The cacophony carries on. At one point it turns ghoulish. What was once a loud and mostly annoying noise turns frightening. Long fingers pull at me, clawing me toward the dark. Tension and unease vibrate around me, and it dawns on me that I’m afraid.

More hands grab at me, moving me in a direction I don’t want to go. I want nothing more than to scream, to fight back, but I can’t. No matter how hard I try to do anything, all I feel is pain. All I hear are the voices in the darkness, coaxing me to fall away with them.

Somehow, they’re kept at bay. Maybe it’s the hazy, loopiness that usually follows the most frightening of the darkness, but eventually, the noises are silenced.

The hands that once clutched at me, threatening to take me away with them, clawing and scratching at me, evaporate as if they’d never been there in the first place.

From harsh black lines, to fuzzy grey edges, my existence shifts once again. This time it changes to soft, yellow globes of light.

The hands return, but they’re different now. Rather than dragging me down, they’re lifting me up, pushing me away from them as if I’m no longer welcome.

The pain, that was once so severe I willed the ghouls to pull me under, lessens. Alleviated somehow, it becomes bearable, less damning.

Calm settles around me and the horrid sound of dying voices fades away, making way for the repetitive beep beep beep once more.

Something makes the beeps indistinguishable.

More voices.

Far less frightening than those of the ghouls, these ones are hushed, quiet, and nervous. There’s a weight pulling on them, making them somber and numb.

When I first recognize there’s a pattern to the light filling my vision, a distinctive dark and light repeating itself, some of the warmth I’d been craving returns. The pattern of numbness following pain becomes less frequent, making the sharp piercing in my head feel more and more like a dull ache.

A song plays.

Night.

Day.

The song.

Night

Day.

The song.

Night.

Day.

The song.

I begin to look forward to it. It brings me peace, bathing me in happiness.

A touch startles me. Not because it’s harsh or jarring.

But because I felt it.

For the first time in however long I’ve been stuck like this, I make a conscious effort to move. Concentrating on the soft feel on my skin, I force my brain to move my hand.

Except the connection between my brain and my fingers no longer exists. Stuck in an endless loop of commanding my body to do something it’s incapable of doing, and internally wailing at my failure, I fade away into exhaustion as night returns once again.

Night.

Day.

The song.

The touch.

The struggle to touch in return.

Night.

Day.

The song.

The touch.

The struggle to touch in return.

It’s an endless cycle. But the song.

That song calls to me on a level I don’t yet understand.

And the touch.

Bringing warmth to my frigid existence, I come to crave it and its daily return.

Movement. A response to the touch. In an electric buzz, the signal I’ve been sending from my brain to my hand works. It’s nothing more than a subtle spasm at first, but it elicits a response from the hand covering mine.

A gentle squeeze. A soft caress. A guiding voice, beckoning me to keep trying.

So I do.

A small hand fits perfectly inside mine. Wrapping my fingers around it, it feels as if it belongs there, a natural extension of my own body.

“You’re doing so well, David. Can you hear me? Please tell me you can hear me,” the voice that usually sings to me demands, covering our joined hands with another one.

There are no other voices in the background at first, only the constant beep beep beep.

“Oh, please.” Something wet falls on my arm.

My arm.

There’s feeling in my hand and my arm.

It travels up my shoulder, touching the side of my neck. When it moves over my face and neck, something in my throat feels out of place. It’s foreign enough to cease the progression of feeling returning to my body, but not so uncomfortable to halt it entirely. Following through to the other side of my body, feeling returns to my other arm and a pinch of some kind shoots through the other hand.

With a few more squeezes from the hand in mine and more drops falling to my arm, the sensation of waking up travels down my chest to my torso. Eventually it reaches my legs, filling my entire body with the warmth and awareness I’d been craving for who knows how long.

“He’s waking up. He’s waking up,” the voice repeats, growing more and more frantic. More voices fill the room. The steady beep beep beep accelerates, but the hand in mine holds firm, squeezing mine, coaching me, talking me through the flurry of activity to which I’m becoming aware.

The yellow spheres of luminescence sharpen into focus, becoming blinding white, hot rays of pure light.

“His eyes.” The small hand grips mine tighter. “He’s blinking.”

I feel movement on my other side, and the voice that once sung to me begins to cry gentle sobs of elation.

“David. Oh, God, David. Please wake up. Come back to us. Please, baby,” the voice begs. The other voices come into focus, but they’re not nearly as beautiful as the singing one. I feel the presence of other people around me, their love and warmth radiating toward me.

Fingers comb through my hair as more light filters into my blinking eyes. Moving my head back and forth jostles my brain, bringing back some of the pain. But the soft caress of those fingers eases some of it away.

Leaning into the touch brings more sobs, more voices, more movement.

Faces come into view. A man and a woman. Older. Grey dusting their hair and wrinkles creasing their faces, they smile at me. Locked in a tight embrace, they cry on each other’s’ shoulders.

Gurgled noises try to move in my throat, but they’re stopped, blocked by something.

“There are tubes in there. To help you breathe and a feeding one, too,” a voice explains from the other side. Turning my head to the sound, a woman with black hair comes into focus. Calmly, she continues, “Hold steady for just a minute and we’ll get them taken care of. Just try to relax.”

Pressure is followed by a sensation I’d be happy never to feel again. Gasping for air, I choke and gag. “Easy there. Take it easy,” the woman with black hair coaches, calming me.

The choking eases up, allowing air to flow steadily into my lungs. When I try to speak, my throat is raw and sore. An echo of what should be my voice falls from my lips. “Can he have a sip of water?” the older woman asks, looking at me with concern in her eyes.

A minute later the rim of a paper cup is tipped back at my lips. “Just take a small sip,” the singing voice says. “Is that better?” she asks, placing the cup back on the small table to her side.

I nod, letting my surroundings settle around me. “David,” a deep male voice calls to me from the side where the dark-haired woman is. “Do you know where you are?”

Do I know where I am?

Letting that question settle in my brain, I try to put the pieces together.

Do I know who I am? Now that seems like a more appropriate question.

Scanning the room, the expectant faces of everyone surrounding me wait anxiously for a response. Wanting nothing more than to give them the answer they want, I continue searching my shaken brain. One clue. That’s all I need. But it never comes.

“That’s okay,” the male voice says. “It’ll take some time.” Pulling a chair to my side, he’s level with me now. Wearing a white coat and holding a metal folder in his arms, a small piece of the puzzle falls into place. “I’m Dr. Thompson. You’re at New York Presbyterian hospital.”

Gathering all my energy, I manage, “For how long?” At the sound of my voice, the older couple cries some more, holding each other even tighter. The hand in mine squeezes before pulling our linked fingers up to her mouth.