Page 21

21

Somewhere in the darkness

R ory’s eyelids fluttered open. Her head throbbed with each beat of her heart, and for a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. Complete darkness greeted her, thick and disorienting. She strained to focus but couldn’t see anything, not even shadows.

“Hello?” She croaked in a raspy whisper.

No response.

She reached up to touch her aching head and connected with something wet and sticky that was matting her hair. She pulled her hand away and caught a whiff of the metallic scent of blood. A fragment of a memory flashed through her mind: the cave, someone calling her name, a sensation of falling.

But where was she now? Not in the cave. Not in the woods.

The surface beneath her wasn’t hard, cold stone. She reached down and ran her hands along it. Worn, rough-hewn floorboards. She inhaled. Instead of earth and decaying plant matter, she smelled stale air. She listened, but didn’t hear the faint rustle of leaves or the familiar nocturnal birdsongs. She heard the creaks of a house settling.

“Hello?” she called again, still faint, still hoarse.

There was still no answer.

She lifted her head slowly and tried to push herself upright, bracing her palms against the floor. The world spun wildly, and nausea rolled through her in a violent wave. She turned her head to the side just before she retched, bringing up nothing but bile that burned her throat.

When the heaving subsided, she gasped and coughed.

Spent, she rounded her shoulders and hugged her midsection. The dull cramping in her abdomen was sharpening, turning into a hot, needle-like stabbing. Her arms and feet tingled. The tang of metal filled her mouth.

“No, no, no,” she moaned as the reality of her situation sunk in.

It had been nearly a year since her last episode. She’d been careful—regular meals, limiting alcohol, managing stress. But the past few days, she’d been busy. First, focused on her exhibition, then upset by the cancellation, and finally caught up in making her statement. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days. The adrenaline and stress had been constant. And, as she did the math, her stomach sank with the realization that her cycle had aligned perfectly with the worst possible timing.

Her hands shook as she patted her pockets, hoping against hope that she had her phone. Her right hand hit something solid. As she eased the mobile out of her thigh pocket, she would have wept with relief if she hadn’t been so dehydrated.

She was going to be okay. Call 911. Then stay calm. That’s all she had to do. She raised the phone to her face to activate the facial recognition feature and turn it on. Nothing happened. Too dark probably. She felt for the power button on the side on the phone, and as her hand slid over the glass, the phone bent under the weight of her fingers. The glass was crushed, smashed and caved in. Her heart lurched. Her stomach heaved. No.

She continued to move her hands over the phone in the darkness. The bottom edge was twisted, a chunk of the frame missing entirely. A piece of plastic dangling loosely from the side. She pounded at the side of the phone with her finger, pressing the dead power button over and over, refusing to believe the truth. The phone was destroyed. Useless.

The tears she thought her body couldn’t create filled her eye, and she released the dead phone from her hand. As it hit the floor, she let out a raw sob.

She had no phone. No glucose tablets or carb-rich snacks. No water.

A burst of images flashed through her mind: photographs hanging from her ceiling, Julie standing in rubble, Lydia watching her home being destroyed, Sadie scowling at her across a coffee shop table, kids playing soccer in the Patch. The pictures came fast, disconnected, and jumbled. Her exhibition. The trail. The messenger bag. The cave.

Someone had followed her to the cave. Who? A face hovered just out of reach in her memory.

Trying to puzzle it out made her head throb even worse. The twisting pain in her stomach intensified, a warning sign of what was to come if she didn’t get help soon. She eased herself onto her back again, her movements slow and deliberate, and closed her eyes against the darkness.

Without intervention, she had, at best, a few hours before things got much, much worse. She’d only experienced one truly severe attack before—three years ago in Arizona. The memory of that terrifying episode was seared into her brain: the paralyzing pain, the confusion that made her think she was going mad, the seizure that had finally led to her diagnosis.

She needed to focus. But between the pain in her belly and the throbbing in her head, she couldn’t. She touched her bloodied skull. She has a head injury. What if it was a concussion?

Exhaustion pulled at her, tempting her back into unconsciousness. She fought it. You weren’t supposed to sleep with a head injury, were you? But the darkness was so complete, so enveloping, it made little difference whether her eyes were open or closed.

She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

Her thoughts cleared briefly and she remembered the photographs hanging from her apartment ceiling. Her statement about displacement. Forcing the community to understand and acknowledge what was being lost in the name of progress.

Now she was the one who was lost. Displaced. The irony wasn’t lost on her, even in her compromised state. She choked out a bitter laugh before she surrendered to sleep.