Limbo by, Aaliyah

      Not trying to sound better than the conscious, but here is like a utopia. No one chose to be here but being here is better than consciously living. We’re family, we’re happy, and we’re in between life and death.

Today, Derek and I are in the rec room watching Gossip Girl. Just in case the thought crossed your mind, no, he’s not gay. I dragged him here to watch it with me because Taylor, my best friend, is staying in her room for the day because she has a “raging headache” and most of the other girls are literally having mood swings. I have no tolerance for this sudden change of atmosphere honestly. I think they’re shunning me out or something because really? Headaches and mood swings? They could have tried to be a little more realistic. Besides the girls, the guys were also being weird. In the last two days, about six fights broke out between them. I don’t know who added testosterone to their cereal but the anger spike is also pretty ridiculous. Out of all the boys I was familiar with, Derek is the only one that seemed human. I will admit I was pretty desperate though because our interactions are usually a “hi” and “bye” as we pass each other or “can i see your notes?” when I’m copying too slow in class. So its when I asked him if he can pass the blanket and I saw him drooling away when I decided I might as well wake him up and make conversation. I just may need a new friend anyway.

“Derek, get up! I’m pretty offended because this isnt even boring.” I said while shaking him vigorously.

“Well my apologies but I don’t remember asking to be invited to your chick flick!”

I almost laughed when he turned away to wipe the drool from his face as if I hadn’t already noticed, but maybe I was wrong thinking Derek had been sane.

“It’s not a chick flick you idiot! It’s one of the best shows you’ll ever see, I’m like blessing you right now!”

“Typical American girl.” he said as he got up. I threw the white flag. By now I’m reeking of desperation.

“Sorry but can you just shut up and sit down. We don’t have to watch the show, we’ll finish it later.”

“You could have tried making that just the least but nicer considering that we barely even know eachother.” he sat back down.

Well here’s the chance; start talking. What brought you here?”

It almost sounds like we’re in jail but trust me we’re not. It may feel like that in the beginning, being trapped like a prisoner; wanting to be released, but after the shock and longing to wake up wears off and it’s actually time to wake up, barely anyone wants to.

“Two months ago, I was at this party celebrating my boy’s birthday and god, the variety!” His smile was so big and bright I felt a smile creeping on my own lips before I quickly rose my hand to cover my face.

“There was coke, spliff, speed-”

“Yeah, yeah I know. The molly! The lsd! Get to the good stuff!” I said dramatically, mocking him before he can continue.

He cocked his head to the right and his smile turned into a smirk with fascination as his wavy dark brown hair flopped over his subtle grey eyes.

“Nice.” he said. Thank god he didn’t ask how I knew. I learned everything I know about drugs and UK parties from the show Skins. Very educational.

“So i had… well a little too much of everything and right in the middle of my toast, everything went dark and I woke up here… all the way in America.” he said scanning around the pretty minimalistic room.

Supposedly, the Aniston Hospital has the best coma division in the world, but it can’t be all that great if there’s so many of us here. We literally have a little society here with people from varying places and varying ages. Because of the the huge variety, we have teachers, doctors (young doctors. the older ones usually want to go back to their families), chefs, etc. Don’t ask where the supplies come from for our needs though. They’re literally always just there.

“Anyway, how’d you get here?” He propped his feet up on the couch putting his knees to his chest like a child getting ready for story time.

Before I even got a chance to decide where I’d start my story from, a form of fear I only felt when I was conscious bursted through me. Derek had turned his head so that it was over the back of the couch and threw up blood before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and rolled off onto the floor passed out.

I stumbled back screaming because I got the feeling of death again like I had six months ago. At first nothing seemed to make sense but as my thoughts reeled beyond my control I thought about everyone else and it all came together. Its illness. There’s a disease spreading among us... but that can’t happen. It shouldn’t happen! We don’t get sick. Being caught in the limbo abolishes things like this from happening.

