Chapter Fifty-Seven
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
UNKNOWN POV
AN OVERWHELMING BLAST OF antiseptic fills my lungs with the first breath I register. Antiseptic, bleach, and the slightest tang of metal. I can almost taste it on my tongue. Fuck, my tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of my mouth.
Why can’t I see anything? No matter how hard I try, my eyes won’t open. A door closes in the distance. A few loud dings echo through the air. Muffled voices sound, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. I force my lids to blink, one, two, three times until finally, the weights fall off, and the lids peel back to reveal a blinding white light.
What the hell?
I try to shield my eyes, but my left arm feels like a ton of bricks. My right is easier to manage. It releases from its binding, and I rub my eyes until they adjust to reveal a…hospital room.
I’m in a hospital.
Why am I in a hospital?
I have to get out of here. I have to—
“Oh!” a shrill voice sends a jolt through my head, and the dull pain that had been sitting in my left temple cracks my skull in two.
The voice belongs to an older woman, a nurse, dressed in blue scrubs with yellow ducks on them. Her blonde hair has been pulled into a tight bun on top of her head, and her eyes are hidden behind round glasses. She’s standing in the doorway with bright eyes and a wide smile.
“You’re awake! Good, I’ll get the doctor. He’ll be so glad to hear this.”
Great, maybe he can tell me why I’m here.
The nurse returns seconds later with a grey plastic pitcher and a white styrofoam cup filled to the brim with ice.
“I was startin’ to think you’d never wake up,” she says, pouring water into the cup and opening the bendy straw, stabbing it through the ice. She holds it up to my mouth. “Drink, sweetie, it’ll help your throat. You’ve been out a few days. Guarantee your throat’s as raw as sandpaper.”
Her name tag dangles from a daisy clip off the pocket of her scrubs— Janet , it reads. She radiates the same type of energy you’d expect your grandma to have. There are crows feet in the corners of her eyes and a smile that drags down around the sides of her lips. As she holds the cup to my mouth, I can see a jagged line on the outside of her thumb extending through her wrist to her arm.
“T-thank y-you,” I rasp out, barely able to hear myself.
“Take it easy, darlin’. Don’t want to strain yourself.”
“Good morning, Sunshine!”
My stomach twists in knots when an older man walks into the room. He’s dressed professionally, with a white lab coat over his clothes, Doctor Sanders, M.D. embroidered on the left side. His stark white hair is perfectly styled with a small swoop over his forehead, a white mustache rests atop his upper lip, and his striking blue eyes pierce right through me. He reminds me of Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis: Murder .
“Glad to see you’re still with us. How are we feeling?” Doctor Sanders swoops down with his stethoscope, placing the cool metal against my chest. He moves it around my chest and then my back, and instinctively, I take a few deep breaths. “You sound great,” he says, straightening himself and wrapping the listening device around the back of his neck.
I take another sip of water, and the liquid feels great against the rawness of my throat. “W-what happened?”
“Well.” Doctor Sanders starts and pulls the stool up next to the bed. He crosses one foot over his knee and leans back against the thin air. “I was kind of hoping you could tell me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ol’ Bill Wyatt, his boy, and Mr. Blackwood found you wandering out in the woods ‘bout two days or so ago. You were in pretty bad shape, son. Two bruised ribs, a sprained ankle, and a pretty bad hit to the ol’ noggin. Looked like you’d been out there a while, you were severely dehydrated and chilled to the bone. Honestly, don’t know how you were still up and movin’ when they found you.”
“I don’t—I don’t remember anything.”
Doctor Sanders shares a look with Janet. I don’t like that look. “You remember your name?”
“It’s…It’s…”
I swear, I know my own fucking name.
How could I forget my name? It’s…it’s right on the tip of my tongue! Ready to roll off the edge so I can tell him who the fuck I am and go the fuck home. Home. Where is home? Why can’t I remember anything ?
My fists ball at my sides, gripping the cream knit blanket covering my legs, grasping for anything. “It’s…”
“Take it easy, son,” Doctor Sanders says. “It’s alright. We’ll get this whole thing straightened out.”
This time, he doesn’t hide the concern etched in his features—the way his brow creases, his lips pull into a thin line, his eyes expressing a new level of pity—when he looks at the nurse.
“Just give me a few minutes, I’m gonna make a few calls.”
Before the door closes behind them, I can hear them talking in hushed tones, trying to figure out what they’re going to do. I can’t decipher what they’re saying, but I know it’s not looking good. Having an amnesiac loony toon show up in their town was probably the last thing on their list of wants.
A gaping hole forms in my stomach, slowly sucking me inside of it. How could I forget who I am? What the hell happened to me and why was I wandering in the woods? Was I alone? Of course, I was alone. Sanders would’ve said if they found someone with me here in…
Wait. Where the hell am I?
He said I was wandering in the woods…that really narrows it down. There are a million different areas in the continental United States where there are woods.
After what feels like hours, the door clicks open again. This time, Doctor Sanders is followed by two other men. One of them is an older man dressed in blue jeans and a button-up with a cowboy hat resting on his head. The other is a police officer. He’s a tall, aging, dark-skinned man with thinning gray hair. His white button-up looks freshly pressed, with two patches on either arm and a thin black tie clipped to the middle of his shirt by a gold tie-clip. The patch on his right sleeve reads Bezer Police Department . That’s when I notice a whiteboard behind his head: Bezer General . Janet’s name badge says the same thing, and so does Doctor Sanders’.
Bezer.
Where the fuck is Bezer?
“What’s your name, son?” the officer asks and takes a step forward.
“I already told the doc, I don’t know.”
“Just give it another go for me.”
I sigh. “It’s…”
A million names go through my mind, but not a single one hits home. I rub my eyes, trying to connect the dots, searching for anything that will tell me who I am, but I get nothing.
“Alright, take it easy,” the officer says, patting my shoulder. “I’m Officer Sloan. I’m the officer who responded when Bill and Joe found you the other day. Do you remember anything?”
I shake my head.
“I thought you said it wasn’t that bad.” Officer Sloan hisses toward Sanders.
“I said we couldn’t be sure until he woke up,” Sanders says, defending himself. “There’s no way to tell what the body will do to protect itself. He’s obviously been through something, that much was apparent from his injuries.”
Officer Sloan sighs, rubbing the crease of his brow before he meets my eyes again.
“Where am I?” I ask.
Finally, the other man steps forward, clearing his throat. “Bezer. Bezer, Colorado.”
Colorado? What the hell am I doing in Colorado?
The four of them look down at me, then at each other, a hint of pity etched in their features. They don’t know what to do with me. They don’t know who I am or what I’m doing here, but neither do I. They said I’ve been here for two days, but how long was I out in the wilderness before that? Isn’t there anyone looking for me? Don’t I have a family trying to find me? Or maybe I’m just a drifter—alone in the world with nothing to call my own—with no one to care if I find my way home or not.
“Welcome to the City of Refuge, son.”