The Rebellion Era

Chapter Eight.

                  
Author's note: Liana Liberato as Sarah Almasi. (Photo)
                                   ***
I wake up to a glimmering light of white.

The brightness is so intense, I squint. Yet still the vividness blinds my eyes that have been accustomed to darkness.  I blink several times like a butterfly flapping in the gust before I was finally able to make out my surroundings.

I lay on a bed with white covers. I spin my head  to as far as my cramped neck would allow. It only took me a fraction of a second to notice the endless expanse of stainless white across the room.  Floor to ceiling windows line the facing walls; checkered rectangular glass flooding in the splinters of natural illumination; the only source of light in this makeshift hospital.

Where the rows of beds should have been crammed with patients tended by a throng of nurses and doctors checking on their progress, I lie alone, pried upon only by the eyes of the walls where globs of concrete have failed to remain cemented. The beds are so immaculately dressed with ironed sheets; I wonder if this room has ever been inhabited before. Of if this is even a room at all.

Glimpses of what happened passes by like a film roll for review; I have seen it before, yet I only remember pieces. Camels. Tear gas. Blood. Screams. Pain.

Dead bodies.

What if I haven't blacked out? What if I am dead and those who carried me were angels dressed in black for all the people whom were martyred on the square today, and carried me to heaven? This is the only rational comprehension for the room of garish clearness I am in. 

But I could have never made it to heaven.

Still I recall someone touching my hand, someone calling me Fatoom, I remember he was there. Assem.

Assem was there.

Someone places a hand on mine.

"How are you feeling?" The voice I have been waiting for asks. I turn to the source and see Assem sitting on a chair, leaning towards me. His face is so blurry like opening my eyes under water. I wish I was capable of analyzing minds; to read his expression. Whether contempt, exasperation or even worse, betrayal. His looks give me mixed feelings. He is mad, but worried.

"I am alive, I guess." I say. My lips burn.

"The people who found you brought you here." He says having noticed my prying eyes. His tone is the usual one he customarily uses, but he isn't wearing a smile.

"She said you lost a lot of blood." He mutters, averting my eyes. Somehow, this hurts more than the tantrum I accepted he would toss at me.
He Squeezes my hand and let go, reclining back to his chair. My hand is sweaty, like he held it for so long. To hold on to my pulse.

"Who is she?" I say, willing my tears not to come.

"I don't know. She was too anxious to save you she didn't even mention a name. But she is a blonde."

Before I could say anything, the door is yanked open and a female figure, in black, walks in.

"Well, that blonde must be me. I am Sarah, a doctor-in-training." She says walking towards me with a smile plastered on her face. She tucks a loose tendril behind her ears and grabs a cotton ball from the dresser on my right.

She sits next to my hips. "Your injuries speak for the courage you showed on the square today." She adds pressing the cotton softly to my lips, brushing drops of blood away. I flinch at the taste of the droplets that leaked inside my mouth.