A Lily Among Thorns

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝙾𝙽𝙴

✞ C E L A I   L a C R O I X ✞

Celai can't do anything but stare up at the ceiling. She tries to figure out the pattern— it's dark and smoky gray, but she's unable to determine if it's metal, plastic, or a combination of both. It's close to her face, almost as if she can stretch out her arm and touch it.

Where am I? she thinks.

Her eyes try to look around and she moves her head slightly to her left. All she sees is the ground far below her and only a slither of the same smoky gray floor.

She was up in the air.

A torturing pain attacks her heart and she turns her head back straight in an attempt to ease the ache but to no avail. It aches worse than anything. It was like someone was squeezing her heart with all of the force they could muster up.

She moans in pain and a woman comes into view above her. "You're okay, Celai. Just breathe, we're almost there," she comforts, though it only makes it worse. Celai grows more confused than ever.

However, she listens to the woman's instructions. She focuses on her breathing but a high pitched sound disturbs her. Was it in her mind? The sound occurred every other second and worst of all, the noise was hurting Celai.

She closes her eyes and tries to ignore it but it only gets louder. The more it bounces in her ears, the more familiar it all sounded. It was wheezing. Celai is wheezing, clinging on to her breath.

The woman presses something cold against Celai's bare chest and she curses a moment later. "S**t, I can't hear a heartbeat."

"Move," another person says. This time, a man comes into view. Celai notices the medical badge on his uniform and it clicks in her mind.

I'm dying, she says to herself as the man presses the same cold object in the same spot the woman did. He curses as well but says something to the woman that makes her move away from Celai in fear.

The man repeats himself, yelling this time, and yet Celai can't make it out. It was like they were speaking a foreign language.

She closes her eyes, accepting her fate as tears prick her eyes. I hope I pleased You, Lord, she thinks. The sound of large blades slicing the night sky fills Celai's ears and drowns out everyone and everything.

She opens her eyes again but is faced with darkness. She was fading, she was dying.

I'm not done with you.

Celai can't see, nor can she hear, but the familiar voice makes itself known above everything else.

Lord, I can't do it.

I'm not done with you, her Savior repeats. Hold on and trust in Me.

Celai wants to give up badly. She already had begun to replay her life, almost involuntarily. Why keep fighting?

Trust me and know I am the Lord.

Celai feels a wheeze escape her body, the Lord's temple. She wants to think of it as her last. However, in her last waking moment, she says, only to God, I trust You.