Awakening

The racks of clothing shimmied before her eyes. The blacks, pastels and grays bled together, creating an underwater mosaic of ill fitting, matronly three-quarter sleeved tops. Straining to focus, Ariadne glanced up and surveyed the store, taking in the other faceless people perusing the sales sections. The mall was open late as part of a last minute push for consumerism during Black Friday weekend, and the postures of shoppers were hunched and haggard.

She glanced at the shirts… sweaters?... before her. So many clothes were cross-curricular these days. If it’s long sleeved, is it truly a “shirt” anymore? If it’s thicker but sleeveless… do we call that a vest?

She didn’t know or want to care. She wasn’t here for herself. Ariadne had been dragged along as an accessory to Beverly. She was here as background noise — busy and fluffy, but not necessarily a source of substance.

The cloth in front of her shifted again. Was someone inside the rack, messing with her? She was hesitant as she parted the hangers, peering into the shadows they protected. Poles, dust bunnies, and a few abandoned price tags likely tossed there by shoplifters long gone. Glancing over a shoulder, Ariadne shifted uncomfortably and tried to find something worth purchasing so that she could at least wait outside, away from the cacophonous electronic music piped in overhead.

That was the moment the gunshots crackled just at the peripheral of her awareness.

Spinning, Ariadne scanned the store. Aside from a couple of sidelong glances at her sudden movement, no one lifted their head or even flinched.

Hands clammy and fumbling, she hung the items from her arms back onto the rack and moved slowly towards the exit. Beverly was nowhere to be seen, probably still in the dressing rooms, but Ariadne was too impatient to wait any longer. Just as her stride crossed from the linoleum of the store to the corporate navy carpet of the mall’s central pathway, she heard the sound again. Popping, accompanied by… a faint rumbling?

She tensed, surveying the people nearby to see if she could be imagining it. A couple pushing a stroller nearby, two androgenous figures with short hair and bulky coats, also stopped. They turned, looking over shoulders in her direction for a breath, then continued. Confusion and panic began to manifest a spiraling feeling in her chest.

Stumbling, she aimed for a bench against the opposite wall, weaving through pedestrians perpendicularly and feeling the physical bristling of annoyance she caused as she passed. Then as she leaned towards the bench, the wall above it exploded, vibrations rattling her teeth as she fell to the ground.

Screams erupted everywhere, nearly as deafening as the bullets fragmenting the junction of the wall and ceiling. Suddenly, her limbs were leaden and uncooperative as she struggled to crawl behind something, anything. A sharp tug on the back of her jacket, and she was jolted into a small space behind a kiosk next to others kneeling in fear.

Her vision seemed cloudy. She couldn’t focus, couldn’t take in air, couldn’t hear.

Ariadne flexed her palms against the dusty tiles beneath her, trying to feel the solid ground. How far had she run? Crawled? Where was Beverly, what store had she been in?

Reluctantly shifting around her shield to get her bearings, she flinched at more echoes of shrieks and shattering glass from somewhere to the right of her, further away now. This was the only mall in the area, and she’d spent many days shopping here since she was a child. All she needed to see was one store, and she could orient herself to search for an exit.

The pathway seemed wider than she remembered, and she forced herself not to register, to count, the bodies. There were also others in hiding, whispers, shushes, and stifled sobs. The store across from her was white and sterile, like most others, but the neon lettering was distinctly red. Taking in a shuddering breath, Ariadne squinted to focus. The letters seemed to bleed into one another… A...◁…⃤… D. ◁↾? M?

Confused, she dragged herself forward and rose slightly to see better, but —

A sudden heat wrenched from her right kidney to belly button. Then darkness. Silence.

Silence. Then light.

Roxanna propped herself up and tapped to turn off her watch’s alarm. Blinking, she struggled to orient herself. Waking up was always jarring. Seemingly a moment ago, she had laid down and set a nap timer, feeling exhausted and dreading the afternoon meeting she was headed to. Then, as if by the flip of a switch, time had passed and she was rejuvenated.

Sleeping was strange. Nobody really understood it. Scientists had spent decades trying to decode what happened when our bodies went into stasis, and brain function seemed to just… disappear. Undetectable, even though the body breathed and pumped life around just as it should.

Since the invention and exponential development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Electroencephalogram (EEG) many tests were performed, of course. It was almost funny, actually. The first time anyone thought to aim these machines at a sleeping subject there was panic. They thought their subject had died, somehow unknowingly suffered an aneurysm right there while under observation. The volunteer was confused by their urgency as they woke him up while preparing to implement emergency procedures.

