Chapter 8

The world is in dark. There is no light, sound, or smell.

There is no pain, despair, fear.

I don't move, I don't think, I don't feel.

I float in the air.

This static peace seemed to last forever, but gravity pulled me again.

I am in bed. It’s supposed to be warm. But I feel so cold.

The pain comes back like a shock in each of my cells. It hurts, it burns, make it stop!

A sweet smell embraces me. Takes me back to the dream I was in.

It is so comfortable that I can sleep forever.

...

An eternity passed in a few minutes.

Many things happened, but Luciene was not aware of any of them.

At some point, the silence was broken and she heard voices in the distance. They said something like ‘haven’t woken up’ ‘okay,‘ ‘I’ll check’ ‘be careful’. They didn't talk to her, but about her, maybe. The voices floated in the distance, rippling in her dream, like whispers from another world.

She tried to pay attention to what the voices said, but they were muffled, they took too long to come back, and her ears squeaked with a static sound. It's so far, I'm so tired.

Her body was heavy. Her limbs didn't seem to want to obey her, and at some point, while she was wondering if she should call the voice, she ended up falling asleep again.

Then finally a few hours passed for her to be able to wake up.

"Um..." Huh? What? Where I am? My head... She opened her eyes, but she was confused, the world seemed to go round and round in seconds.

She closed her eyes tightly, waiting for the sickness to decrease, only managing to open them again after a few minutes, to slowly get used to the darkroom, where only a crack of dim light passed through heavy fabric curtains on the right and defined some of the shadows that started to take shape of objects.

She couldn't think straight, apart from remembering how she got there, her body was heavy, her limbs were almost numb, and even to move her neck required all of her willpower.

Her head throbbed with an unbearable migraine, just looking around she felt the blood pulse in her brain, and her eyes ached as if they were going to fall when they met the shy light that passed through the curtains and reached the foot of the bed on which she was lying.

Lying on a not too soft, almost uncomfortable mattress, Luciene didn’t know exactly where she was, but it wasn’t an unknown place, especially the smell was very familiar. The room smelled of bleach, disinfectant, and alcohol.

Surely she had already been there. Where was it again?

While she was thinking trying to remember, she startles by the sound of a door, that she hadn’t noticed yet, being opened. A great deal of light came from the clear corridor, invading the room and Luciene had to look away with her eyes closed so as not to be incandescent by the light.

"Oh, are you awake?" A familiar voice spread over the quiet room, cheering Luciene, who looked in surprise towards the door where a tall man in a lab coat smiled at her.

"Doctor Francisco?" She asked in surprise, and seeming to finally remember everything that had happened during the night. Many questions shot through her mind, but, despite her longing for answers, her throat burned in pain with just those two words, causing her to cough.

“You really scared me, girl! I never thought that I would find you that way after leaving all smiling with Mrs. Suely and Matheus!” Said the doctor called by Luciene as Doctor Francisco, closing the door and quickly approaching the hospital bed.

Despite the scolding tone, the doctor's eyes were concerned and his smile was kind and warm. It calmed Luciene and made her feel calmer when she saw a familiar face. So that's why the smell is so familiar… I’m in the hospital.

"How are you feeling?" He asked in a calm voice, as he filled a glass with water from a jar on a tray by the bed.

“It looks like I was hit by a truck after running a marathon in the desert” she spoke softly and a little hoarsely with a sore throat.

"In that case, I imagine you want some water after so many emotions?" He said stopping beside her left, offering her the glass.

The joke made her smile.

She raised her left hand to pick up the glass, but the pain stopped her halfway, placing her arm slowly and gently back on the bed. Only at that moment did she notice the catheter with serum on her arm and her hand bandaged and immobilized.

Stretching her right arm a little, with a sad smile, she took the glass offered to her, listening to the doctor's “no rush”, and drank the water in small sips. Slowly. Her throat was dry and stinging, but the liquid was running cold giving a sense of relief.

When Luciene finished drinking, Dr. Francisco pulled a tall stool near the wall closer, sat down, and took a small flashlight out of his pocket "Follow my finger with your eyes, will you?" He said as he aimed the flashlight and moved his index finger in front of Luciene's face, who was following the s instructions.

"Let's start now with some routine questions, okay?" he said as he picked up the pressure device from the bag he had brought with him and removed the stethoscope from his neck to check her heartbeat.

"What is your full name?"

"Luciene Dimar"

"Age?"

"26"

"Where do you live?"

“Edmundo de Caxias Street”

"Do you remember what happened?"

"I was ... attacked." Her voice came out shaky and scenes of what had happened ran through her head. All the memories came at once like a hurricane. She remembered the scape, the struggle, the fear, thinking that she was going to die. Her shoulders trembled, her breathing quickened and she felt the air was not reaching her lungs.

I will die! I will die! I will die! HE WILL KILL ME!

A squeeze on her shoulder brought her back. "Luciene!" The doctor called urgently, “Calm down, you’re safe now. Take a deep breath. Inhale, Exhale” Closing her eyes and trying to calm herself, Luciene followed the doctor's voice. “Yes, like this, keep going. Inhale, exhale. Inhale… ”

The air came and went, came, and went, so she followed the voice beside her.

When she managed to calm down, she opened her eyes. Looking ahead, with her lost gaze, remembering the last moment of that night, a tear came down her face, and opening her trembling lips, she whispered more to herself than to the doctor. "I thought I was going to die there"

A few moments of silence passed before the doctor's voice was heard: "Everything is fine now." The certainty in his voice made Luciene turn to look at him "You're going to be okay."

Luciene nodded. Another tear rolled from her eyes. Now she can believe that, right? Everything will be fine. She repeated that thought in her mind to engrave it on the heart. Everything will be fine. I'll be fine.

Seeing that Luciene was calmer, the doctor gently squeezed her shoulder to give her a little confidence. Looking at his open palms in his lap, the doctor sees the blood slowly returned to the hand that had previously been clenched tightly by the anger he felt.

He needed to calm down and do his job. That anger wasn’t going to help either Luciene or the other patients.

"Due to the situation you came in with, we had to follow the protocol and contact the police as it was probably a case of assault." said the doctor in a calm tone.

"Okay" Luciene replied with a sad smile. She had gone from ‘I was never mugged to nearly murdered’ in a very short time. It looks like I'm in the statistics now.

"They will come late in the morning, but I saw that they contacted your brother when he was here."

"Was Matheus here?" She spoke in surprise.

“Yes, until almost two in the dawn, but afterward he told me that he had left the house without telling your mother, I told him that it would be better for him to go and come afterward, to not worry her. And taking into account that Dona Suely was here yesterday, it isn’t advisable for her to be alone, given the situation ”

“That brat… of course not! How can he leave mom alone at home? ”

“I think he was worried about you” Luciene was irritated by her brother's irresponsibility, but when she heard that Matheus was worried about her, she felt ashamed of herself.

She lowered her head and said sadly "Yes ... I think... you must be right" Perhaps he was desperate and decided not to say anything to mom so as not to make her more worried about me suddenly at the hospital.

Then a question that she hadn't thought of came up: How did I get here?

"As you are awake I will call the nurse to bring you something to eat and change the serum since it is ..."

"Doctor Francisco?" Suddenly interrupting the doctor who was already getting up and turning towards the door, Luciene asked confusedly "What happened?"

"About what?" Looking at her confused, the doctor didn't seem to understand the questioning.

“How… how did I get here? I mean, I was next to the park and I passed out, I think. What happened? How did I get to the hospital? ”

Not only that, but the whole situation seemed crazy to Luciene. Especially that man in the park, he was not normal.

After all, what happened to me?