Nick squirmed. “Quit it, Bone.” The words sounded right in his head, but all he heard when he tried to voice them was a soft moan. He frowned; AJ wouldn’t let go of his foot. He was grabbing at his toes now, and not just in a playful way – it really hurt! He was twisting them, almost as if he were trying to unscrew them from Nick’s foot.
“Damn it, AJ, stop!”
But AJ only squeezed his foot tighter, pulling it as hard as he could. It felt like he was going to rip it right off if he kept yanking on it like that.
“Quit it, that hurts!”
He kept trying to shout, but his voice didn’t seem to be cooperating. The words came out garbled and hoarse, whisper-soft. What was wrong with him?
He expected to hear AJ’s familiar raspy cackle, but that was completely absent. Instead, he heard other voices. Unfamiliar voices.
“Jen, come here, he’s coming around. Shh, Mr. Carter, don’t try to talk.”
“Mr. Carter? Nick? Can you open your eyes for me?”
He really didn’t feel like opening his eyes; he just wanted to go back to sleep. If only AJ would stop messing with him and get the hell away. Why did AJ have to be so annoying anyway? What had he, Nick, ever done to him? Okay, lots of things, but that was ancient history. And anyway, those were funny things, like putting honey on his clothes. Not shit like messing with his feet when he was trying to sleep. Damn AJ. If he wasn’t so tired, he’d haul his ass out of bed and pummel that skinny freak. But he was tired and groggy and felt sort of achy all over... maybe he was getting the flu. Whatever the case was, he preferred to keep his eyes closed and be left alone, thank you very much.
Only apparently that wasn’t the way it worked, because some woman was still talking to him, trying to make him open his eyes.
Wait... woman?
When had a woman come into the picture?
Hm... now that was rather suspicious.
Another thing that was suspicious was the other noises that surrounded him... as he became less aware of AJ’s grip on his foot and more aware of the unknown voices, he also began to notice the other strange sounds... a faint hissing noise and, even more obvious, annoyingly high-pitched beeps that just kept going and going all steady-like. It reminded him of...
His eyes flew open, and he looked around in confusion.
He was not in his own bed or even some random hotel bed or bunk on the tour bus. In fact, he was not in his own bedroom or a hotel room or the back of a tour bus at all. Instead, he was in a white room with fluorescent lighting that was completely unfamiliar to him. And hovering over him was a woman who was also completely unfamiliar. And AJ was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s... where’s AJ?” he tried to ask the strange woman, but his voice was all croaky and oddly muffled-sounding. And then he became aware of the fact that there was something over his face, covering his mouth and nose. Jerking his head, he tried to raise his hand to pull the thing off his face, but lifting his arm proved to be difficult... it felt like the thing was buried in a vat of jell-o. He finally succeeded though and groped at the hard, rubbery something that was trying to suffocate him.
“No, hon, that’s just an oxygen mask, leave it alone,” the woman quickly said, picking up his hand and setting it gently down at his side. Leaning over him so that he could see her face, she said, “Nick, my name is Jen, and I’m a nurse. You’re in the hospital; you just came out of surgery. Do you understand?”
Ohh shit.
So that was why those little blips reminded him of a hospital. Because that’s exactly where he was. And he had just come out of... surgery? Surgery... surgery...
Now it was his brain that felt like jell-o... why was he so muddled and slow? Maybe they had removed his brain altogether...
No, that couldn’t be. That didn’t really make sense, did it? They couldn’t have removed his brain because then he would be dead, right? And he wasn’t dead... at least he didn’t think he was... unless maybe this was Hell?
“Nick? Blink twice if you understand me.”
Nick forced himself to focus on the woman’s words and obediently made his eyes open and close two times. When the woman smiled in satisfaction, his mind went back to racing... well, racing at tortoise pace anyway... at least he was pretty sure he still had a mind... they couldn’t have removed his brain, after all...
And then, as fast as a hare bolting past him at lightning speed, it hit him.
No, they hadn’t removed his brain.
They had removed his...
“Oh God.”
That time, the words came out, soft and hoarse, but clear. But he didn’t even bother to praise himself for this; he was already in a panic, struggling to sit up. The nurse’s hands were on his shoulders instantly, gently pushing him back down, restraining him.
“No, Nick, you can’t sit up. Lie down now, and relax.”
But he couldn’t relax, not now, when he had just realized what had been done to him.
Or had it?
Because it was his left leg that they were going to cut off, and that was the foot AJ had been grabbing. Only he hadn’t been grabbing it at all. Because he wasn’t even there. No one was there. But it still felt like an invisible hand was pinching his foot and pulling at his toes. But even that wasn’t possible. Because his left foot and his toes were gone, weren’t they?
“D-did they cut my leg off?” he asked miserably, struggling to make the words come out clear. Why was his voice so hoarse? Maybe he had laryngitis... his throat definitely felt raw and sore... when had that happened?
The nurse nodded solemnly. “Yes, sweetie, they did.”
Tears sprung to his eyes, and he felt too weak to blink them away. “But... but...” he struggled.
“Are you in any pain?”
He nodded. Yes, he was most definitely in pain, but it wasn’t the kind of pain he’d expected... because the pain was in a limb that supposedly was not even there anymore.
“In your leg?”
He nodded again in relief. So maybe she did understand.
The nurse patted him on the shoulder and looked at him in sympathy. “Those are called phantom limb pains. Most people experience them after an amputation. I’ll increase your morphine, and that should make them go away.”
He nodded a third time, grateful for the promised relief, yet... well, confused. He still couldn’t quite believe they had actually done it... because he could feel his leg there. It hurt... his shin hurt, his calf hurt, his foot and toes hurt... he couldn’t just be imagining that pain, it was real.
The nurse, Jen, adjusted something on a machine that was connected to one of his IV lines, and within minutes, the pain slowly faded, leaving him feeling comfortably numb. He was able to relax and forget all about his leg for the moment... AJ had finally stopped messing with his foot and left him alone... now he could go back to sleep.
Closing his eyes in satisfaction, he quickly slipped away into a drug-induced sleep, where he became lost in a spiral of delusional dreams, far away from the crude reality that would await him when he woke up again.
***
