By George Woodruff

Part 2

She ran, lungs labouring, heart beating like a trip hammer going a mile a minute. All around her half seen terrors leered and reached for her from the shadows of dim tunnels and endless stairways. Pain suffused her being. Blood stained her clothes, seeping from wounds on her shoulders, arms, and feet and from between her thighs. She saw the yawning pit that gaped, ready to swallow her up, and tried in vain to turn aside. Her lacerated feet screamed at her and the blood caused her to slide to the edge of the precipitous hole. She teetered there, until there was a burst of bright, incandescent light about her and she felt herself floating, weightless through the ether toward its source.

Susan awoke, slowly swimming back to consciousness. She heard noises about her that she did not recognise. She felt confused, lost and disoriented. She opened her eyes and was blinded by the brightness. She cried out and made a move to cover her face with her hands but found that she was too weak to do that.

Voices responded to her cries, voices she didn't recognise with words that she couldn't comprehend. Tears stood in her eyes and she wept openly, sobs wracking her until the light was suddenly cut off. Her eyes adjusted to the new gloom and she could see that she was in a hospital. "Where am I?" she tried to ask, but all that came out was "ba'a'ma" and the tears started afresh. A nurse approached her, speaking softly and gently to her. Susan couldn't make out what she said, but tried to sit up. The nurse helped her and smiled. An orderly came by, nodded in response to something she said and left. Moments later, a doctor appeared.

"Ela, a daga wesan. Owa'u fe'en?" She recognised that he asked her a question, but nothing else. He smiled kindly at her and spoke to the nurse. Who nodded and left. Moments later Steven appeared. Susan cried for joy at the sight of him and tried to reach for him, only to nearly fall over.

"Seefa, uah a'anen?" Came out instead of "Steven, what's happening?"

"Re'las Susan, sings are uner control." Hope dawned in her eyes as she realised she was just having difficulty understanding spoken words, for though it didn't sound like it, she realised that he had just said, ŒRelax Susan, things are under control.' She clung weakly to him and wept joyfully. When the doctor tried to get Steven to leave, she screamed and clung to him as much as her atrophied limbs would allow. The doctor relented and Steven was allowed to remain and hold her hand until she drifted off to sleep again.