Chaos by Sarah Bailey

One

Scarlett

TEN YEARS AGO

It felt like I’d been drowning forever. My mind was a swamp filled with vegetation and things tangling around my legs, preventing me from surfacing. All I wanted was to come up for air. To find my way back to whatever I’d left behind. Only… I had no clue what it was I was fighting for. Everything was jumbled up. Nothing made sense. It was all a blur, a haze of images I didn’t recognise.

There was a beeping sound next to me. It was incessant. I tried to focus on it. On the pattern of it. The way it drummed in my ears, echoing the beat in my chest.

My heart. My heart was beating. And the noise was connected to it.

Awareness of my surroundings bled back into my consciousness. I wanted to move. I wanted to open my eyes, but my lids were heavy and uncooperative. A whooshing sound joined the beeping. It took me a long minute to realise I wasn’t breathing on my own. The rise and fall of my chest was too clinical, too perfectly paced.

I wanted to wake up. Wanted to come back to the world even though I couldn’t remember why or what it held for me. The only thing I knew was that I needed it. My eyes needed to open. My fingers needed to move. My lips needed to make sounds. Whoever was out there needed to know I was awake but trapped in my own body.

However long it took, I didn’t know, but my fingers twitched. They moved a fraction, stroking across the soft material below me. A sound carried towards my ears. It was alien to me in so many ways, but somehow, I recognised it as words… a voice.

“She’s moving.”

I hung onto those two words. They propelled me forward. Someone else was here. Another person. My eyes flew open and remained unblinking for a long moment, staring up at the white ceiling. A face appeared above me. It wasn’t one I recognised. Soft brown eyes stared into my own ones. He had a heart-shaped face and a lopsided smile along with a head of light brown hair.

“Scarlett, can you hear me?”

I blinked. It was the only movement I could make. There was something in my mouth preventing me from talking. A tube helping me breathe. My lungs didn’t like that any longer. I choked, trying to breathe on my own. I couldn’t. This thing needed to come out. It needed to disappear. The beeping sound increased with my heart rate spiking as panic constricted my chest.

“Shit.”

The face disappeared. My hand twitched again. I needed to breathe. Desperately needed to breathe.

Let me out. Someone let me out, please. Help me. Let me breathe.

A hand landed on my head, stroking my hair back.

“It’s okay, Scarlett. Everything is going to be okay. Just go back to sleep now,” a different voice told me, soothing me from the inside out.

There was a minute more where I wanted to talk, wanted to tell them to let me out, but then I drifted off again into oblivion. Only there was nothing for me there but the swamp and vines holding me down in the water. I hated it. Every moment of it. I wanted to come back to the surface. There were people there. People who could tell me what was going on and why I was stuck in my body, unable to get out.

How long I drifted, I had no clue. The sudden rush to an alert state had my eyes flicking open. This time, there was no whooshing sound. And nothing was holding my mouth open. My chest rose and fell at a steady, more natural pace. I was breathing on my own. The beeping remained, reminding me my heart was beating. I was alive and awake.

Turning my head, I could see I was in a room surrounded by machines, but it wasn’t a hospital. It was a regular bedroom. Looking down, I found myself practically immobilised in the bed. One of my arms was encased in a plaster cast and I couldn’t see under the covers placed over me, hiding my legs from view. I tried to move them and found it hurt too much. At that point, I didn’t think it would be the best idea to attempt to get out of bed.

“Whash hapshen?”

I had meant to say what happened, but my speech came out slurred and stilted.

Why couldn’t I talk properly?

Why couldn’t I remember what happened to me?

I had too many questions and there was no one there to answer them for me.

I lay there, trying to keep my breathing steady and even whilst inside, I was panicking. When I tried to focus on the hazy images in my head, I couldn’t remember anything.

What was my name?

I didn’t know my own name.

A tear fell down my cheek. This was too much for me to handle. My mind was a riot of images I couldn’t place or see clearly. And I didn’t even know who I was.

A door opened to my right. I turned my head and found the man with the soft brown eyes and light brown hair walking towards me. When he saw I was awake, he smiled at me.

“Hello, Scarlett, welcome back to the land of the living.”

He took a seat in the chair next to me.

“Haaa.”

I was trying to say hello, but I couldn’t form words properly. Why wasn’t my mouth working? I had no idea why I could understand him or words when I couldn’t remember anything.

He reached out and took my hand, stroking a thumb down the back of it.

“Shh, it’s okay. They said you may have trouble speaking.”

I wanted to burst into tears. How could I explain to this person that I didn’t recognise him? I didn’t know who he was.

“I should get the nurse for you, she’ll be able to explain what happened.”

I shook my head and gripped onto his fingers the best I could. I didn’t want him to leave now he was here.

“Paaapaaa.”

If I couldn’t talk, then I could attempt to communicate in another way. The man seemed to understand what I was asking for.

“You want something to write on?”

I nodded. He let go of my hand and pulled out his phone from his pocket. Fiddling with it for a moment, he then set it near my hand.

“You can write with your finger, okay?”

Using one finger, I wrote down what I could manage.

Who are you?

He frowned.

“I’m Mason.”

I don’t know who I am.

His eyes turned sad.

“You’re Scarlett.”

Scarlett. He’d called me that. And whoever had been here before had called me Scarlett as well. I sounded out the name in my head. I didn’t recognise it, but if it’s what this Mason was telling me, then maybe it was my name.

Where am I?

“At home.”

What happened?

He shook his head.

“I think it’s better if I get the nurse for you. She can answer your questions.”

Please tell me.

He paused and then sighed as he looked over at the door.

“You were in an accident and you’ve been in a coma for four weeks.”

I swallowed and tears spilt down my cheeks. An accident? Four weeks in a coma? Was that why my arm was in a cast and why my legs hurt when I moved them?

An accident?

“Yes. Look, let me get the nurse, okay? I promise I won’t be gone for long.”

I nodded at him. If this nurse was going to tell me what happened, then I might as well let him get the person. Mason didn’t immediately leave. He stared down at me with sad eyes before he reached over and wiped away my tears with his fingers.

“I’m sorry, Scarlett, I really am. This must be confusing for you, but just know I’m here for you, okay? We’ll get through this together. I’ll keep you safe.”

He dropped his hand back to mine again and gave it a squeeze. I smiled at him. If he was telling the truth, then perhaps I could trust this man, even though I had no memory of him. I had no memories at all. And it was the very worst part about waking up after four weeks of drowning in the murky waters of my mind.