The Whisper

The Whisper

The room is bright behind her eyelids, her first sign that she’s not dead.

She can hear someone moving nearby. That’s another sign.

You can’t hear sounds if you’re dead. But there is also a hint of a memory.

Something transpired before this that started the splitting pain in her head, the blood racing to mend some wound.

She was hit with something. She feels a steady wave of pain move through her, then recede, then pulse through her more urgently.

The pattern, in and out, is the same as her consciousness.

A sharp sting in her lower leg surprises her.

A figure slides into her vision. The person above her is indistinct, and she can’t seem to keep her eyes open.

The images before her move too fast for her to hold on to.

And she can’t move her head. She is cold too, she realizes, and growing colder.

She thinks maybe, given another few minutes, she will be fully awake.

She can feel herself coming around. Just a few more minutes.

She wonders what the person above her is doing. And then she sees the flash of what looks like a needle, and she thinks, Yes, good. I must be in a hospital. She doesn’t remember going to a hospital, but she doesn’t remember anything, not really.

She hears a voice very close to her. “Stop…” Then she hears a name she recognizes.

“Quinn…” Her childhood friend Quinn? But soon, sounds become muffled by a ringing inside her head.

The cold is consuming her. Her hands, her legs.

Can someone bring her a blanket? She wants to sit up, to call the nurse, because she’s in a hospital, isn’t she?

But she can’t. Instead of gaining strength, she seems to be losing it.

Darkness begins to creep in; it shows up as little spiders on the outside of her vision, which is already too spotty to see anything useful, like clues about where she is or why she’s here.

The spiders grow, taking everything over, and there’s suddenly pain everywhere.

Where there was cold a moment ago, now there are sharp contractions all throughout her body, as if her organs are seizing, one by one.

She registers a loud noise somewhere nearby, a crash maybe, but it doesn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel important.

It’s an odd sensation, but she knows what is going on now. Somehow, she knows, beyond a doubt, what is happening. The distant pain. Her fading awareness. The black mold of nothingness closing in.

She is fading. She is—

And it’s in that moment, just before she can name it, that it comes.