Page 12 of Courageous Yearnings

I gotta get out of here she thought in a horrified panic, completely disoriented because the boxes she had been packing were stacked haphazardly around the room, creating obstacles in the pitch-blackness around her.

She tried to take a breath and only ended up coughing again, pausing for a moment as the severity of the cough was nearly debilitating and burned painfully. I really can’t breathe!

Blythe tried to reach the bedroom doorway, only to come up against a wall. Her hands searching, feeling for a seam in the suffocating blackness she was engulfed in, she was trying not to panic and keep a cool head – while failing miserably.

Oh my gosh. I’m gonna die in this place.

A corner.

She found the corner of the room, but not the bedroom door yet. Whimpering, she moved, retracing the progress she’d made on her knees and feeling frantically along the wall as she shuffled along, searching and coughing.

Another corner?

Sobbing, frantic, and struggling for air, she was quickly growing hysterical because she didn’t know if she was on the west wall of the bedroom or the east wall, and she could feel this crushing mental fog dragging her down from the lack of oxygen.

Hurriedly, she scrambled erratically along the wall once more, feeling desperate and nearly drooling with the painful efforts to suck in something that would feed the burning need of her body, only to reach the window ledge as she collapsed.

Blythe felt something move her, but she was so out of it she couldn’t focus. Her lungs were on fire, she felt like she was drowning, and the only thing her mind could seem to focus on was a feeling of regret – a blinding, encompassing regret for so many different things.

She coughed raggedly, unable to drag herself back through the layers of consciousness. It was almost like she was bobbing like one of those fishing floats on the water, submerging, then popping up, only to get yanked down once more.

“Blythe?”

Oh gosh… that voice. She knew that voice. Was she dead, and this is what heaven felt like? Was she about to meet some distant family member or be reunited with an old friend?

Was it supposed to be hurting?

“Get her to the ambulance…”

Ambulance?

Nope. Not dead yet, thank you, God.

“I don’t know how much smoke she inhaled…”

A voice was speaking nearby, and while Blythe couldn’t speak, mentally she was screaming. Lots of smoke, okay? Like twenty packs of cigarettes within ten minutes – or what I imagine it would feel like. Does anyone have an oxygen tank handy?

Yet, she felt strangely safe in a very weird way. Her head was lolling, and she knew someone was carrying her, but she couldn’t quite pull herself out of the fog. It was like she felt drugged, so blessedly tired, yet the urge to cough was so bad that she couldn’t succumb to the blackness pulling at her consciousness.

“Hey,” a voice said gently, and she felt someone touch her cheek. “I’m here, and we’re going to get you some help… okay?”

She was lying on something and managed to turn toward that voice, needing to desperately, and felt herself sinking as all sorts of hands were touching her. People were talking over her in a jumbled yet foggy mess of words that weren’t making sense.

“Shhh… you’re going to be fine. I promise. You have to be, please.”

And she believed that voice, feeling lips touch her forehead and wondered if maybe she was following the wrong person. If it was an angel guiding her, was following him the incorrect thing to do if she still wanted to live? She was so confused, disoriented, and tired.

“Get some rest, Blythe. They are going to take good care of you – and then we’re going to talk. I promise.”

She felt someone looping something over her ears and sticking something in her nose while another person was obviously taking her blood pressure. A cuff was on her arm and tightening painfully, and she heard a door slam as the vehicle started moving… and it clicked. She recognized that voice from a few moments ago.

“Laaaan…ce?” she whispered, her voice hoarse and barely audible. It hurt so much to even utter that word, but she could have sworn that he’d been here, but that had to be a dream, right?

“Hey miss… miss? We’re on our way to the ER right now, and I need to ask you a few questions. Can you hear me?” another voice was asking her. She wanted to yell at them to bring back her imaginary Lance because his voice was soothing - and this one was nasally and terse.

I wish he was here, she thought, letting herself slip into oblivion.

Blythe was in a cold room and shivered before cracking open a single eye and closing it again. She was so horrifically tired, and her entire chest just ached deeply in a way she’d never experienced before.

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