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Oirana
The darkness was absolute. No flicker of light or moonbeam as she was accustomed to seeing as she lay in bed at night. Just a total, absolute darkness. And silence too. That was the oddest part about it. The darkness she could handle, but the silence was unnerving. She frowned, or at least she tried to get her face to frown but the muscles protested and she felt pain suffuse her head. She cried out, or at least she thought she had, the sound was lost to her ears. And then something touched her hand and she jerked away, startled, but the touch followed and she realized it was a hand. A comforting hand, which held hers as another one stroked it soothingly. She relaxed and drifted off to sleep. In her sleep she had terrible dreams. Dreams about falling from a great height. She screamed, and in her dream she could hear it. She plummeted down from some great height tumbling past rocks that scraped at tore at her and then she landed in the water, her head to the side so her ear smashed into the water and then all went black and she heard nothing. She woke in a sweat, unable to move but in a panic and struggling with the bindings on her hands. She moved her mouth, and tried to scream but nothing came out that her ears could hear. The gentle hands came back though and she closed her mouth, trying to get her breathing under control. Something was pressed to her lips and she greedily swallowed the liquid that was poured down her aching throat. And then she slept again, but this time she slept deep and the terrifying dreams stayed away. Her life continued, much like this for a very long time. How long she did not know, but one day she woke and found she could move her arms, she opened her eyes and closed them quickly again as the brightness of the light pierced them and made them hurt. She peeked out again; slowly getting her eyes used to light that she soon realized was actually quite dim. Once the glare had faded she looked around. There was a woman sitting in a chair beside the bed she was lying in, and a man standing not too far behind the woman. They both had worried, but hopeful looks on their faces and something about their faces looked remarkably familiar. She shook her head and blinked her eyes as her vision became a little fuzzy. Once it had stabilized again she looked to the other side of the bed to see a tall man frowning at her. His lips were moving as if he was talking but no words reached her ears. She frowned at him and returned her gaze to the man and woman. The hope behind their eyes was gone and the woman was looking frantically between the man on the other side of the bed and her as if she refused to believe whatever he might be saying. The man behind her laid a comforting hand on her shoulder but he hung his head as if in sadness. And then the woman was up and had thrown her arms around the girl in the bed. The girl’s eyes widened and she frowned, looking around, wondering what had so upset this woman. And then it hit her; she’d been so relieved that the darkness had abated that she hadn’t realized that the silence was still as oppressive as ever. She could hear no sound, no creak of the bed as the woman leaned on it, no rustle of fabric as she moved not even the sound of the sheets pulling across her legs. Her mouth fell open and she tried to ask what was going on, what had happened, where she was, why there were no sounds in this room, but no sound came out, nor was any answer forthcoming. The woman who was now draped across the bed started shaking and she looked down at her in shock. The man came and pulled the woman away. The girl’s eyes went wide and she felt tears come to her own eyes as she saw the tears flowing down the woman’s cheeks. The woman was escorted away and only the tall, frowning man remained. The girl opened up her mouth and cried, but she could not hear it and that only made her cry harder. Continue... |