Eighty-Eight

VALERIA

There was something waiting for me at the other end. I knew it. I wanted badly to reach it so I did my very best to focus. After an indeterminate length of time, I began to panic, thinking I was still in the void and then I heard it; the steady beep of something that sounded like a machine, the soft rustle of something, (Clothes?) and the sound of someone's deep, heavy breathing. Somehow I knew that I had heard these sounds before, but now they were clearer than they had ever been. I focused on the sound of the breathing and struggled towards wakefulness even though I found myself slipping away once or twice. It got easier the longer I kept at it and then I opened my eyes.

I was in a brightly lit room, lit mostly by the sunlight streaming in through the open window. The bland decor told me I was in a hospital. So did the continuously beeping machine that seemed louder now. I turned my head and saw the heart monitor at the same time I saw Vance seated at my bedside. The magazi