by Carys Jones
“That looks much better,” Orion said approvingly.
Marie turned several more times before a question caught in her mouth which she had to get out; “that man, the tall man. Who is he?”
“That’s Leo.”
“And he is?”
“The Guardian of Azriel.”
“Oh.”
“You really don’t remember anything, do you?” Orion drew closer to her, concern dimming his glittering eyes.
Marie shook her head.
“I thought as much when I found you. But then I didn’t think it would be up to me to explain everything,” he sighed and lowered himself down on to the bed. Marie sat down beside him.
“I just want to understand what is going on,” she said softly. “If this is a dream, it’s certainly going on, I thought I’d have woken up by now.”
“I can assure you that this isn’t a dream.” Orion clarified.
Sat beside him Marie inhaled his scent. It engulfed her senses and made her entire body relax. There was something about Orion. When she was around him she felt like she could let her guard down. She rarely felt like that with anyone, not even Sebastian.
Thinking about her fiancé sent a sharp pang of guilt surging down Marie’s spine and she stiffened.
“I don’t belong here.”
“But you do! I wish you could see that!” Orion’s expression was so earnest when he spoke.
“I belong back home, in Manchester, or London. This place…I don’t know what it is. And you keep calling me your princess.”
“You are our princess, you’ve just forgotten.”
“How is that even possible?”
Orion thought for a moment. He wished he’d had the chance to fulfil his training before having to explain how the impossible can be possible.
“Azriel is a world which exists alongside the one you are from.”
“Like a parallel universe?”
“Exactly. But this world is the one you belong in. Years ago, there was a great war and your parents were executed by insurgents. To save you, you were sent to another world, to the world you think you belong to. We hoped you’d come back much sooner than you have. You’ve been gone so long that your memories of here have faded away to nothing.”
“This is madness,” Marie rested her head in her hands.
“No,” Orion insisted. “Don’t you recall as a child, feeling like you were a princess?”
Marie did indeed used to believe she was a princess. She’d sit atop her bunk bed and insist that she was in her palace on top of the hill and that everyone must address her accordingly. Her parents would indulge in her fantasy for a while but then when bedtime came around they’d tell Marie to end her childish games and go to sleep.
“But I really am a princess!” Marie would cry.
“No, sweetheart, you’re a little girl and a tired one at that,” her mother would explain, her voice strained as she tried for the tenth time to get Marie to go to sleep.
“I’m a princess!” Marie would declare stubbornly.
“I’ve had enough of this, get to bed this instant! No more bed time stories for you! They are filling your head with nonsense!”
Carol Schneider would eventually win and place a subdued Marie in to bed.
Looking back, Marie was completely convinced she was a princess but didn’t all little girl’s feel that way? As she thought she tilted her head slightly.
“We’ve waited so long for you to come back, to restore balance to Azriel,” Orion continued.
“Balance?”
“We’ve been ruled by Guardians, which is fine in the short term. But Azriel needs royal blood upon the throne in order to thrive. The city has already shrunk considerably in your absence. The golden buildings used to stretch out as far as the eye can see but now they stop at the beanstalk forest.”
Marie fingered her dress as he spoke. The fabric felt so real.
“You’re the last of your blood line, North. We need you back, to shine above us and restore us to our former glory.”
“My name is Marie.”
“No, it’s not. You are our Princess North. Finally you’ve woken up and made your way back here.”
“Woken up?” Marie asked, her gaze drifting towards the door where the hospital gown had been discarded.
“Yes, in order to return to Azriel you had to wake up from the dream of the other world you were in. We just didn’t think it would take this long.”
“So this isn’t a dream?” Marie asked with uncertainty.
“No, far from it. This is the real world, North. The world that you belong in, as our princess.”
HRH
Dr. Simmons looked in on his patient in the ICU.
“Has there been any change since Friday?” he asked the doctor conducting the handover. He said the words Dr. Simmons dreaded hearing;
“None at all. She remains stable.”
“I see.” Dr. Simmons looked gravely at the chart in his hand, indicating Marie’s vital signs over the past forty eight hours.
“We’re approaching seventy two hours,” the other doctor commented.
“I know.”
“We need to prepare the family, find out if she’s a donor.”
“I know.”
*
Sebastian Fenwick inhaled the last of his cigarette, savouring the dense flavour as it entered his system. It was the first time he’d smoked since his rebellious phase in prep school. But he’d needed something, anything, to calm his nerves over Marie. He’d spent the weekend either at St. Jude’s or at her parent’s home and still she didn’t wake up. She remained motionless on the hospital bed, like Snow White in her glass casket, waiting to be awoken by her Prince.
