Page 106 of Dissent

Beep…beep…beep…

Falling backwards, the sensation of my flesh being torn apart, death.

My eyes flew open as I inhaled sharply, my hands flying to my stomach where I remembered feeling the bullet dive deep into my body. But the sudden movement sent a sharp pain up my left arm, causing me to yelp.

“No, no, no! Easy now.”

The voice startled me as I turned my head toward it. A woman wearing a white shirt and pants with a white hat bearing a red cross was at my side. She gave me a warm smile as she placed a gentle hand on me, pushing me to lower my left arm.

“Stay calm, and try not to move this arm. You sprained your shoulder.” She looked away, turning to face the monitor next to me. I realized this was the thing making all that incessant beeping. She looked at me again. “Do you remember your name?”

“What?” I scanned my surroundings. I was in a bed, and the room I was in was white and sterile looking. A metal sink was in the corner, and a white dresser with a small table and two chairs sat on the opposite side.

“Your name. Can you tell me your name?”

I looked back at her. “Mara. My name’s Mara.” I noticed beside her was a stand with two IV bags hanging from it, tubes going down, curving up onto the bed, and attached to a needle nestled in the crook of my arm. “Where am I? What happened?”

The woman gave me a reassuring smile, putting a hand to my forehead, as though she were checking to see if I was feverish. “My name’s Alma. I’m your nurse.” Pleased, she drew her hand back and walked over to the foot of my bed, pulling out a tablet that she started typing into. “As for where you are, you’re in a hospital in the North.”

“The North?” How? What happened? I must have spoken the latter aloud because the nurse responded.

“I don’t really know. I’m just medical staff. But from what I’ve been told, you almost died. I don’t know what you were doing, but you showed up with quite a few injuries.”

My mind raced as I pulled the memories up one by one, and then I remembered the rooftop. “I died?”

She put the tablet back down in its holder hanging from the bed and crossed her arms. “Sort of. You slipped on us a few times, but we were able to keep you here. That gunshot wound was no joke. You lost a lot of blood, not to mention you had an infection starting on all of those…” She faltered, her nose wrinkling before she managed a relaxed expression on her face once more. “Those marks on your back.”

I barely noticed her struggle. I just kept thinking about the fact that I almost died. That someone had shot me. “Am I going to be okay?”

She waved me off now, walking to the other side of my bed to check a different set of monitors. “You’re going to be fine now that you’re awake. You’ve been healing well…quickly, actually. But it’s going to be a lot of rest for you. You’re just so lucky that the gunshot missed all of your organs. It just flew through you.”

I shook my head, everything feeling foggy. “You said that I’ll be fine now that I’m awake. What does that mean?”

She stopped fiddling and turned to face me. She gave me another smile, but it felt fake, like she just wanted to keep me from freaking out. “You’ve been in a coma—”

“What!”

“Settle down. You lost a lot of blood. The gunshot missed all the important stuff, but it’s still a big injury. And compounded with the rest of your injuries, you ended up in a coma.”

Oh my god.

“How long have I been out?”

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks!”

“Give or take.” She turned around, walking back over to the tablet at the foot of my bed. Picking it up, she started typing into it again.

I couldn’t believe this. I couldn’t wrap my brain around any of it. But I shoved it aside. I couldn’t deal with this right now. There was more important stuff to figure out. “What about everyone else?”

“Who?”

“Everyone else?” My voice rose. “You know, Chelsea, Edith, Sasha, Mati—”

“Slow down. I don’t know who you’re talking about. I know there were several of you that came in, but that’s about it. Sorry.”

My heart swelled in agony. I needed to know if they survived. “Do you, do you at least know if the people that came in are okay?”

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