G.U.A.R.D D.O.G.

Chapter 4

I remembered episodes of lucidness.

The first was on a stretcher being carried to a white vehicle with red and white lights flashing. A weird mask was strapped over my mouth making it hard to talk even if I wanted to. I remember a lady looking down at me. I stared into her eyes looking for answers, but found none. Her mouth moved faster then the words I heard, it resembled the usually 'everything is all right' and 'you're safe, we're taking you to the hospital'. At the word hospital my eyes rolled backwards when the world began to spin and I fell into a dreamless sleep.

The second time I woke up was in a lying in a bed, the bright lights stung my sensitive eyes and the air smelled like cleaning products. Their was an underlying metallic scent rising from the floor, but it was old. People in white coats rushed around the room, one looked into my eyes with a bright light another attached a clip to my finger. Voices sounded like incoherent whispers and all I could focus on was the beeping getting faster and faster. The quicker it got the more rushed and panicked the people were. When the beeping was so close together it sounded like one constant string of noise I again passed out, but this time instead of slowly melting into darkness, it slapped me over the head.

In my sleep I saw flashes of things I've never seen. Snippets of blurry images and voices that sounded like they were talking behind a door. Glimpses of needles and gloved hands cornering me, a overwhelming sense of panic as they grew closer flooding my body. Knives and other instruments of torture eagerly digging into my skin as I was strapped down to a icy metal table. Then faces of people I can't put a name too but gave me chills like they were the ghosts of my past, their eyes sparkled darkly in a shroud of villainous intent. If I could see there mouths under the medical mask I was positive a cruel smile would crease their lips, like the curve of a dagger.

It must have of been my brain reacting to the drugs, but a peculiar sensation of déjà vu lingered almost whispering in my ear it wasn't just my imagination. Everything just felt so real, as if I could still trace the sore parts on my body that their knives and needles prodded. But nothing like that existed, it was only my mind playing tricks on me.

Then for my third time I was lulled awake from my nightmare by the light footsteps pacing around the room and a shaking hand tightly gripping mine. My eyes fluttered open to the same bright light but in a different room, the environment felt less busy, more mellow but with a hint of slow depression that you see in retirement homes.

I saw my dad pacing in front my bed, listening to his hard-soled shoes tap against the linoleum. There were bags under his eyes and his hair went in all directions, I wondered when was the last time he got sleep.

A small sniffle brought my attention to the side of my bed and to the person clutching my hand like it was a teddy bear. Mom looked like she was previously crying because of her puffy red eyes and dewy cheeks. Her usual smiling lips were replaced by a trembling bottom lip. She was looking down, eyes shut tight.

Squeezing her hand slightly I managed a slight smile, her head shot up a face full of hope. When ours eyes meant her lips formed a broken smile, the kind you make after a storm and you see a ray of sun. Dad rushed over putting his hand over mom's, they looked at me like I just came back from a very long vacation.

My eyes began to droop, when I tried to fight against it my mom comforted by me stroking my hair. Partly because I didn't want to leave them, the other part because I was afraid of what I might see if I went back to sleep.

"It's all right sweetie, get some rest. We will be here when you wake up. Love you." She cooed softly like silk.

This time drowsiness didn't violently attack me or suck me into an alarming sleep, instead it coated my body like warm honey. Wrapping around me like an old friend, letting all the worries I had go. Slipping into a peaceful state I heard one last voice "We're sorry." It didn't register as anything but an imagined voice from my subconscious so I easily ignored it and went to sleep. However, little did I know that it meant everything.