfectant.
    She breathed cautiously at first, like some wayward astronaut stepping from the ship on some unfamiliar planet. Then she tried to relax into it. Stretching her body, she found that it ached all over; a sudden movement caused a hundred muscles to scream, but she managed to lift her hand again, touch her cheek. Cold and clammy. Her fingers trailed upward to something thick, a bandage, she assumed, on her head. I’ve hit my head is all...soon I’ll remember what happened and I’ll go home.
    Even as she thought it, she knew it would not be that simple.
    Some thud from her right. Movement. A voice interrupted her confusion.
    “Well hello there...”
    A woman’s face. Fog again... void. Fading back to white. Woman gone now. Fog. No... white again.
    “Ah, welcome back,” the new voice said. “How do you feel?”
    Her eyes went to the voice. The voice is white like the walls. The voice wears white. The voice is a man.
    He placed fingers in her palm. “Can you squeeze my fingers?”
    She blinked at him. Fingers?
    “Can you squeeze my fingers?” he asked again, tapping her palm.
    She squeezed.
    “Good.” He reached over to her other hand and did the same. “Now on this side?”
    She squeezed . Why did he want me to squeeze his fingers?
    “Good. You’re in the hospital, young lady. You were in an accident, but you’re going to be fine. I’m Doctor Armstrong.”
    Hos...pital...a...strong arm? There was reason to it, but what did it mean? Strong arm, like— An image came to her of a box of baking soda, with the proverbial arm and hammer. Something, some entity in her brain, seemed amused, and she stilled it to concentrate again on the words.