Emily woke up slowly, despite the nightmare ending abruptly, with the crunch of metal and shattering of glass.
She blinked... And the world stayed dark. Emily whipped her head back and forth, hearing little beeps and the whoosh of air as the calf compression machine did it's thing.
Solid evidence she was in the hospital, well, along with the needle in her arm, the IV tubes moving as she lifted her hands in front of her face. Just darkness. Well, mostly darkness and the splotches of a lighter color when she looked at certain places in the room, like she had her eyes closed.
She used her fingers to hold open her eyelids. But the world was still dark.
Nightmare.
Emily screamed.
"Emily!"
"Mom!" Emily turned towards where she heard the voice, throwing her arms forward. The IV tubes rustles as she struggled to find her mother, even though her voice had been so close.
"I'm right here." Suddenly her mom's long fingers intertwined with Emily's. "I'm right next to you." Her voice was choked. Emily's own throat felt swollen and dry. She heard footsteps, she heard the creak of the door, and then she heard a voice.
"What happened?" It was an unfamiliar voice coming from Emily's other side. She pulled at her mother's hands, trying to swing her legs out of bed but her feet just smacked against the railings.
"I heard her scream, and when I said her name she turned towards me, but she reached out... Like... Like..."
"I can't see." Emily blurted as her mother started to sob. "I can't see!" Emily yelled into the silence.
"I'm going to page the doctor." The door shut again and Emily could only assume the nurse or orderly had left. Her mother's grip on her hands stayed strong while Emily listened to truncated sobs.
"It's going to be okay." Her mother said, with a quiver in her voice, punctuated with a squeeze of her hands and a heaving breath.
"I want to go home." No IV, no thing putting pressure along her calves, no thin gown on her body, no darkness.
“Honey,” one of her mother’s hands went to her head, shaking fingers moving through the strands. “They aren’t going to discharge you until we know what’s wrong.” Emily started to cry, the tears still dripping out of her broken eyes. “It’ll be okay.”
At the moment, Emily wasn’t sure if she could believe her mother, but she was glad she wasn’t alone.
Word count: 415