Sebastian had carefully kissed her on the Saturday, allowing himself to believe for one desperate minute that perhaps a kiss from him would miraculously revive her. It didn’t. Instead when he pulled away from her he was greeted by only the steady methodical beeping of the machines which were keeping his fiancée alive.
It was busy outside the hospital as staff arrived to start their working week. Sebastian was supposed to be commencing his day in London, working with his father but instead he was here sinking in to despair. He had twenty minutes before he was due to meet with Marie’s lead doctor, along with her parents. He sensed that any news they were to be given wouldn’t be good.
He tried to brace himself for the worst. To imagine a world without Marie in it but it was just too terrible to bear. Marie was his world. Perhaps he’d never told her enough, but she was. If she left him alone, the darkness in his soul which she suppressed would eat him alive.
“Oh, you’re here,” Bill Schneider said sheepishly as he rounded the corner. He smelt of fresh smoke. It seemed both men had succumbed to the same vice in their darkest hour.
“Just waiting on the meeting,” Sebastian stubbed out his cigarette on the nearby bin.
“Hopefully they will have some news for us,” Bill tried to sound upbeat but he looked broken. There were ominous dark circles beneath his eyes and fresh lines had formed on his forehead over the weekend.
Sebastian didn’t look much better. His hair was matted against his head and he was ghostly pale. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t rest, he could barely eat. Every second he spent away from Marie’s bedside he feared would be the second she’d wake and find him not there. Or worse, it would be the moment she’d slip away. Either way, he wanted to be there for her.
“Time to put on our game faces,” Bill said, clearing his throat. “We’ve got to be strong for Carol.”
*
The three of them were led in to a small office. An additional blue chair had to be brought in for Sebastian. Carol sat between the two men, barely able to support her own weight. She had a tissue permanently attached to her left hand which she periodically dabbed against her cheeks even though she had no tears left to shed.
Moments later Dr.Simmons entered and positioned himself behind the small beech desk opp
osite them.
“Good morning,” he greeted them stiffly. “I’m Dr. Simmons.” Bill and Sebastian shook his hand politely but Carol couldn’t even look up at him.
“I’m the lead doctor on your daughter’s case,” he began, casting his eyes back over her patient file. He already knew all the information it contained it was just a force of habit and a way to prevent awkward tension with the family.
“Initial tests have shown that there was a substantial bleed on the brain which is most likely to be causing the coma.”
“Can’t you drain it?” Sebastian demanded, leaning forward. He looked strung out, like a drug addict attempting to go clean and struggling.
“There was some swelling also which we managed to control,” Dr. Simmons continued. “With bleeds, they usually settle on their own after a few days. We wouldn’t want to do anything too invasive at this stage for fear of causing unnecessary permanent damage.”
“So what happens now?” Bill ask solemnly as he wrapped an arm around Carol who was trembling.
“In these circumstances, most patients wake up on their own. The brain has time to recover and when it does, they regain consciousness.”
“But Marie hasn’t woken up,” Sebastian stated anxiously.
“I know,” Dr. Simmons lowered his gaze back to the file. This was the part he hated.
“The issue we have with Marie is that we are now close to moving beyond the seventy two hour window.”
“What does that mean?” Bill asked as Carol dabbed at phantom tears.
“In coma cases the first seventy two hours are crucial. If someone regains consciousness during that time, chances are they suffer no lasting damage. The longer someone remains in a coma, the more damage occurs to both the brain and their other organs as the body slowly begins to shut down.”
Carol let out a high pitched wail.
“Oh my baby!” she cried desperately.
“There has to be something we can do,” Sebastian urged, using his forceful tone which was usually reserved solely for the boardroom.
Dr. Simmons crossed his hands on the desk before him. He was a man of science and he hated feeling beaten by anything. If there was a chance he could save Marie, he’d take it. The oath he’d taken back in medical school danced around his mind on a daily basis. His job was to save lives, surely there was no greater calling. He’d do whatever he could to save the girl. He was painfully aware of the fact that they were running out of both time and options.
“There is only one course of action I can propose,” he told Marie’s loved ones.
“Which is?” Sebastian was willing to do anything.
“We could try and force her to wake up using stimulants. However, this is a highly risky procedure as if her brain hasn’t yet fully recovered we could damage anything from her mobility to her ability to form words. However, if we just leave her, it is my professional opinion that at this point she won’t wake up. With that being the case I’d need you to consider end of life care and what Marie would want to happen to her organs. Was she a donor?”
The trio were silent as the words settled around them.
Donor.
Damage.
