Chapter 22 #2
With her eyes closed, that was how it felt.
With cold air rushing past her face, and her arms and fingers splayed wide, Kristina could have sworn she was plummeting through the abyss to an unknown fate.
Rather than perturb or terrify, though—emotions that the plight should have inspired—her fear was replaced by a swell of unexpected serenity.
It was the end.
Of that she was certain. Although the end of what, she could not have said. Tumbling through the ether, she recognized the answer didn’t matter, and she accepted the strange wave of calm the thought invoked as it washed over her.
Something had ended. A chapter of her life perhaps, or maybe it was her entire life that was over.
Whatever the case, in its place was the sweet liberation of the fall; a freedom she’d never known before.
Like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole before her, Kris sensed she was on the verge of something new, her next adventure, and there was little terror at the prospect.
The thud as her body landed echoed in her eardrums, and she tensed, waiting for her brain to process the pain that came with the sudden impact.
She held her breath at the delay. Anticipating the agony cascading through her nerves, it was with some surprise that her eyelids finally flickered open to acknowledge that there was no hurt at all.
Am I dead?
She tried to force the words from her lips, but for some reason, she couldn’t push them out, as though the airway was impeded; encased with something larger that had swallowed the diction.
She frowned at the idea, irritated rather than concerned.
She couldn’t have said she feared death, but the fact she couldn’t remember how it had swept her up in its icy fold was unnerving.
Blinking around, she attempted to make sense of what she could see, but the gray blanket that had fallen over her gave nothing away.
Gray to replace the never-ending white.
Her brow furrowed deeper at the disconcerting idea. She hadn’t consciously chosen the thought, yet seeing the endless steely gloom had somehow provoked the response.
Why?
Again, she intended to speak the question, but once more, the language was lost. Something had swept the words from her lips, consuming them before they’d been vocalized, and for the first time since her brain had acknowledged her freefall, a flicker of fear furled inside her.
The dread shifted, unfurling like a snake as the panic bloomed and suddenly, the cool air that had once been so freeing, froze her into numbed paralysis.
Why couldn’t she speak?
The query bounced around her head, reminding her fleetingly of the child who’d once chosen to be mute.
When her father had walked out of her life, abandoning both her and her mother, refusing to speak had been one of the only ways the immature Kristina had been able to grasp for control in a life that appeared to be unraveling in front of her young eyes.
The intensity of the emotion that had hit her then, and that she’d worked so damn hard to bury, flooded her nervous system, threatening to drown her.
No, no, no!
She blinked away the impending tears, refuting their existence and forcing her mind to focus on the current crisis. Her father had left her many years before. He wasn’t there to help her out-maneuver the latest catastrophe.
He had never been there.
Think.
Her jaw tensed as she searched her racing thoughts on what had happened.
Was she immobilized in some way, or worse, actually paralyzed?
The idea caught in the back of her throat, collecting where her words should have been.
Immobilized, and seemingly unable to move, the concept of being incapacitated and unable to communicate seemed far scarier than death itself.
The end of life meant oblivion; an end to the mortal concerns that had occupied her time, whereas debilitation signaled something far graver; the demise of her every hope and dream, and an existence that relied on others for even her most basic needs.
She didn’t need to be a scientist to know how dreadful that outcome would have been.
Help.
The word flitted in her mind, as though she was trying it for size, or perhaps, she was only too afraid to try and speak again.
Hearing it reverberate around her brain, though, cemented the requirement.
Something was definitely wrong and she did need help.
If she was dead, she wouldn’t still be experiencing such conscious brain activity.
She was far too smart to believe in any of the ‘life after death’ nonsense, so laying there, wherever ‘there’ was, the best she could conclude was that she’d been involved in a hideous accident that had disabled her.
Maybe I hurtled from a high building and the thud I heard was really me colliding with the concrete?
She concentrated, trying to rationalize the result.
But I would be dead then, or at least have sensed the considerable pain of that collision.
Staring into the relentless gray there was no answer.
She tried to turn her head and look around, but despite the order resounding from her brain, there was no movement, as though the connection between both had been severed.
All she sensed as she stared as far as her peripheral vision allowed, was that the leaden color surrounding her was shrinking, encroaching on her personal space until there was nowhere left for her to hide.
Not only couldn’t she speak, but the air that had once sprinted past her hair and filled her with such satisfaction, seemed to thin, as if there was less of it to go around.
Squeezing her eyes closed, she fought against her rising alarm, but she was increasingly sure the breathlessness wasn’t her imagination.
It was getting harder and harder to breathe.
The painful burning in her chest and the disorientating way the world had started to sway despite her closed eyes, confirmed her plight.
Running out of air, and seemingly unable to move a muscle to aid herself, she desperately needed a miracle.
Oddly, in that pivotal moment of peril, the terror in her body numbed, superseded by her familiar old foe, anger. Swirling in the pit of her stomach, it stretched its heated tendrils past her icy fear and, despite her diminishing oxygen levels, it demanded answers.
What was happening to her?
How had she found herself in such a dangerous circumstance?
She was more intelligent than that, wasn’t she? She didn’t take needless risks like illegal drugs or going home with guys she didn’t know, so why was she sprawled out and slowly dying?
The lists of questions did little to explain her predicament, her rage crashing into her dread to confirm that she had been right all along. Whatever had happened to her, this was her end.
“Kristina!”
The sound of someone calling her name cut through her miserable anguish, though still, she couldn’t move her head to acknowledge the male voice.
“Kristina, wake up!”
Wake up? Indignation spiraled in her listless body. Did whoever it was think she was stretched out sleeping? Couldn’t he see that she was being deprived of oxygen and struggling to breathe?
“You’re breathing now.”
As though the owner of the dulcet tone had somehow read her mind, his reassurance seemed designed to smooth over the concern she hadn’t been able to articulate.
Her brows knitted at the perplexing riddle, the gesture revealing her ability to once again move the muscles of her face. Buoyed by the progress, she wriggled her fingers and toes, excited when her limbs responded to her brain’s commands.
“You’re okay, Kristina.”
The soothing tone continued, and in that moment, she realized she recognized the voice. It belonged to someone she used to know. Someone she’d developed feelings for. Someone who’d taken her right to the edge of sanity.
“Open your eyes.”