Eminent Silence

by Tristan Carey

  They didn't have to worry. After seeing the strange city, I didn't want to outside again. I didn't want to leave the familiarity of the hospital.

  I could still hear plenty, though. I heard the rush of footsteps, the shouting, the rolling trolleys, the crying and weeping and groaning. Machines beeping, doors slamming, sirens going off non-stop. A strange, breathy rattle, like wheezing.

  People dying. I didn't know that's what it was until later, and the sound would haunt my dreams for months to come.

  'Hello?' I called out, hoping to get someone's attention. Maybe someone could explain to me what was going on. Maybe they'd actually let me up. Despite the wounds on my back, I was allowed to sleep with my head facing the ceiling, so I guess it wasn't that bad. 'Hey, what's going on? Someone let me out!'

  I had been in and out, thanks to the painkillers the doctor put me on — a short, belligerent man with small spectacles and white hair — which had now mysteriously vanished, so of course I was wide awake and ready to go now. But during my hours of consciousness, I was at the mercy of his incessant questions, none of which I could answer.

  'Why were you in the mountains?'

  'I don't know.'

  'How did you get shot?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Are you being difficult? Why won't you just tell us the truth?'

  And so on. I was still catching up on the whole getting-shot thing, which I found extremely disturbing, for obvious reasons.

  I almost didn't believe the doctor at first, but then he showed me the bullets, flattened and rust-colored, kept in a small plastic container, and rattled them in my face. 'And what are these, then? Whose back did I dig these out of? You're lucky, girl! They didn't even go through your ribcage, you shouldn't even be breathing right now. Two bullets! Do you know who tried to kill you?'

  At that point, I had gotten annoyed with his attitude, and had rather flippantly replied, 'Well, that's hard to say, since they shot me from behind.'

  That was right after they pulled me back into the hospital. The doctor, whose name I still couldn't recall, hadn't come back to see me since. Maybe he got a clue and just gave up.

  The pale green walls pressed in around me, sickening and tight. The noise, all this awful noise, just rising to the ceiling, filling every crevice and corner. I couldn't escape from it. I couldn't even cover my ears. What was this? What was happening?

  This was all some horrible dream. First I was in some foreign country, now I've been shot in the back — twice — and lived on top of it all?

  Things like that didn't happen to girls like me. It just didn't make any sense. Why would I be shot at to begin with? Why was I here? How did I get here?

  Even now, as I watched the panic growing in the hospital, I tried to scan my memories, find an answer to all of this. The last thing I could remember were flashing red-and-blue lights, a siren, Mom's face — wait, I had been dying, hadn't I? It didn't seem real then, much like my current situation felt right now.

  More images flashed in my mind. The car crash, the ambulance on its side, the helicopter coming to rescue us. Mom clinging to me, begging me to hang on, or let go, or-or-or—

  A shudder coursed down my body, a chill making the hairs on my arms stand on end. The thought of dying wasn't exactly alien to me, but then it actually happening?

  Another terrible dream that I could barely comprehend.

  I just wanted Mom.

  I just wanted to go home.

  'Up!' A voice broke me out of my reverie. I jumped as the nurse — the one with the short black hair, the one I pushed — suddenly barged in, grabbing the strap on my right wrist and ripping it off in one go. 'Up, girl! Time to leave!'

  'W-what?' I just stared at the nurse as she continued down to my ankles, roughly shoving my legs off the gurney. Unsure of what else to do, and now able to move, I sat up, unable to believe what I saw.

  'You must leave!'

  'Why?' I said, watching with a dumb expression as she removed the IV from my arm, slapped on a hasty band-aid. These guys had gone through so much effort to keep me here, they still didn't have answers (neither did I, but that's not the point). 'You still don't know what happened to me!'

  'Of course we do!' The nurse snapped as she undid the last strap around my left wrist, then rammed both hands into my back, between my shoulders blades, and pushed me off the bed. 'You are alive, are you not? You can stand! You're healthy! What do you need a gurney for?'

  'Wait, what's happening?' I stumbled to my feet, wincing as pain shot down my back. Of course she had to touched the still-fresh stitches. Just because the bullets didn't kill me didn't mean they still didn't hurt sometimes. Still, I managed to gesture to the door, as another nurse wheeled in a patient — covered in blood, a bandage over his eye — and deposited him on a gurney to my right. 'What's going on?'

  'Another attack!' The nurse snapped as she grabbed the sheets on my gurney, ripped them off, then grabbed some off a cart to replace them. 'What are you, stupid? Haven't you been watching the TV?'

  To be honest, no. It was just a reminder of how I didn't want to be here, of how I was in some strange place that spoke a strange language.

  'There was an explosion!' the nurse explained when I said nothing. 'Just an hour ago. You could hear it, even from a mile away. The second one in a week. Damn revolutionaries! Can't leave well enough alone!'

  An explosion? Like a bomb? I was asleep an hour ago, and I had been jolted awake by something, too sudden for a groggy mind to comprehend.

