Cured [ManxMan]

Chapter Nine

There was a soft sound, something lilting and familiar, but I wasn't at first able to place what it was. It was soothing, masking the steady beeping of the heart monitor and whooshing of the ventilator. It was music, slow and purposeless, strings of sound not tied to any particular melody, but beautiful, nonetheless.

I was so relaxed, it took great effort to tilt my head to the left, and even more to convince my eyes to open. At first, I had to squint against the bright sunlight falling from the window directly into my eyes, but after they adjusted, I was rewarded with a sight that made it worthwhile.

Mattie still sat in the same wooden chair, but he'd pushed it back a few feet from the bed. In his lap was an instrument I recognized: a guitar. If I wasn't mistaken, the same guitar from my memory, the wood faded and scuffed from years of use. I remembered holding that guitar in my lap with Mattie pressed against my back, his hands on mine, showing me where to place my fingers, how to hold the instrument in my hands.

I wanted to feel that way again, warm and safe and happy, not worrying what the future held, not fighting for my life. I wanted... well, I didn't really know what exactly I wanted, but it all seemed to come back to Mattie.

I didn't realize I was reaching for him until the cuffs pulled me back, rattling against the edges of the bed. The sound was enough to draw Mattie's attention from his guitar. His head jerked up, wide, amber eyes meeting mine, and his hands fell still against the instrument. A sound of protest buzzed in my throat, caught around the tube there, almost making me choke; the last thing I wanted was for him to stop playing.

Spurred on by my protest, Mattie called out, "Kiara! Kiara, he's awake!"

She arrived almost before he finished speaking, the door banging off the wall from the force of her throwing it open. She hurried to my other side, a bright smile across her face, her bright white teeth a stark contrast against her darker skin. "Topher! Oh, I'm so happy to see you awake. You gave us quite a scare there; I thought we lost you there for a minute." Her words tumbled from her lips a mile a minute, and she started scribbling away on her ever-present clipboard as she spoke.

I bared my teeth when I saw the flashlight in her hand, but could do nothing to stop her as she shined it in my eyes for what felt like the hundredth time, though I was able to at least growl at her this time, the sound garbled around the tube still blocking my throat. She paid me no mind and continued muttering to herself in technical terms I didn't understand as she wrote on her clipboard and checked the heart monitor.

Finally, she pulled her stethoscope from around her neck and put the tips in her ears, pushing down the blanket that had been pulled to my armpits so she could press the other end against my bare chest (when did I lose my shirt? I remembered having one as a zombie, a tattered thing, but had no memory of when it had been removed), humming noncommittally at what she heard.

As she worked, my eyes strayed to Mattie, standing to my left with his hands clenched on the rail of the bed, watching Kiara work with a furrow in his brow. I tried to catch his gaze, but he kept his focus on the doctor, never allowing it to stray to my face.

When she had finished her examination, Kiara stood with her clipboard clutched to her chest, grinning first at me, then at Mattie, seeming unswayed by either of our expressions, his worried, mine probably a bit annoyed. She finally settled on me again. "You seem to be doing much better now, Topher. Your lungs sound stronger, so I think we can safely take you off the ventilator, which I'm sure you'll be thankful for."

Without waiting for either of our input, she fiddled with the machine for a moment before it cut off. It was a disorienting feeling, not having the machine dictate my steady breaths, and I felt my lungs stutter before picking up their own rhythm again. Satisfied by their performance, Kiara pulled off the tape holding the tube in place at my mouth and started carefully pulling it out. This was much more unpleasant, and I gagged, my body trying to expel the tube and possibly the nonexistent contents of my stomach with it.