Chapter 14 Part 3

   She opened her eyes and squinted at the brightness that surrounded her and blinded her at the same time. Everything was bright in the way people that had come close to the brink of death said that everything is white and that you should walk into light when you died. She felt something hard and cold through her clothes, the surface she was on felt smooth and she quickly registered that as unusual but didn’t move right away as she tried to get her bearings.

“Am I dead?” she said in a small voice.

   The white borders began to fade away and darken becoming fuzzy at first but gradually growing more vivid as her vision cleared and became more focused. She was starting to make out shapes, other colours and could make out a wooden border and white laminate that was on what looked like doors directly in front of her low lids, the black red and white of the smooth floor beneath her. Sounds were dulled and mumbled reminding her of being underwater but that wasn’t what she cared about.

   She tried blinking hard and fast to help her eyes along but it didn’t seem to help, apparently they would do it in their own time. She squeezed her eyes shut tight as a shooting pain found its way from the base of her skull straight through the back of her head with a destination landing right between her eyes and didn’t that make her want to scream, but she caged it as her hands raced to her head. The pain went from a stabbing piercing pain to a pounding throb that threatened to make her sinuses crack in the blink of an eye. Literally…

   She kept her eye lids shut and held her breathe as the assault on her nerves began quiet down to a dull roar. Since she didn’t trust the light making it worse she stayed where she was, squinting hard every now and then as she tried to look around the room and not having much luck. She could feel the presence of the others around her but all that mattered at this point was trying to breathe through the pain and surprisingly enough a panicked thought coursed through her, how long had she been out?

  “What. Is familiar?”… She mumbled, her speech broken just as she realized she that she really wasn’t alone that there were others with her and she was grateful as the hands on her were trying to lift her up gently, she felt them on her forehead, her arms and her back to steady her. She was comforted by this and yet it felt unfamiliar that there her people touching her although at this moment everything felt unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. The pain in her head was preventing a coherent thought from breaking through.

It was incredibly disconcerting. 

    “Where am I?”…She continued to speak out loud hoping for an answer, any answer but the bodies around her kept talking over each other about doctors and water and taking it easy with her fragile body as well as snarking going on somewhere in the room about whose fault this was. 

    She tried to speak again. “What… happened?” Suddenly all there was around her was silence...for a half a second, then voices exploded, the volume cranked up a whole lot and that sent the pain screaming into her eyes so hard she gasped. It was a matter of everyone trying to speak all at once again so she raised a shaking hand, palm out to silence them all hoping that only one would speak to her and tell her what happened. After a minute of frustrating silence the pain in her head was finally starting to ebb and she felt the tension back off within her neck and shoulders. 

    A palm the size of a baseball mitt came into view of her squinted eyes and she slid her right hand into it without hesitation and tried to pull herself upright. Feeling the resistance and pain in the shoulder she must have landed on froze her for a moment and she sucked in a hiss at the same time. The palm she was holding gripped her firmly as well as waited patiently while she did the breathe in and breathe out thing.

    Trying to gauge her body she started from the bottom and wiggled her toes; once they proved to be mobile she managed little movements travelling up each of her muscles in her legs as she flexed them, then her torso and complete to the dull pounding in her head and yet still as everyone was talking over each other they did it at a quieter decibel this time. all of them talking... except for one. 

    The silence coming from one that was right now holding her hand in his steady grip. She held her breath and bent her legs underneath her rear end and resumed trying to sit up with the help of the big hand only having to pause again. There were too many things going on to the point where she felt the loss of control very unusual, tipping her off balance.

   Her struggle to find something familiar in the room seemed to be the only thing she could focus on but she couldn’t place the things around her. The pain was becoming less and less as it faded and her eyes finally responded by opening wide. She looked around and it was as if she dreamt that she had been here before or had a really bad case of déjà vu. Even though her eyes were back on line her ears didn’t seem to get the memo as the sounds fluctuated with the throbbing weaving in and out. Compared to the other noises in the room the warble in her ears was taking its sweet time going away, but she could hear dogs barking in the background through dense fabric wall the in her ears, like a fish bowl effect.  Yes underwater, her ears felt plugged wreaking havoc on her thoughts and mind as she tried to clear her brain.  

    Silently she begged for it all to stop as she took a bracing breath and finally got to her feet where another palm immediately held on to her elbow and she felt the hand on her back once more. Things didn’t make any sense this is not what she remembered, this isn’t where she remembered being. Fear speared through her that if nothing in this room looked familiar that something had changed.

  With her eyes on her feet, she caught sight of her dark hair and thought that it wasn’t right. Things were moving now squares of black, red and white passing under her bare feet as she was plunked down in a dark wooden chair. From out of nowhere a glass of water appeared in front of her, she gratefully wrapped her hands around it and pulled it to her lips and took a deep draw. When she looked up she was staring into the face of an old woman whose eyes were just as wide as the smile spread across her lips. She recognized her, inclined her head and gave the woman a curt nod before she looked around the room and noticed that the people in the room were in fact very, very familiar to her, except one and when she looked into his young eyes she couldn’t believe what she saw.

    Except for the eye colour he looked like a male version of herself. "I...I...don't understand..." she stuttered. confusion rocked through the bodies in the room. Gertie stood up and clapped her hands, her smile brighter than the sun as she turned to Dominic and hissed. "My Mistress has returned!"

Chase who had said nothing through the whole ordeal only said one thing now at the revelation.

"Fuck..."