We are all in comas from different events. Once we enter our coma, physically our bodies are unresponsive and laying in our hospital beds, as they should be. However, mentally, we wake up into the coma division all over again fully able to do everything possible if we weren’t in a coma. We can eat, we can sleep, we can talk, we can move, etc. We call this mental state “limbo”. Every time someone else wakes up into this limbo, the doctor, Dr. Jamison, arrives at their room and explains everything that’s going on so no one freaks out. Along with the introduction comes a tour and the reassurance that while you’re sitting between life and death, sickness is not attainable. He explains all the small symptoms to sickness to that can occur but no matter what, you are not sick. He then explain severe cases just incase, although nothing severe ever happens.

Something severe just happened!

I ran to Taylor’s room nearly making her door fly off its hinges. She’s still asleep but I can’t let her sleep if things are as bad as I think they are. I shook her until she woke up and as soon as her eyes opened I got the bottle of water on her nightstand and told her to drink it.

“Thanks for the lovely wake up call American Psycho, but what’s gotten into you? You look like somebody died.”

If you need someone for insensitive jokes at all the wrong times, then Taylor’s your girl. I stopped pacing and darted my eyes at her.

“If you keep sitting there someone will be! Derek is like dying in the rec room we have to get to Dr. Jamison now!”

“What? Wait, ow! Who’s Derek and what are you talking about?” She asked as i dragged her through her door and down two corridors to find Dr. Jamison in the lab. Dr. Jamison has won four awards for being some sort of genius in the whole doctor profession. We were lucky to get this guy. I explained to her what happened to Derek and what i’ve noticed with everyone else while running.

“Well... shit. Thank god i only got a headache.”

That’s literally all she said! I wanted to punch her but we were already in the lab.

“Dr. Jamison, Derek is dying in the rec room!” I yelled while trying to catch my breath.

He whipped around. “What!? Where is he, what happened!?”   

“He threw up blood then passed out in the rec room. Everyone else is acting weird and only this morning Taylor wasn’t feeling too well herself. I think there’s a sickness spreading.”

He was already speaking words I could never spell, let alone pronounce,into his walkie talkie thing before I finished talking.

Taylor leaned toward me, “Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic? Someone’s stomach acts up and people feel a bit out of it and suddenly you think its the 80’s AID’s outbreak.”

Right after two doctors rolled Derek in on a gurney and I can already hear others going throughout the division probably checking on everyone else.

“I dont know the situation just yet but I have a feeling it may be something beyond our control. You girls will have to get out of here.”

One of the two doctors closed the door behind us. I started pacing again because I can’t get all that blood out of my head.

“So was that the British boy with the English accent that sits next to Drew? I always thought he was pretty hot beneath all the hair but he’s already looking half near death. You may be right.” she said watching the doctors work on Derek.

I scoffed but i was too busy thinking of what to do to have a response. There was a sudden scream that pierced my ears even though it had to be at least three halls down. I assumed we had our Derek number two.

“Aaliyah this is actually starting to get a little scary, can we go somewhere else?”

“Oh my god. I have the perfect place, lets go!”

I ran dragging her with me again. When I first woke up here, I was able to hear everything going on around me in my room where my actual body is in the hospital. It was almost traumatizing hearing my mother plead for me everyday to wake up, having my friends catch me up on things going on in school, having my brother just crying. It was nice I guess knowing that I was cared for by so many people but I started feeling guilty, like its my fault why I can’t wake up. It was driving me crazy along with nearly everyone else so eventually the construction guys and doctors teamed up to create a huge room lined up with chairs and headphones for each individual person. There was a little touch screen machine organized with the dates of visits everyone got. Once you got in your chair and put on your headphones, you heard everything that went on. The doctors were responsible for making the us unable to constantly hear the voices and the construction guys were responsible for the building. It was the best thing thats ever happened. As the time i was here progress, i went to my chair less and less often. This is the only place I could go to for answers.

I put my hand on the knob but before I turned it, I asked Taylor if she was okay with coming in.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. Not like anyone came to see me.” I heard the disappointment in her voice although she wanted to sound as if she didn’t care.

