CHAPTER SIX
Bitten
I screamed as I fell. Was it out of pain, out of fear? I didn’t know. I was falling getting closer to the end of the water fall. Every second the water was rising up to great me with a fatal hug. The pain was growing with the fall until it was nearly unbearable. I was having a hard time breathing. I couldn’t breathe! I was panicking. I wasn’t even in the water yet. Why couldn’t I breathe? I was fighting, fighting for air, fighting for my life, fighting for my freedom. I was always fighting. Then everything was gone. All I had left was tunnel vision I strained to see what was happening. then I hit the water. It enveloped me, the very thing I had moments ago needed desperately to survive was killing me. I tried to get above it but my attempts were feeble, and pointless. I let the water take me. I just wanted to die. I wanted to get away from this. Why wasn’t it ending? Why hadn’t I died already? Then, at last, I did.
“Grandma!” I exclaimed running into her arms greedily drinking her in. I was in a place full of light. It was a beaming with colors. There was grass and flowers trees and a stream even a bridge. The colors were exuberant, almost blinding. Normally it would be overwhelming but the colors seamed to cancel each other out leaving a subtle glow. Grandma was there and Grandpa too, but they were different. They were younger.
“Grandma, speak to me. Please, I need to hear your voice,” I said snuggling deeper into her arms.“Grandma why won’t you say anything? Grandma why won’t you hug me back?” I moved away from her. “Grandpa I think something is wrong with grandma,” I said to him.
“Don’t worry sweet girl we’re proud of you,” Grandpa said. “You have are brave dear, and strong. Don’t be afraid, and have courage. Even though it may not seem like it, there are many people who care about you. Even those who seem like an enemy are there fighting along with you,” he said. Suddenly everything was disappearing and dimming. They were leaving me. Why were they leaving me? Wasn’t heaven supposed to have family? It kept dimming.
“Don’t go!” I yelled. Suddenly with a flash of beaming white light it was gone. “Don’t go!” My eyes shot open. I struggled, arms where holding me down. Was this Hell? What did I do to come here? A hospital bed in hell. That had to be where I was. Hospital bed?
“Honey, calm down. Honey calm, calm shh it’s OK. It’s OK.” A nurse said to me. I saw my reflection in a mirror a wild look in my eyes. I calmed and stopped struggling. I didn’t want to be that wild creature. Instead I went limp. The nurse looked at me with her eyebrows together and the corners of her eyes drooping. She didn’t seem to know much about what had happened to me, but worry was an obvious feature not only on her face but in her tone, her voice, the way she stood, everything was worry. why was she worried? “We are just taking your bandages off,” She said.
“I suggest you don’t look, it is a bit of a shock.” I ignored her and tried to see my leg. I couldn’t very well.
“Will someone get me a mirror please?” I asked. Someone did as I asked. I gasped, the mirror nearly slipping from my grasp. It saw was horrific. My leg had swollen up ten times as much as its original size. No joke, and my leg… At first I thought it was just some red cream or blood or something. Soon I realized it wasn’t dried blood, and it most defiantly was not red cream. My skin was gone. I could actually see the muscle. I wanted to scream but instead I had to focus on getting oxygen in my lungs. I took a few deep breaths. I glanced around me, my head turning in sharp, frantic, motions. My eyes found a window, the blinds were up, and on the other side was a hallway with two people standing in wait. My breathing grew to be more like pants. My blood felt like it was rushing through me, and noise in my ears took on a strange sound. I could feel myself shaking. They lucky they had that thin piece of pesky glass between them. That and the fact that I didn’t know how far I could get with this beauty of a leg on me. It was L Johns and Mrs. Adams. There was no hint of concern, or any emotion as usual on Johns’ face, but there was a hint of something in Mrs. Adams. Compassion, regret, worry? I didn’t care I was too livid. My mind filled with hatred. I wished I hadn’t been raised properly because if I hadn’t then I would be turning the inappropriate hand gesture in my head into a visible hand gesture.
What was worse is that I wanted them to care. I wanted them to run in to ask if I was alright, but that was an impossibility. I looked down at my hands, and that’s when I saw a folded piece of paper by my head. I grabbed it. What was it? I opened it up in a clean scrawl was written-
You have failed your task.
Nonetheless it’s all the more reason for you to return to training.