The Institution

Chapter 11 Part 2: Man Down

"E...."

"E...n."

"Ethan!"

Someone was calling me from the darkness. I slowly dragged myself to the surface and blinked my eyes open. The world was a bright white, far too bright. I closed my eyes again.

"Ethan, can you hear me?"

That voice. I knew that voice. I struggled to open my eyes again. They wouldn't focus at first. But then they did, and I saw that someone was leaning over me. My mother. She looked tired and scared.

I wanted to ask her why she was here, wherever here was, but I couldn't remember how to move my mouth.

"Oh, thank God," my mother breathed, and she grasped my head in shaking hands and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

I felt the kiss and the feel of her hands on my skin, but the touch felt foreign, as if my skin wasn't my own skin. I tried to remember where I was but my thoughts were sluggish, muddled....

There was another figure leaning over me now. This woman was unfamiliar. She was wearing blue. Blue scrubs. A nurse, I suddenly realized.

I was in the hospital.

I was seized with the desire to move my fingers then, to check that they were all still there, but I couldn't remember how to do that either. The nurse was speaking to me but I couldn't remember what had been said. I blinked up at her. She looked back at me, and suddenly words, clear as day, were ringing in my head.

You're lucky to be alive.

I was confused, because she hadn't moved her mouth. But I was so exhausted, and I was sinking again, sinking back into the deep tunnel of darkness, and no matter how hard I strained to remain in the waking world, the nurse, the hospital room, and my mother all faded away.