26. Revisiting PTSD at death's door

26. Revisiting PTSD at death's door
Mia's POV

“Okay,” I swallowed and tried to calm the butterflies in my belly as I started to eat.
First, it was the noodles, then a slurp of soup.
“Do you feel anything?” she asked with a doctor’s concern.
“No, ma’am,” I shook my head as I tried not to think about what more she could feed me.
Plus, it wasn’t a lie. Aside from the choking tension in the air, I wasn’t feeling anything.
That was until she placed another thing in my mouth with her fingers, so my teeth grazed the pad of her finger and I potentially sucked it.
Absentmindedly, of course.
And that was when the protest started.
The all-too-familiar itch that started from my throat.
“What is this?” I immediately asked as I reached out for help before I voiced it.
“Crabmeat,” she added.
“It’s the one. Quick, make the antidote already,” I tapped the chair as I tried my best to not scratch.
But freaking holy airball, could I avoid it?
“What are you waiting for?” I asked as I felt around in confusion and got no response.
My heart palpitated in the darkness I’d subjected myself to.
Once again, I could feel myself start to drown in that helplessness I refused to get familiar with.
Without thinking, I dragged off the blindfold, choking myself in the process.
The pain.
Oh damn…
It was twice the last time I remembered, because every time I blinked back tears to reduce the itch, it only intensified.
The current itch and expansion, plus the one I felt the last time, together, while she stood unmoving in front of me.
“W…why,” I croaked through the pain in my throat, “why aren’t you doing anything?” I pleaded in my chest. Please help me, don’t let me die.
I leaned forward, trying to reach her from where she stood with her arms folded across her chest.
The drip injection pierced through my skin and tore through the layer, dripping blood and the fluid.
Oh, how much it hurt.
I was getting cut not in one but two places, while the itch kept clawing my neck and chest.
“Doctor, please help me,” I pleaded again as I yanked it out of my skin, ignoring the sharp pain that shot up through my whole body as the needle threaded through two points in my skin.
In the process of removing the needle and flinging it out, my hand hit the bowl of soup, sending the ceramic crashing.
I felt myself falling forward, headfirst into the tiled floor.
Or so I thought, when I felt her hand wrap around my waist as she raised me up without as much as an exhale.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked as she slammed me into the bed.
Her voice sounded raised. Maybe a lot more than she intended, but how could I know that when I was teetering between life and death?
“I’m fucking dying,” how I managed to slip in a curse word with life slipping out of me, I didn’t know. But I did it, and I saw a flash of something in her eyes before she flashed a syringe in front of my eyes.
“I noticed,” a sting on my arm brought some sort of consciousness. A hyperconsciousness that had me staring right at her. Like the opposite of anesthesia, except I was unfeeling.
Or rather, I didn’t know how to react to what I was feeling.
Couldn’t speak either, while my mind started whirling in a sea of numbness.
The itch persisted, intensified, and relaxed. The pain was still there as well. I could very well feel it, but what to do?
I looked toward the back of my palm, where I had snatched out the needle from. It was bleeding profusely, and I had no doubt it would take a while to heal.
My skin not only got poked, it was torn out, and I could see the white layer of it.
Despite that, I couldn’t react.
She picked cotton wool and dabbed it with some liquid.
I couldn’t tell, even though it stung. I mean, I could, but what more could I do about it?
Than watch.
Her hands shook as she dabbed the cotton wool on the place.
Something vibrated in the back of my ear, distracting me from everything else, including the words she was saying.
Definitely, she was talking, her voice most likely high-pitched. Her face emotional from the crease in her forehead.
This was the most emotion she’d shown since I’d seen her.
Whatever was going on, I didn’t understand. But I also didn’t feel the need to question it. After all, I couldn’t interpret it in the first place.
She patched my wound, and my subconscious strengthened somehow.
Like my soul that was floated out of my body had returned, and I was whole again. Able to process everything.
My vision refocused as I noticed my environment once more.
The smell of drying blood stinging my nose. It was mine.
“W…” I yelped and turned away from the tray that had what would have been a white cotton wool but was now dyed red and some scalpels.
As I made the move, I realized how sore my body was.
What more had she done at that moment when I was feeling hazy and disconnected from myself?