Scans and blood draws and many interviews later, and we ended up with a stunning research publication announcing how that was “just what our brains did” during rest. Groundbreaking, right?

Which is what Roxanna reminded herself of every time she awoke.

Flinging herself over the right side of her bed and bending toward the floor in search of discarded socks, she winced. Her right side and abdomen were a little tight, residual soreness from the previous day’s workout. Then, a flurry of busywork as she prepared herself for the meeting. It was virtual, yes, but she still needed to be presentable and feel refreshed.

The mundanity of teeth-brushing, putting in contacts, annoyingly noticing the label on her contact solution to see that she’d bought the wrong formula somehow. Saline just wouldn’t do… something about bacteria? Huffing, she added the replacement to her phone’s shopping list.

Joining the meeting on mute, Roxanna waved and immediately focused instead on her second screen to check emails. Junk, requests, and news. She opened a newsletter with blurbs and links regarding today’s headlines.

She usually just skimmed; the news was too depressing these days, and her therapist constantly recommended she limit her intake. Today’s offerings just proved it: educational spending cuts, unrest overseas, and a horrifying shooting at a mall not far from her home.

Closing tab after tab of distractions, Roxanna refocused on the meeting.

Later, laying in bed, Roxanna struggled to find a comfortable position. The day had been long, yet anxiety was high and she still felt compelled to keep working instead of wasting time sleeping. There was so much to get done, and hours in bed felt pointless. She cursed her biological need for the dreaded mental reset. But her body was still achy and tense, and she knew the physical recovery could only occur while her body did not need to operate her mind. Her eyes slowly shut.

Light. The overhead fluorescents were agonizing as Ariadne groaned and turned her head. Scratchy sheets and wires… she was used to losing time, but this was something new. Tugging her vision field to the left, she noticed an institutional-looking door. There was a distant wall and pale blue placard visible through the door’s small window, but it was too far to see clearly.

“You’re in the ICU,” said a voice even further to the left. Caught off guard, Ariadne turned to see her mother staring at her under a furrowed brow. “I’m so glad you’re finally awake.”

“What…”

“There was a… an… attack. They’re not sure how many… but you, you– and Beverly, …sh-she…” an then she began to sob, gripping my hand.

“Mom… is Beverly dead?” Ariadne was hoarse, either from her time unconscious or from the weight of the words. Beverly wasn’t necessarily a close friend, she was a little annoying honestly, but Ariadne didn’t want her dead.

“No, but her leg. They’re doing surgery now.” Her mother turned to the door as a doctor entered. Speaking briskly, he explained the extent of the bodily damage with his head tilted down towards the clipboard he held. After the transactional meeting was concluded, he informed her mother that visiting time was limited and Ariadne needed to rest. Medication was ordered, a tray of flavorless food was left on her tray table, and just like that Ariadne was alone.

The now dim room was shadowy and borderless. She was groggy. What had they given her? She tried to turn over to find the button for a nurse, but her limbs didn’t seem to respond. She strained, lifting her arm a few inches from the bed, but then glanced over to see her hand had not moved. Blinking, she struggled to lift the bowling ball that had seemingly replaced her skull… blink. Like a tape measure snapping back into place, she could feel the pillow enveloping her head all the way to her ears.

Ariadne’s fingertips pulsed. Her chest tightened. Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced herself to breathe in through her nose and out through her clenched teeth… to focus on the silence around her.

Roxanna slammed into consciousness. Gasping, she tried to rise, only to be halted by a searing pain in her abdomen. She tried to slow her breathing… she’d woken up with muscle cramps in the past, but they were usually in her leg. Her mother always told her to eat more bananas.

Peeling back the blanket, an involuntary scream escaped her. Blood, so much blood. Thick and sticky, it coated her palms as she fumbled to find the source. Beneath her sodden t-shirt, the skin was... Intact? But an ink stain of bruising seemed to be spreading across her stomach. Visibly spreading, at a rate appallingly easy to perceive with Roxanna’s eyes.

Fingers slipping over her phone, she shakily tapped in the emergency call, the staccato dialing causing a sickening sound on the wet screen.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“I woke up, I’m hurt… bleeding,” she panted. “Help, something’s wrong…” And then, darkness.

[This is an excerpt/opening chapter. To be continued.]