When I open my eyes once again, a fluorescent light above me blinds me. My eyes instinctively close, and I weakly turn my head before once again opening my eyes. 

The entire room is pulsing with white light. All around me, there are steel beds with clean, white sheets spread neatly over them. A nurse at the far end of the room, previously arranging orchids in a glass flower vase, sees my open eyes and hurries out of the long room, probably to call a doctor.

Why am I in a hospital?

For I am certain that that is where I am. Nurses, steel beds, a man in a white coat...

Now, the only question that remains is why? The last thing I remember is Emily sprinting towards me as I fell towards the concrete ground...

Perhaps I had fainted? Yes...that must be it. Most likely the teachers got worried and called an ambulance. Yes. Of course. 

But still, a dark stain of worry remains imprinted on my mind. 

After a while, in which I survey the machine beeping insistently beside me, a doctor flies into the hall. His immaculate white coat is floating in the air behind him, and the nurse in heels is tottering beside him. He leans over me and bustles about, checking all the machines. I stare at him. 

I ease open my dry mouth. Licking my lips, I ask, "What...happened?" I'm astonished at the state of my voice. It's creaky and crumbling, and the words are indecipherable. It sounds as if it has been out of use for a couple of years. I slid my tongue over my lips again, and swallow the saliva in my mouth. Once again, I ask, "What happened?" This time it is a little bit better, and the doctor beside me jumps. He stares at me with a look of utter disbelief plastered across his face. 

"Oh...uh...I'll go get Dr. Caitlin..."

With another glance at me, he rushes out of the hall. I try to lift up my hands to rub at my drowsy eyes, only to find that my hands are fastened a dozen wires filled with different fluids going in and out of my body.

And finally I notice my own body.

And it's horrific.

My body is covered with a flimsy hospital gown, but it does nothing to hide the scars.

The burns.

The bruises.

My whole body is a patchwork quilt of blue, red and black. Skin is flaking off in places, and in others it's covered with a antiseptic cream. Bruises design my body with horrible shades of blue and black. Scars stretch across my body, healed in some places, and still weeping blood in others.

Something's happened to me.

And yet, I remember nothing.