THE RETURN
Day 78 of the Coma — Time Meaningless
Aria was drowning in water that wasn’t water.
There was no bottom to the sensation. No surface. Just the feeling of being suspended in something thick and dark and endless. But underneath the darkness, there was something else. Pressure. Pain. The vague sense that her body was experiencing something her mind couldn’t quite grasp.
Sounds came and went.
Sometimes they were clear enough to understand voices speaking words that didn’t quite make sense. A woman’s voice saying something about “vital signs.” A man’s voice that she almost recognized, saying something urgent that she couldn’t quite hear.
But mostly the sounds were distant. Muffled. Like someone was speaking to her from across a great distance, through water, through walls, thro