  Now the details were clear. A distant boom, rattling of the glass window — innocuous at first, but so obvious now that I knew what it was. The following noise after that, a soft roar that crescendo into screams and stampedes. I hadn't known what it was at the time; I wasn't exactly familiar with what the noise of hundreds of terrified people sounded like. This whole place was filled with strange sounds.

  Then, in less than an hour, the already busy hospital was suddenly rendered into complete chaos.

  'And now you must go!' The nurse finished, fixing the bed with surprising speed. What normally took me fifteen minutes she did in under thirty seconds. She went around, grabbed me by the arm, and hauled me out of the room. 'We have no room for freeloaders like you!'

  I didn't try to resist her this time the nurse manhandled me. Her shouting made me timid — a fact that didn't help with what was happening in the halls. I stumbled over splayed legs and crouched bodies as she led me out. Men, women, and children, some in worse states than other, but all of them injured. Children cried while parents comforted. Anyone who wasn't sitting was moving, looking for help, trying to get answers, anything to make sense of this mess.

  The nurse had to push and shove to clear a path, but I still kept running into people. The halls felt unusually narrow, my legs slow to to respond. Between apologies and pardons, I managed to ask the nurse, a little breathless. 'B-but I still don't know how I got here. How I got hurt, how to get home —'

  'Not our problem!' The nurse snapped. 'It's called priorities, we can't help if you're too simple to remember your own name! Maybe you'll find the answers you're looking for outside!'

  'But —' I tried to protest, but got decked by an errant elbow to the chin and was too preoccupied with the new pain in my jaw to continue talking. The nurse didn't halt for a second as she escorted me out, like it was her personal mission. I suppose she was still a little sour about what I did a couple days previous. 'Is this about me pushing you? I already said sorry —'

  'Please, I've handled men bigger than you, who fought harder,' the nurse sniffed, not the least bit fazed. 'The doctor decided he had more pressing issues than some stupid little girl who wouldn't talk. So we're letting you go.'

  Before I knew it, we were outside. The cold air hit me, instantly chilling me to the bone. My bare feet touched the cobblestone and immediately I wanted none of this. It was loud out here, too, with cars and ambulances and more people wanting to get in
side. More screaming and crying. Smoke in the distance.

  The nurse let go, turned to go back inside, but stopped when I called, 'Wait, w-what am I supposed to do? I don't know what's going on.'

  She paused, frowned, for the first time looking hesitant as she appraised me, standing there at the base of the steps, hugging my arms and shivering. '...I'm sorry, but we can't help you anymore. I know little more than you do, it seems. The questions you have won't be answered here.'

  'Where am I supposed to go? You can't just leave me out here like this!'

  The nurse was silent for a moment, looking me up and down. She sighed, then said, 'Wait right here,' before disappearing back into the hospital.

  I thought she was going to play a fast one on me, just leaving me behind like this, and for three seconds I felt like I was going to cry — before she returned a few minutes later, something folded under her arm.

  She handed it to me. A green canvas jacket, worn but still thick. On top of that, a pair of old tennis shoes. 'Here, take these. I hope it helps.' Then, she pressed something into me hand. Paper and coins. 'It's not much, but should be enough to get you some food. I suggest getting out of town while you still can.'

  I stared at her, speechless, then at her command hurried to shrug on the jacket. Stuffing the money into my pocket, I managed to stutter, 'T-thank you.'

  'Stay safe out there,' the nurse said, her eyes leveling me with a serious gaze. 'This world is changing, and I'm afraid we have yet to see the worst of it. It's no place for someone like you.'

  I was about to say something else, but then a siren pierced the air, and another ambulance came screaming down the road, skidding to a stop in front of the hospital doors. People scattered as the doors flew open and what looked like a dozen people piled out, bleeding and hurt, like some sort of morbid clown car. The nurse disappeared in the rush, and I was pushed away, tripping across the cobblestones and onto the street.

  I nearly fell, but caught myself in time. Shoes still in my arms, I turned to give one last glance at the hospital — a low brick building with barred windows — before slipping the shoes on my feet.

  Then I straightened, wrapped my arms around myself to keep the jacket closed. I looked up at the sky, hoping to see the sun but only got a gray overcast sky. It diluted the shadows, made everything hazy and dull-colored. Up on the rooftops, I saw those men with guns again. This time, they held the firearms aloft, full alert. What were they, guards, military? One was even looking at me, and I froze.

  It seemed so stupid — what did I have to worry about? There was no reason for them to be suspicious of me. I had done nothing wrong.

  But my stomach did flips. I didn't really know that, did I?

  I didn't move until the guard finally looked away, apparently finding nothing of interest in me.

  It was a small relief.

  Six months.

  Gone. Just like that.

  One day its April in New York City, the next its October in God-Knows-Where.

  Six months I couldn't remember. Was this what it was like for Rip Van Winkle when he fell asleep for a hundred years, and woke up in the future, no idea what happened? Because I was starting to sympathize.

