Bás Dorcha (Balor Spirits #1)

Chapter 1 Waking Up is Hard to Do

Waking Up is Hard to Do

CORMAC

Waking up from a coma isn't like the movies promised me it would be.

It feels like I've been trapped under a surface I can't see, wading through darkness, begging for some semblance of life instead of the drifting nothingness.

And yet, when I wake, I wish I hadn't.

Coming out of it, my brain throbs endlessly, wishing for more oblivion rather than face the bright lights and tormenting beep, beep, beep, of the fucking machine keeping pace with the dragging of my heart.

Someone speaks in quiet tones, but my mind can't decipher what they've said. Maybe I never will again. It'll just be me and my thoughts for the rest of my miserable life.

Attempting to open my eyes takes every bit of energy I have, my lids scraping apart painfully, only to shut again. If I thought the lights were bright before, with my eyes open, they're completely blinding.

As clarity finds me, the scent of bleach and the sterile white walls clue me in to where I am.

A voice speaks again, cold and detached, and I catch a handful of words I barely understand.

Brain.

Injury.

Awake.

Time.

Am I awake?

Am I even alive?

Unfortunately, I must be. I think if I weren't, it might fucking hurt less.

"Cormac," the disembodied voice speaks again. "Mr. Fomori, can you hear me?"

Another voice, gruff and harsh, mumbles something under his breath.

I groan, the only acknowledgment I'm currently capable of.

Sandpaper scrapes against my lids again as I strain against the exhaustion to force them open.

"Mr. Fomori, welcome back to the land of the living."

Another pathetic groan slips from my lips, the small effort grating my throat. Christ, I need some water.

The doctor remains blurry in my vision, standing over my bed in his sterile white coat, looking over me and my chart with mild interest.

"We weren't sure we'd be seeing you again," he comments.

"Frankly, many of us were hoping we wouldn't," that same gruff, unfamiliar voice comes from the far corner of the room.

"Officer, if you can't be respectful, you can't be in here."

Officer?

"It's lieutenant, actually."

I can almost feel the doctor roll his eyes. If I were capable, I'd be doing the same.

"Regardless, I'm trying to treat a patient," the doctor scolds him with all the energy of a man who's had this conversation countless times before. "Be silent or be gone."

Silence might be too much to ask for whoever this man is, but the doctor settles for his incoherent grumbling as he turns his full attention back to me.

"I don't want you to try to speak, Mr. Fomori," he tells me. "Only blink to communicate. Once for yes, two for no. Can you do that for me?"

I blink once, hoping the fog surrounding me clears soon.

"Perfect," the figure nods once. "Are you in pain?"

Another single blink.

He gestures to someone on the other side of the room. "Let's get him started on a round of morphine."

I frantically blink twice.

"No?" The doctor's confused voice quietly slips out.

"No," the word is gargled and throaty, but it's an insistence. "Allergy."

The cop laughs outright from the corner. "Well, ain't that a bitch. A drug smuggler that's allergic to drugs."

The pain and brain fog fight against me, trying to drag me back under.

I try so hard to understand the officer's words and hatred of me, but my body's exhaustion is too profound, too overwhelming, and before I know it, I'm pulled under once again, hoping they listen and don't put anything in my body to make me worse.

For god knows how long, I float in and out of consciousness, half hearing the world moving around me. The beep following my heart is the only constant, the only thing I have to cling to while my mind slowly comes into focus.

When I can fully open my eyes without effort, the world around me is dark and nearly silent.

The blurry vision finally clears, the cold, white hospital coming into crystal clear focus.

And I'm alone.

No doctor.

No cop.

Just me and a fucking machine that won't shut up.

Oh, and a million wires, some stuck to my head, another hooked directly into the inner crook of my elbow.

Everything still hurts, but at least without the added torture of being pumped full of morphine.

With aching, trembling fingers and an even weaker arm, I search for a button to call for someone.

But where my hand should be, I see a stranger's fingers, adorned with gray and black swirls.

Panic starts to settle in.

Did I lose my hand, and they had to give me someone else's?

Do they do arm transplants? No. That’s crazy. What the hell is wrong with me?

Jesus Christ, I must still be half unconscious.

Even though the hand is unfamiliar, it works, so I find the plastic remote and press the big red call button, closing my eyes and resting against the thin pillow behind me.

After a few minutes of silence, I consider pushing it again.

