Page 24 of Exiled

Whatever it is though is long and it slithers down my throat like a snake, scraping against the spasming walls of my insides, glugging liquid into my body that has my stomach cramping and bile sloshing, rising, surging from my lips.

I try to scream, but all that comes out is a choked groan and deep, chest-wracking gags.

“He’s awake!” someone calls out, though it sounds muffled and warbly. Far away.

No, no, please no,I beg silently in between the static filling my head.

All I can think is that I’m backthere,and this is just another desperate attempt to fix me. Purge me of my sins. Make meright.

I got out, I got out, I got out—

The snake wiggling around my throat stops moving suddenly, and then there’s a sucking sensation, as everything inside me seems to be getting vacuumed up. For a moment, there’s relief, and awareness fades once more…

Only for it to return with a vengeance in what feels like seconds later, when more liquid gets pumped inside me, bringing with it a tide of bile that scalds the back of my tongue.

It’s only then that I register the multiple hands gripping my shoulders and back, as they fight to keep me on my side.

Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking touch me!

I try to pull away again, but it’s no use. My body is not my own. It’stheirs.It hasn’t been mine for a long time. Even in my daze, I know that much.

Please, please, I was good. It wasn’t my fault. Please.

Heaving sobs spill from my lips, lubricated by the surge of foul-tasting vomit exploding onto the pillow. My limbs twitch—practically convulsing. Spit gathers around the corners of my chapped lips, doing little to stifle the discomfort.

Pain and desperation are all I know and it wars with the darkness threatening to pull me back under. I don’t remember it, but miss it all the same—that heavy, pitch-black nothingness that weighed more than the nightmares that haunt me. I just wanted to sleep. I just wanted to be away from it all.

Did I die? Is that what happened?

No, you imbecile,a voice reprimands me.You clearly couldn’t even get that right.

The voice in my head sounds an awful lot like Mother’s.

My thoughts are loud and yet disjointed in the midst of all the activity, short-circuited by the physical sensations ripping through my system, and the voices clamoring around me.

The past once again converges on the present, making it difficult to rationalize where I am, even though some primitive part of meknowsI’m no longerthere.

Hospital.

The word flashes across my head, breaking through the fog.

I got out.

I made it.

But that already happened.

I struggle to remember what happened in between.

All that exists is then and now and suffering.

All that exists is ice cold nothingness that burns like fire, engulfing me from the inside out.

“You’re okay now, honey. You’re okay,” a soft feminine voice murmurs by my ear, and for a moment everything else quiets, fading into the background. I latch on to the voice continuing to utter assurances, digging my nails into the sheets as I silently urge her to keep talking, keep going.

Fingers stroke my forehead. It feels cold. Sticky. But I lean into it all the same.

Other voices slip in, deeper, harsher.

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