Transported
In the aftermath,
I keep my eyes closed.
My body has tipped a multitude of directions
and now lies horizontal.
Everything hums—
but not the same as the Worldwalker’s hive,
instead high-pitched,
mechanical,
shrieking.
Light from above casts my eyelids red
so even with my eyes closed
I cannot rest.
Bright white slices through
as I come into consciousness—
a paneled ceiling above me,
fluorescent lights.
I know immediately I’m in a hospital.
From the machine at my right
I hear my heartbeat.
A blue button at the side of my bed
reads “call nurse.”
I take a deep breath, and press it.Return There’s a flurry of shuffling activity, and I try to pick up my head but my body is heavy, still throbbing from knife-rock collisions I had in Entomon. Soon two faces hover above me, the first humans I’ve seen in weeks, both wet with tears. My parents lean down, hugging me, kissing me, while I stare mutely. A third face I don’t recognize—the nurse, with a clipboard, asking questions like, Are you in any pain? and Do you remember what happened? I’m tempted to tell her the whole story— it seems wrong that no one here knows of Rove or my crew and our grand escape from the Mantis Queen. But I know this isn’t the answer she seeks. I remember the car crash, I say instead. I was thrown from the car. And Kit—he was dead. My parents appear again, crying, consoling me, and I numbly answer more questions. All the while machines hum, reminding me I’m no longer in Entomon.
Current X
I feel guilty at the speed with which normalcy returns to me, guilty for each stretch of time I spend without thinking of Entomon, as if by lamenting everything I’ve left behind I can somehow make up for the fact that I left at all—even though I learned that I’ve been in a coma for days, that my body never departed Earth, I still have to believe in the reality of their world and everything it gave me, in the dreams that sometimes haunt me and sometimes bring me solace: death spirals, and enormous bramble forests, and Osiris’ blue hair, and dark dripping prisons, and Rove, always at my side.This chapter concludes ENTOMON.
Thank you so much for reading and supporting my work.
<3 Eva