Riding On ~~:~~ A Free Rein Fanfiction || Completed

Chapter 2

Ann felt her eyelids flutter briefly; voices talked quietly around her, muffled, as she fell into and out of consciousness. The voices hushed and disappeared into the blackness that she succumbed to. 

She awoke again, finding more strength in opening her eyelids, and finally, she opened them, her green iris' finally taking in the light, allowing her pupils to constrict from the luminescence around her.

It took her mind a few minutes to register. She was in a room, everything was white, cold, and unfriendly, it smelled clean, but not in a rewarding and comforting way; it smelled clean in a disturbed and harsh manner. Then she realized. She was in a hospital. 

She looked towards her IV as it pinched her briefly and changed the positioning of her arm to remove the uncomfortable feeling. Then she sat up, her eyes studying the room around her. Her father sat in a chair, his face in his hands, and shoulders hunched over. 

She tried to remember what could have happened to her, and why she was here. She tried to think back, but her brain revolted against her and began to throb. She held her head, letting out a soft groan at the new pain. 

Anns father looked up at the sudden sound that had come from his beloved daughter, "Oh, Ann," He stood up, immediately coming to her bedside and sitting on the edge. He cupped her face in his large warm palms and kissed the top of her head, then hugged her.

The pain died, and she rested her chin on his shoulder as he held her. He'd been crying, she'd realized, noticing the slightly red eyes, and puffy cheeks. She wondered why. Probably because he'd been worried about me, she thought. Her eyes stared past her father's shoulder, and out the door to her room. Above the nurses desk hung a variety of clocks, labeled with different country timezones. London, Japan, Russia, Brazil, all hung, then below them was their Central Time Zone, and date... Her eyes blinked. Her birthday was three days ago...

That didn't make sense. Her birthday... She groaned again, her head beginning to throb, the sudden pain causing her to pull away from her father. He stared, unable to help his daughter, and called for the nurse. His voice became muffled and her vision darkened, but whether it was from her holding her face in her hands, or for a more serious underlying medical reason she didn't know. 

Then it started, a repetition of noises in her head, all the while her head pounding; The wailing, the snapping of foreign material. Ann began to breathe heavily, in short, fast breaths. The room was closing in, she felt herself losing control.

The memories flooded back to her, like the flood waters of that night. Her mother, drifting from the two of them. 

Was she alright?! Ann didn't know. She feared the answer, knowing that if her mother wasn't here, the answer couldn't be good. Was her fathers face welling up only for her? What had happened in the past three days? 

Ann looked up, the pain subsiding some, and was looking into a barrage of new faces; Her doctor and a variety of nurses. The sight blinded her, all the white, and the bombardment of questions coming from the physician and his assistants. She couldn't take it all. She felt herself growing light in the head, and within a few moments, slipped back into the darkness she had torn herself from earlier.

...

Ann awoke again, unsure of what day it was, or even what time. The amount of light that was in her room confused her normal body time and rhythm. She felt disjointed. Her father wasn't in the room with her, and she sat up, her joints popping in protest to the sudden change of position.

She felt horrible. She couldn't even put into words how she felt.

Her mouth was parched as well, her lips cracking worse than anything she thought could ever imagine.