Charis
Three Months Earlier.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The sound pulled me from the darkness, and the first thing I felt was its weight.
My eyelids felt heavy as lead, but I forced them open, squinting against harsh lighting above that made my head pound. White ceiling tiles swam in and out of focus above me, and an antiseptic smell that reminded me of a hospital filled my nostrils.
Tubes. There were several of them connected to me—monitors tracking my heartbeat, IV drips feeding something into my veins, oxygen tubes beneath my nose. A pulse oximeter was clipped to my finger, too. My throat felt raw and dry, like I'd been screaming for hours, though I couldn't remember why.
A chair scraped beside me, and from my peripheral view, I caught movement.
I turned my head, trying to make out the face as my vision swam slightly until it normalised. It was the woman who had visited me at the holding cells back at Ravenshore. Isolde…something. I couldn't remember.