  I shuffled down the street, not really sure where I was going, or what I should do. The streets were alien to me, gray buildings with dark windows, staring me down, an unwelcome visitor. Further away from the hospital, the streets were quiet, almost empty. Cars drifted by slowly, cautious. Other passerby didn't look at me, and their shoulders bumped hard as we passed. Everyone was tense.

  I felt off. I was scared, too, like them, but for different reasons. Where was I? What was this city? Why were all the words in Cyrillic and how could I read them? What had happened in those six months that led to this?

  It was just the same questions, over and over. I hugged myself, fingers digging into my arms. The pinching woke me up a little, but it didn't make me think any clearer. I still wanted to go home. I still had no idea how to do that.

  I just wanted Mom. I wanted a phone, I wanted to call for help. There had to be someone around here, right? Maybe the police…

  But I saw no police, no enforcement aside from the men on the rooftops who patrolled in silence.

  I had a feeling they weren't here to help little lost girls like me.

  Something flashed in the store window to my right, and I glanced at it. Strange eyes met mine and my heart skipped a beat. Someone's watching me!

  I flinched away from the sight, threw myself away from the window, before I realized it was just my reflection.

  My heart pounded in my throat, my eyes flicking towards the stranger in the window again. Short blond hair, dirty and ragged at the ends, hollow gray eyes shadowed in black, a skeletal face; arms and legs too long, pale and sinewy, hunched over like some deformed creature of the night.

  Alarmed, I stumbled away, too frightened to get a closer look at what I saw. In the back of my mind, I knew it was me that I saw, knew it wasn't some scary monster — but I comprehend how that thing was me.

  Did I really look like that? No, no, it wasn't possible. I must've just been seeing things. Scared of my own reflection, my mind playing tricks on me. Yeah, that's it.

  Despite that little pep talk, I still couldn't make myself look for my reflection again.

  I continued onwards, down the street, slightly off-balance. I felt like I was walking through a dream, gazing up at these strange buildings, the broken windows, the scorch marks. Some were worn away, but I didn't fail to notice the holes dappled in the walls, from bullets that struck long ago.

  Signs of a past battle were everywhere, now that I noticed. It was easy to spot where old buildings had been repaired with fresh wood and new stone; empty lots where a storefront or an apartment might have once stood, but struck down. In those buildings that still stood, there were chunks missing in the facades, the steps, the trimmings. There were still bits of stone, some as big as my head, pushed into the corners and crevices, left to be forgotten.

  This wasn't America. I knew it before, but it only struck me then the truth. This wasn't just some battle, was it? Maybe it had something to do with those revolutionaries the nurse mentioned. The explosions. Bombings.

  What country would be in a state like this? I thought back to my knowledge of current events, which was admittedly six months out of date — six months, oh my God — but I couldn't recall any particular European country that might've had this kind of trouble, either now or in the recent past.

  I fingered the money in my pocket. As I walked, I pulled out a coin, examined its shape. I studied its copper surface, its hexagonal shape. On one side was a crest, the other a large '5' stamped, underneath stamped the word 'kopeks'. I spun it around, looking at the crest again. An eagle with its wings outspread, and a crown over its head. I was used to American currency, so I was a little disappointed that there were no signifies to country.

  Well, guess I had to find another way. But I knew it was odd that what was presumably a European country (if the architecture, climate, and people were anything to go buy), why weren't they using Euros?

  No, kopeks were part of the Russian currency, right? I knew I wasn't in Russia, though, since the eagle on the coin had one head, instead of the two seen on the Russian crest. So I must at least be in a country near it. Which meant I was even further east on the globe than I thought. Jesus, where even was I?

  The air was filled with the sound of bustle and chatter as I drew closer to a square. Soft music played from a distant radio I couldn't see as I entered, finding myself surrounded by busy storefronts and stalls selling food and wares.

  It was almost like the terror from before didn't exist here. Citizens perused and conversed, albeit quietly and behind cupped hands.

  A nearby bakery filled the air with the smell of bread and cake, and my stomach growled. I hugged myself even tighter as my mouth salivated. I didn't even realize I was hungry, distracted by my thoughts,
but now I couldn't think of anything else besides food. The hospital had kept me fed on fluids and Jell-O, but it was hardly filling, or as satisfying as actual bread and fruit.

  I checked the money in my pocket. Ten — what were they called, rubles? — ten rubles and sixty-five kopeks. Hopefully, that was enough to get me something before I found more money, or a way out of here. Whichever came first.

  I made a beeline for the bakery, guided by my stomach to the first thing I wanted. Still, I checked the window first, gauging the prices and trying to balance size to price; I didn't want to spend all my money on bread, or food for that matter.

  To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know what professionals would advise someone to do if they woke up in a foreign country, with no memory of how they got there or six month interim, with little money and hardly the right clothes for the weather. I was still wearing the clothes that the couple in the car found me in, along with a new shirt, since the old one had been removed and thrown away when the doctors removed the bullets from my back.