Life and other Disasters
3. Time and space

“Who... who are you?” There was a shiver in Ava’s voice. Was it because she was scared? Or was it just the drugs that influenced her body in this hallucination. She looked at the nurse, the first person who talked to her, the first person who noticed her.

“I’m Beth.” The woman smiled, showing Ava her pearly white teeth. It was a warm smile, a smile that made you feel at ease. “Now, will you come with me please?”

Ava turned around to look at the person on the bed again. “Is that-”

She saw the doctor busy with a crash cart. When did that arrive? Why didn’t she remember who brought the machine into the room?

The doctor checked the peddles, adjusted a switch, yelled ‘all clear’, and tried to resuscitate the girl that looked exactly like her.

Expectantly he looked at the heart monitor but shook his head in defeat when he saw it showed no sign of life.

“One more time,” he said, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. “Give me the epinephrine.”

One of the nurses handed the doctor a syringe.

Ava felt a firm hand on her shoulder. Beth’s fingernails were meticulously manicured, painted in the same intense red as her lips.

“You don’t have to see this,” Beth said. “You weren’t supposed to.”

Ava didn’t respond, kept looking at the scene before her. She regretted it immediately.

With the syringe in his hand, the doctor stood over the body. He measured out the right spot and with two strokes of a pen, he marked it. He took a deep breath and jammed the needle in the chest of the patient.

For a second Ava wasn’t standing in the room anymore. She was the one lying on the bed, and her eyes were wide open. She stared straight into the sweaty face of the doctor.

“She’s back!” the doctor said. There was a steady rhythm of a heart monitor, and then everything went black for Ava.

There she was, standing in the room again, looking at the unconscious girl on the bed. One of the nurses heaved a breath, relieved that there was a heartbeat, but the doctor didn’t look happy at all. He shook his head for the umptieth time.

“There’s too much damage, we’re keeping her in a coma, for now,” he said.

He was talking about her, Ava knew that now. She was the person lying in the bed, tied to the heart monitor.

“What’s going on here?” Ava looked desperately at Beth, as the woman seemed the only one able to communicate with her, the only one who could see her. “Is this a hallucination? This can’t be real.”

“Unfortunately,” said the woman, “this is very real. “It is time for us to leave. I will tell you what’s going on in a place that’s more suitable.”

Ava looked at her body, lying on the bed. Although her heart seemed to work again, her body looked miserable. It had a strange pale blue color, her skin looked like it was made out of wax, there were bruises all over her body. She looked like she was already dead.

While the doctor walked out of the room, the nurses took care of her body, washing her, covering her with a blanket, and checking if the medical equipment was doing its job. One of them tucked her hair away, in a motherly fashion.

“Am I going to die?” Ava asked.

The woman was quiet for a second, she looked at the ceiling as if the answer was written there.

“One day you will die,” she finally said, “but not today. The people in this room will take care of that, they will do everything possible to keep you alive.”

Beth put her arm around her, guided her gently out of the room. “Your body is wounded. It needs time to heal. If you stay here, watch every single thing the doctors will do to you, and believe me, they’re not done yet, it will slow down the healing process. If you come with me, I will bring you to a place with other people who are just like you. I think you will like it.”

Ava hesitated for a second. Could she trust the strange woman? The only other option wasn’t appealing to her; stay here, watch her unconscious body. Maybe this was a bad trip, a hallucination. Maybe she only had to wait until the drugs stopped working, and everything would be fine.

But what if something else was going on? What if she really was in that hospital bed? She was dying to replace out more, and Beth seemed to be the person who could provide her with answers.

“How will I get back?”

“Trust me, you will know,” Beth’s voice was warm, calming. “It’s like an instinct kicking in. When your body needs you again, it will call you back and you won’t be able to resist.”

One last time Ava looked at her body and nodded. “Okay, I’m coming with you”

Beth took the lead, she walked in front of Ava. The ticking of Beth’s heels reminded Ava of the ticking of a clock. The two women walked through the hallways of the hospital. They were still as empty as the first time Ava walked through them.

She followed Beth, her pace confident, never stopping for anything. Finally, they were in the great entrance hall and walked through the exit. Beth took a lantern out of a small bag she was carrying. For the first time, she wondered who Beth was. Was her savior entirely human or that she was something else?

“What are you?” she asked the woman.

The woman furrowed her brow, and for a second, Ava thought she would call her out on her impertinent question. But Beth’s gaze softened.

“I’m a caretaker,” she said, opened the door and lit the lantern. It looked like one of those old fashioned lamps, the flames protected by glass. The warm light illuminated their surroundings.

Beth strode through the streets, held the lantern high. Ava was familiar with the city, and she tried to make out where she was. She didn’t recognize the surroundings at all, the streets were covered in a thick mist so that she couldn’t see further than a couple of meters. Ava wondered if they were in the city at all. In the distance, she heard people singing, the harsh voices of a couple fighting, and a little girl saying over and over ‘help me’.

“Stay close to me,” Beth said when Ava wanted to reach out to the little girl. “It can be dangerous if you don’t stay in the light. Think of it as a shield of light.”

An involuntary shiver ran over Ava’s spine. She wanted to ask what could go wrong when she heard a rustle coming straight ahead of her. She couldn’t see the source of the noise, but she was curious.

Beth smiled as if she could read Ava’s thoughts. She picked up a branch from the ground and threw it into the wisps of mist. For a second, she saw tiny hands with talons grab the branch, and then she heard it splinter. Something devoured it; she heard the clicking of teeth.

“That’s what happens.” Beth still smiled, but there was no warmth behind it. “This is a dangerous place, Ava. A place where you can get easily lost, but I promise you that you are safe with me. There’s a way out for you, and we will replace it.”

Beth’s words confused Ava. “Why couldn’t I stay with my body? Isn’t that where I am supposed to be? So I can slip back as soon as they’ve fixed me?”

Beth shook her head. “That’s not how it works. You have to replace your way out of here yourself.”

“You make no sense at all.” Ava was annoyed with the woman.

“I can’t tell you any more, I already said too much,” Beth said. “And besides, we’re almost there.”

A soft yellow glow appeared in the mist as they walked to some kind of beacon. Beth was walking straight for it, and Ava followed her curiously. The glow became brighter as they came closer to its source, and soon they stood in front of a small building. Ava could hear chatter and laughing and music. She could hear glasses clang and the sound of cutlery scraping on porcelain. There was a faint whiff of apples hanging in the air.

A sign was hanging on the outside of the building. ‘Saul’s rest,’ it read.

“What is this place?” she asked the tall woman next to her.

Beth waved invitingly to the thick wooden door. “A safe haven.”