It was a lot to take in. Carol shook as she leaned against Bill for support. Sebastian looked over to them. Since he and Marie were not yet married the decision on what to do would ultimately lie with them. But he saw the resignation in their eyes. He knew they wouldn’t fight for her. No one would but him.
“Do it,” Sebastian declared fiercely. “Do the procedure, wake her up.”
“But what about the damage?” Bill looked sorrowfully across at him. “What if she wakes up and she’s not Marie anymore?”
“She will always be Marie,” Sebastian said fervently. He held back the tears in his eyes as he imagined watching the machines around her be disconnected, knowing he’d lost her forever. He couldn’t let that happen.
“Even if she can’t walk, or talk, she’d still be Marie! We can’t give up on her! She wouldn’t give up on us.”
“I think it’s too risky,” Bill said sadly, unable to meet Sebastian’s intense gaze. “I want her back as much as you do but not at the cost of her quality of life.”
Sebastian seethed. He gripped the arms of the blue chair he was sat in and tried to control his temper. If only Marie were his wife, then he’d get the final say on her treatment and they’d be waking her up, not sitting here debating theoretical outcomes.
“Do it,” Carol spoke her, her voice barely audible.
“Sorry, Mrs Schneider?” Dr. Simmons looked at her, not quite deciphering her response.
“Do it, wake her up, save my little girl,” Carol repeated a little louder, the tissue now permanently held just beneath her eyes.
“Sweetheart, we should think about this,” Bill whispered fearfully to her. “We don’t know how she’d be if they wake her up this way.”
“Sebastian is right, she’d still be Marie. I just want her back, I don’t care about anything else.”
Bill looked at his wife, saw the resolute glint in her eye and nodded towards the doctor.
“Okay, let’s do it,” he sighed. “Just be prepared, Carol, that she might not be Marie anymore when she wakes up.”
“No, she’ll always be Marie,” Carol corrected him as Dr. Simmons handed across the consent forms for them to sign.
*
“It will take several hours,” he’d explained to them. “First we administer the stimulants and then we continue to monitor her. We anticipate that her vitals will grow stronger and hopefully she will wake up before the end of the day.”
“Hopefully?” Sebastian challenged.
“It doesn’t always work,” Dr Simmons sighed. “But this is our very last chance to wake her up. Like I said, the longer she stays under the more damage is done.”
And so the family watched from beyond the ICU as strong stimulation drugs were added to Marie’s IV and slowly fed in to her system.
“I hope this works,” Bill stated tensely.
“It has to,” Sebastian sighed, resting her hands upon the glass. “I need her to come back to me.”
“We all do, son,” Bill patted the younger man on the back. Usually, Sebastian resented anyone calling him son. He found it to be a condescending term. But today he found it endearing. He, Bill and Carol were unified in their grief and desperation for Marie’s return. They all knew what it was like to love her, none of them wanted to learn what it was like to lose her.
“We should really go home and rest,” Bill said softly to his wife.
“No, I want to stay; I want to be here when she wakes up.” Carol objected.
“The doctor said it will take several hours,” Bill coaxed her away from the window. “You really need to rest honey. We’ll come back this afternoon.”
“I’ll stay,” Sebastian offered though he had no intention of leaving. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”
“She’s lucky to have you,” Bill placed a comforting hand upon Sebastian’s shoulder. He saw in the older man’s eyes that he’d already accepted that Marie was gone. There was only himself and Carol clinging on to the shred of hope that not only would she wake up, but when she did she’d still be herself, as wonderful and as vibrant as she ever was.
“I won’t take my eyes off her,” Sebastian promised. “Not for a second.”
“Thank you,” Carol said tearfully. Begrudgingly she allowed Bill to lead her away from the ICU.
Sebastian turned back towards the window, towards Marie. She remained utterly still and perfectly preserved as the machines around her did all the work of maintaining her life.
“Come on baby,” Sebastian urged desperately, resting his forehead against the cool glass.
“Wake up, I know you can do it.”
As exhausted as he was he couldn’t leave. He had to maintain his vigil at Marie’s side. He had to believe that at any moment she would wake up and turn to face him, giving him that smile she always did when s
omething pleasant caught her by surprise. Her face would fill up with childish wonder and Sebastian would be overwhelmed by her beauty.
That was one thing he adored about Marie; her ability to find wonder and magic throughout the world. She’d instilled in him an unrepentant sense of hope which endured now, even with the prospect of her demise looming in the air like a foul stench. Marie would always find the light in the darkness and cling to it and now Sebastian embodied that mentality, wishing with every fibre of his being that at any moment she’d wake up and return to him.