I went straight to my chair and dusted off a cobweb before I sat down. When I put on my headphones and pressed the power button to make the machine turn on, there where dates going back to my first visit on June 10th. I pressed today’s date, December 5th, because there had to be some talk about Derek’s condition. Since he was doing so badly here, his physical body must be so much more worse.

“It looks like theres a rare disease spreading through the division. It has only occurred twice before in history and both times it killed countless people because there is not yet a cure. It just goes away until the last person infected dies.”

“We can just leave them all to die doctor! We have more than 300 people here. They have families!”

“Of course I know that but figuring out a solution will be no good if they’re all still comatosed. I’ve been working to form a way to wake them all up for four months and it shows to be 94% effective. At this point, we have no choice but to put it to use as soon as possible. We’re starting tomorrow.”

I couldn’t bare to listen to any of this anymore. I threw off my headphones and covered my mouth with my hands in shock. Goosebumps grew along my skin and my heart pounded. I’ve been here for six months. I’ve been happier here than I’ve ever been in my life being conscious. I’m not saying that my life sucked, but leaving this life would suck way more than when i left my real one. When I started scanning the room for Taylor, I saw her in her chair with tears running down her face. I ran over to her and took the headphones off.

“Taylor, what’s wrong? What did you hear?”

She turned to me and stared deep into my eyes with stone coldness in hers and said “Thats immortality my darling.”

Immediately I knew that had to be something her mother said. Taylor was a teen actress before she woke up here. On my side of the screen you’d think shes living the life. She’s tall, has smooth brown skin,  has high cheekbones. She knew and worked with actors i worshipped, kissed guys in roles I’d only ever see from posters on my wall and made a fortune. What everyone didn’t know is that she didn’t have what most people from my side of the screen had. That was a mother. Her mother put her in film and only cared about her fame. She thrived on it as if it were her own. Taylor only talked to me about this once and we never talked about it again. She tried to kill herself by jumping off of a bridge but someone had already seen her on her way down and called the police. They were there within seconds getting her body out of the water. She hit her head on a rock which is how she got in a coma after surgery. Her mother had visited her once which was about three months after she was there and told her that the “stunt” she pulled made her more famous than ever. She ended what she had to say saying “thats immortality my darling”. The phrase sends chills down my spine.

While I had Taylor’s head on my shoulder as she cried, the siren went off. The siren only went off when someone died or woke up but the only person that came to mind was Derek.

“Taylor, please stay here and don’t move! I have to see if that was for Derek. I’ll be back.”

I ran to be lab and as soon as I got to the doors, I saw Dr. Jamison pull a black sheet over Derek’s head. I couldn’t support my weight but then again I didn’t even try. I dropped to my knees and cried because I knew we’d all die if we didn’t wake up and even if we’d probably still die. And its not like we can’t wake up. We can but we choose not to. You don’t enter a utopia and leave. You don’t adapt and find family and just leave. This was home as much as any other and now, after all this time, we’re compromised. Now we either wake up or let go.

After I pulled myself together, I began to walk back to get Taylor. It was so quiet I almost turned back because I thought she left. As I turned to go to her chair, it was the blood again. My sobs broke out before I began running but as I got closer, I saw that the blood hadn’t come from her mouth. It was from her wrist and right next to her was a razor with tape stuck to it. She must have had it taped it to the bottom of her chair months ago. Why would I leave her alone? What kind of friend was I?

There’s a phone on the wall in the corner of the room. I called to Dr. Jamison’s lab and within moments were doctors coming in it get Taylor. The sirens went off for a second time.

I went back to my chair to see when’s the last time someone visited. Yesterday. Before that, two days ago and before that is another. Its been six months and no one forgot me or left me alone no matter how much i wanted them to. I don't know whether what I’m doing is the right decision, but only time will tell.

“You look good, psycho.”

“Now, can we go finish that episode?”