Better on our own - English

Sick

It took forever for me to warm up again. At least that's how it felt.

Sarah and Helen had brought me home and put me to bed. After Helen left, Sarah helped me change and lay down next to me to cuddle. That had been pretty nice and Sarah had felt so nice and warm, even though I was sorry that she was starting to shiver in my arms because I was so cold, but she had made it pretty clear that she didn't want to be anywhere else but in my arms at this moment. She had confessed to me that she was scared to death for me and that she really thought that they wouldn't be able to get me out alive from under the ice because I had been trapped under it for so long. I had already thought that it would be the end for me too, but according to Penny it was only 4 minutes. Strange how 4 minutes could turn into an eternity.

I fell asleep at some point and had some pretty strange dreams. The worst thing in them was that I had experienced the situation under the ice over and over again. I would suffer a full blown trauma from it, that was for sure! The strangest thing was that every time I looked through the ice for Arnold or Penny, waiting for them to rescue me, none of them came. Instead, there was always Mr. Brown or Davies standing above me on the ice, arms crossed over their chest, grinning down at me as if they were enjoying themselves and just waiting to see me die.

But that wasn't all I experienced in my dreams. Images kept flickering into these dreams. Pictures of people looking at me quite concerned. Sometimes it was Nurse Flood, sometimes Penny, sometimes Cody, I even saw Sam once or twice, but mostly Sarah. I picked up voices, sometimes worried, sometimes afraid, once even Sam's and he sounded angry and like he was far away. I could never really understand what they were all saying. I picked up individual words that didn't make sense to me. There were words like hospital, danger, worry and dying...none of them were really positive and I couldn't form complete sentences no matter how hard I tried. So I could never understand the connection.

It might sound strange, but the only thing I was consciously aware of was Sarah's touch. Plus, I heard her and it calmed me down every time she spoke to me - even if I didn't understand her either. No matter how anxious I felt about the snippets of words, no matter how desperately I tried to understand more, no matter how disturbing and upsetting my dreams were, Sarah always managed to bring me a moment of calm.

Still, I felt like I was stuck in a soundproof and opaque fog and only every now and then a small window would open for a brief moment and give me a glimpse of the world outside. But I didn't wanted that anymore! I wanted to wake up again, wanted to hear what Sarah and the others had to say to me and wanted to see Sarah and not just feel or hear her.

I fought against this fog that enveloped me and felt it finally slowly lifting. It was so incredibly difficult to open my eyes. It felt like they weighed a ton and when I finally made it, the light in the room blinded me and stung me in the eyes, making me immediately squint them again. Only then did I realize that everything was hurting and I groaned softly but in pain.

A hand placed itself on my cheek and I sighed contentedly because I immediately sensed who it belonged to and opened my eyes again. This time I saw more clearly and the fight against fatigue was more than worth all the effort.

"Hey, tenderheart," Sarah said with a happy smile that I could only return. God, she looked like an angel - which hopefully didn't mean I was dead after all! No, I was definitely in too much pain for that!

"Hey." I stopped when I noticed something about her that I didn't like. "Are you crying?" I said it out loud and was immediately confused. What happened? Why was she crying? "Did I do something wrong?" I said the first thing that came to my mind and she laughed quietly and shook her head.

"No, you didn't. Other than scaring the crap out of us." Huh? Why? I only slept one night. How could I have scared them?

"Why?" I asked her straight out and wanted to sit up, but I felt so weak that I did it slowly and wasn't angry when Sarah literally gave me a hand.