4.

I drifted in and out for a long time.

There was lots of beeping and thrumming. Machines. Needle pinches.

I saw the whiteness of the hospital walls momentarily, then I was out again.

The distinct murmur of doctor voices buzzed in my ears. I searched through the hum for Dr. Marcy's voice with no luck.

Gavin's voice broke through the fog briefly. It sounded ... much too distressed for someone so young. When will Emmy wake up?

I tried to pull away from the image his voice conjured. Bianca, clutching my arm desperately, Gavin at her side. Both of them begging: "Don't leave me, Emmy." Their sadness bounced against the walls, echoed back, droning "Don't leave me, Emmy, don't leave me. Don't leave me, Emmy, don't leave me. Don't leave me..." Again and again.

New sounds roused me from the fog. A chair creaked, a baby wailed. Distance quieted the baby's cry, and my sister's voice flooded my brain.

"Please," she pleaded, "just let me bring her home."

"Her treatment would go much smoother here," an unfamiliar voice hummed.

Here? Here in the hospital? No, I thought. No.

"No, really, please," Bianca seemed to be verbally shaking his shoulders. "Em needs to be home. I can take care of her."

My body was still shaking off the drug-induced grogginess. My tongue felt like sand paper against the roof of my mouth.  There was an ache in my arm where the needle was piercing me.

The dull ache turned to a throb. I groaned, at the pain in my arm and the new one in my eyes. All the blinking in the world couldn't make the bright lights any less bright, I clamped them shut again as my sister rushed to my side.

"Em? Emiline?" Her slender fingers stroked my cheek, rings too cold against my feverish skin. I flinched, eyes still squeezed shut. "Sweetie, what's the matter?"

"Get it out," I rasped.

"What was that?" I blinked my eyes open to her concerned face.

"Take it out, please!" I cried. My leaden arm swung across my body to grasp the needle and rip it out. Awareness overwhelmed me. Everything burned. My arms were on fire and the needle felt like it was going to expand my vein to the point of bursting. "Jesus, Bianca, get it out!"

New fingers grasped mine and pinned them down, away from my IV arm. I heard a distinct click, a button being pressed.

The unfamiliar person spoke quickly as honey-sweet warmth flooded my body. "Emiline, my name is Dr. Anderson. You are at St. Dymphna's Hospital and I will be heading your treatment team."

"The needle," I stressed, my lips falling prey to the drugs too quickly. "Please, it hurts."

"I'll see what I can do," he assured me. "For now, just rest."

My mind was a captured slave, struggling to break out and run free and go crazy. 

The drugs were stronger than my will, though; my eyelids got too heavy. My body sagged against the lumpy bed.

Bianca's voice broke through the fog as it consumed me again. "Just count through it, Em..." Her nail scraped my cheek.

One, two, three, four...

Author's Note

Under construction, but I'd love comments/critiques, etc...