But before I can, the click of a lock draws my attention to the door.

I've never heard of a hospital locking its patients in their rooms before. And I've spent enough time in hospitals to know if that was protocol.

When a handful of armed men skulk in the door, followed closely by a male nurse, my suspicion grows.

My eyes narrow of their own accord, watching anxiously as four guards fan out, keeping a careful eye on me with one hand on their firearms in a practiced maneuver.

Thankfully, the nurse seems less concerned with them and more concerned with me. "You called, Mr. Fomori?"

I try to clear my throat against the shards of glass that must be inside it. "I assumed someone would want to know I'm awake."

He nods, impassive. "Do you need some water?"

"Please."

He vanishes, but the guards don't, watching me with the interest of a bunch of zookeepers tracking an escaped predator.

I can't even look at them, feeling surrounded and violated, not to mention completely confused. What the fuck happened? Why am I being treated like a criminal?

I had to have attacked someone while I was out of it. It's not unheard of, I guess. And if they're worried about the medical staff, who am I to argue?

When the nurse returns, he uses my remote to lift me into a seated position, the overwhelming pain making me groan as the pressure in my head changes. Throbbing ebbs and flows behind my eyes as the nurse holds the cup up to my lips, only giving me a small sip before he pulls it away.

But I'm dying of thirst. That one little bit didn't help at all.

A placating smile pulls at his lips, "I know. But you've had a GI tube for months, you need to take it slow."

I hum in acknowledgment, "That must be why my throat feels like I've swallowed shards of glass."

"That won't last long," he assures me. "Maybe a day or two. Assuming you stay awake that long."

"Why wouldn't I?" I ask him.

The nurse shrugs, and I squint, searching for an ID tag. Continuing to just refer to him as the nurse in my head seems ridiculous. "The longer someone is in a coma, the more likely they won't recover from it."

That's not promising.

"How long have I been out?" He said months, but not how many.

Standing at the foot of the bed, he glances at the guards around him before flipping through the chart hanging there. "Looks like you were admitted on September 24th. So just over three months. The doctor will be in shortly."

"Uhhh, thank you." Three months?

I can't shake the strange suspicion creeping up my spine. No ID tag, and he didn't tell me the doctor's name.

The nurse and three of my armed entourage leave my room, their boots drowning out the sounds of my heart rate monitor. But one of them stays behind, standing tall and stoic in the corner of my room, never taking his eyes off of me.

Three months.

I've been in a fucking coma for three months.

And before that, enough time is missing that I got a tattoo.

I examine it again, the black-and-gray scaled creatures spanning the entire back of my hand, up every finger, coalescing in the middle into a monstrous head with razor-sharp fangs, the edges of the art bathed in black smoke, drowning in it.

Every single scale of the snake's heads are crisp and bold. Every white spot is bright enough to draw the eye and give it dimension. But how could I get a fucking tattoo I don't even remember thinking of?

"Happy New Year, Mr. Fomori," the doctor from before greets me as he enters the room. "How are you feeling?"

I breathe out heavily, "Like shit."

He chuckles, "That's to be expected. Your body has been through quite the ordeal."

"What happened?" I ask.

The doctor glances nervously at the armed guard before looking at me, "What's the last thing you remember?"

Just being asked that question hurts.

Trying to recall the answer is nearly impossible.

There are messy, vague memories. A boring old gala like any other.

A visit to my dying mother in a hospital not unlike this one.

Then older memories, of course. Being a child without ever getting to have a childhood.

A beating from my dad, or worse, a session with him and his sick friends.

But the doctor doesn't give a fuck about any of that.

So I shrug, "I don't know. Maybe a day at work?"

"Work?" he presses, handing me my water to take another sip.

"Yeah, I own a liquor distilling company," I explain. That's not the only thing we do, but it's the one most people understand.

He nods again, "Balor."

I grin, "That's the one."

I take pride in my job. I built it from the ground up.

Sure, it may not be the most ethical job in the world, creating something people become addicted to more than anything else.

Maybe that's why that cop called me a drug smuggler?

He wouldn't be the first guy to accuse me of it due to my job, but we make it a point to give back to the addiction support groups in our community and fight to keep alcohol away from at-risk youth.

"And then what?" The doctor jots something on my file, and I find myself pressing my fingers against my eyelids, trying to force some of the ache to subside manually.