If I Stay {Fillie}

Darkness is Bliss

"Sweetie, can you hear me?"

Of course I can hear you. Leave me alone. I wanna stay here in the dark...

"Honey, we need you to respond. Can you hear me?"

I can. But I don't want to. Please, let me stay in the darkness. Please...

Consciousness came rushing back like a twelve foot wave, much to Millie's dismay. Sound flooded her head, so very magnified after her dive into the deep.

A tall, middle aged woman with light brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail stood over her, her face shockingly close. Her eyes lit up when she saw Millie staring weakly up at her, her own eyes barely opened at all.

"Can you hear me?" the woman questioned yet again.

Millie groaned in response and gave her a half-hearted nod.

"Oh, thank goodness. She's responding!" the woman shouted to someone Millie couldn't see. "You're gonna be just fine," she said softly, the statement directed back at her patient beneath her.

Millie struggled to examine her surroundings. She was on a small bed, no, a stretcher, with a breathing mask over her nose and mouth. A steady stream of oxygen filled her lungs with every inhale. How did she get here?

She recalled being at the Calpurnia concert, performing, watching the band from backstage, speaking briefly to Lilia. She remembered feeling nauseous, and then everything else after that was, to put it simply, a blur.

"Where...where are my friends?" she murmured through the mask, exhaustion threatening to win her over. "Sadie and Noah?"

"Your friends called an ambulance for you," the paramedic told her gently. "They said you collapsed and wouldn't wake up. We came as soon as we could."

Millie looked up at the woman in bewilderment. Collapsed? As in, fallen? She fell and wouldn't wake up?

And she was in an ambulance. She could feel the bumping and rattling of the vehicle as it sped down the streets of Vancouver on its way to the hospital. The siren above was ear shattering.

Then Millie remembered the blissful darkness. That had felt so amazing. There was no noise there at all. No loud sirens. No people asking her over and over if she could hear them. That was sounding pretty good right now.

The woman with the ponytail seemed to sense that Millie was leaving her again and pressed, "No no no, we need you to stay with us, hon."

But her patient was already back in the dark. Back in the comfort. And she wasn't coming back out any time soon.

.....

"Hello?"

"Mrs. Brown? This is Noah."

"Oh, hello, Noah... Isn't there a concert going on right now?"

"Yes, but we had to cut it short. We ran into a slight problem..."

Kelly listened in shock as Noah Schnapp told her how her daughter had performed the opener at the concert and then collapsed soon after. She wouldn't wake up now.

"We called her an ambulance. She's on her way to Saint Paul's Hospital now."

How could this be real? Kelly wondered. Her daughter had performed Calpurnia's opener. She had sung in front of thousands of people. Her Millie had never been able to work up the courage to do that. It made absolutely no sense.