Drug induced fog

     The past few months of my life have been insane with activity.   I’m halfway finished with school, and in two years I should have my Bachelor’s degree in Humanities.  I have no idea what I want to do, my dreams of being a dentist where crushed by the car accident I was in my senior year in high school.   Apparently a neck injury makes it hard to work hunched over all day working in the mouths of patients.  So, that is when I opted for Humanities, other cultures fascinate me.

     I awoke this morning from the same nightmare I have been having for years.  I’m in the road outside Granny’s house.   I’m sitting in the street, holding my little sister in my arms.  I am only around 9 years old, which would make Rachel about 7.  She looks like a tomboy, as I remember from our youth, and she is dying.  She cannot speak to me, but her eyes are pleading for me to save her.  She has been shot in the chest.  I’ve ripped open her top to see the wound, and there is blood coming from her chest and mouth.  I am crying and screaming, yet no one is coming to help.  I awoke whimpering and shaking, the way I always do when I have this dream.  This is sure to not be a good day.

     I showered, dressed and made my usual two eggs and hot sauce with coffee for breakfast.  I sat and watched the news, my routine never changes much.  I have philosophy class this morning and then Rachel is coming to drive me to my pain management appointment, apparently you can’t drive on valium. Damn that teen driver.

     Dr. Sanders was running about an hour behind which didn’t work well with the valium.  By the time they called me back to the procedure room, I was a ball of nerves.  They had me take two more valium and wait for them to kick in before proceeding with the injections in my back and neck.

     I sat waiting in a valium induced fog, waiting for Dr. Sanders to come back to give me my injections when I started to notice something was off.  Something strange was happening…or was it the medication?

     The nurses, their eyes, they are different somehow.  Something I hadn’t noticed before, there were no whites in their eyes.  My heart began to race, what did they give me?  Their eyes were empty and dull black.  Not all the staff looked that way, but they didn’t seem to notice the difference in their coworkers.  

     Am I high?  Surely this must be the effects of the medication, but something inside is warning me.   Something is wrong.

     I was still questioning the reality of what I was seeing when the nurse came in.  “Angie,” said the black eyed nurse, “it’s time for your procedure.”  “Uh…I’m not feeling so well, I think I need to reschedule.”  “Don’t be silly”, she says.  She looks at me and for a moment her skin appears translucent with black veins running beneath.  In the next instant, she looks normal.  All but her eyes, her eyes are still black.  She smiles.

     I don’t know if it was the look on my face that clued her in to what I saw when I looked at her, but in the next second I had a needle in my arm and I was too weak to fight.  All went black.

     I woke up in the car, Rachel was driving.  “How are you feeling?” she said, “The nurses said the medication was a little too strong and you blacked out.”

     “I…I don’t know” I say, “What happened?  How long was I in there?”  “Oh, a few hours, they did the injections and had to wait until you were coherent enough to get into the wheelchair and out to the car”

     Something was wrong, I felt sick to my stomach.  There was a sharp pain in my navel, as though I had been cut.  I lifted my shirt to look, there was nothing there, but it was sore to the touch.

     “Please get me home, I feel like I’m going to be ill”