Chapter 3
281 Words
3
Meanwhile, me.
Rushed to a London hospital and immediately pumped full of drugs.
Drugs that made me hallucinate. Drugs that kept me in this kind of twilight sleep, never really dreaming, never really awake, but just floating in this sort of sick haze, unable to swim my way to the top of it or force it out of my system. My brain was gooey. Muddled. Limp and useless.
“Halli?” I could hear Daniel saying to me, and if no one was around, “Audie?” I tried to form his name, but it was too hard. My mouth felt too heavy. I don’t think I even got the D out.
Then other voices—Jake, other people—all of them shouting “Halli,” trying to get me to answer, but I was too deep and far away. And why come back when it was all so noisy? What I needed was quiet. And for someone to come dig me out. To grab me by the hair and keep me from sinking further into the deep. To sweep away all the haze and the gunk, and help me clear out my mind again.
“She needs rest,” I heard a woman say. “Miss Markham needs her rest. Clearly she’s exhausted.”
No, Miss Markham needs to find the real Miss Markham. Miss Markham is Audie Masters. She’d like to go home now. Her mother brought her some soup. She was just about to see her mother when suddenly Jake and Sarah and that reporter burst into the room and ruined everything. Now where am I? What have you done with her? With me? What’s happening?
“Audie,” Daniel whispered. “We’re doing everything we can. I hope you can hear me.”
I can. I could. Then it was back into the deep dark void for me.
- Writer
