One hundred and thirteen: And then it was quiet

"Jean? Jean. Wake up," Kiran shook me awake and I climbed the stairs out the sticky dark with difficulty. Why did he have to wake me up now? I'd only just fallen asleep. "Jean," Kiran shook me again. "How long have you been lying on the floor?"

On the floor? Huh. Floor. It was the floor and I was cold.

Kiran picked me up and lay my shivering body in the bed. He rubbed his chin and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Nobody's checked on you for a few days," he said, stroking my face and squeezing my shoulders. He shook me. "What have you been doing? No, Jean. Don't close your eyes again. What's wrong?"

Patting my cheeks and pinching me, Kiran was unable to get much of a reaction out of me. I felt drowsy and numb. Heavy. Tired. I could hear him. See him. Feel him. But it felt like he was talking to and touching another person.

Jean Wallace didn't exist anymore. Why should I stay awake?

He used the slave commands to try and wake me up, but only my shell reacted. Concerned he lifted me up and I went back to sleep.

A spark of electricity shocked me. Lightning shot through my body and I sat up. A jolt of sharp pain made me clutch my tummy. It hurt. Why did it hurt so much? I hugged my tummy and curled up on the bed. The spasms of pain were so bad that I passed through waves of light and dark with splotches of sound and colour.

"We estimate twelve weeks. Bad miscarriage," said a white coated person wearing a face mask. "Complications… Unhealthy..."

Then the pain was gone and I just felt tired. Tired to death. Sleeping like a log wasn't quite the right metaphor. Perhaps sleeping like a muddled child with delirium was closer to the truth, because I was pretty sure those weeds, musicians and comedians who passed by my bedside were hallucinations.

In order to find some sort of stability in the confusing rush of strangers in and out of the room, I tried to at least focus on things that didn't change. Like the colour of the bedsheets, but then those changed too into yellows, pinks and purples. And then I wasn't sure whether I was awake or dreaming anymore. If I pinched my arm it hurt. If I ate or drank, I needed to go to the toilet. But the toilet was filled with new horrors where people watched you and discussed how fast you were, what colour, consistency and smell came out. The shower had people who didn't care, roughly washing me down and pushing me out before I'd come to realise what was going on.

In the bed, I curled up and shut my eyes, counting. Hopefully things would change by the time I had counted to ten.

One, two, three, four, five...

I blinked and looked around. What the? No. Why was there sand and sea with lapping waves, as wet as only water can be? Salty. Salty water. I blinked and blinked again, feeling dazed. This wasn't right. Rubbing my eyes, the warm beach was still there. Blue sky, bright sun, burning sand. Then thunder rolled and boomed, unfolding clouds rolled out, until the sky was black and the wind whipped salt water into my face. Hugging my knees, I screwed my eyes shut, counted to ten and then opened them again.

"Kiran," said a voice in the distance. "She's waking up."

Now I found myself sinking into tar. I fought and struggled to pull myself up out of the sticky mess, climbing, swimming and panting. Mud or tar or sinking sand. Either way, it was black and as stinky as a foetid bog.

"Mentally unstable," said a voice. "Psychological trauma. Severely depressed."

That was all well and good for them to say, but why wouldn't anyone help me climb out of this mass grave? There was mud everywhere and it smelled like death. The cold smooth limbs of the dead underfoot were creepy. The walls were slippery and hard to climb. The stink of blood and faeces crept through my nostrils. There was a bitter taste on my tongue.

New dead bodies kept being thrown in on top of me, knocking me back down with a scream. Pale eyes. Dark eyes. Dull eyes. Eyes frozen in resignation, sadness or terror stared up at me. Some even accused me. Accused me for surviving while they did not, shouting silently at the unfairness of the world.

An explosion shook the ground from beneath me. The pit of dead bodies tumbled into a crack in the ground, while I held onto fallen a roof tile that had landed by my side. The roof tile became my shield but cracked when a roof beam struck me down. Shouts and screams. The bed shook. People ran.

Smoke. I could smell smoke. The safest place was under the bed.

Another explosion, followed by a few more, getting closer and closer. The whole room overturned. I was flung through the air into a wall. The world crumpled and collapsed around me.

Then it was quiet.

Ah.

Blessed silence.