Artemis

“Huu m uh nn’ d’d?” I actually said.

“Daughter?!” It was Dad’s voice. “Can you hear me?”

“Mmf.”

He took my hand. It didn’t feel right, though. The sensation was dulled.

“C…can not…see…”

“You have bandages over your eyes.”

I tried to hold his hand, but it hurt.

“No. Don’t use your hands,” he said. “They’re also injured.”

“She shouldn’t be awake,” said a woman’s voice. It was Doc Roussel. “Jazz? Can you hear me?”

“How bad is it?” I asked her.

“You’re speaking Arabic,” she said. “I can’t understand you.”

“She asked how bad it is,” Dad said.

“It’s going to be a painful recovery, but you’ll survive.”

“N…not me…the city. How bad is it?”

I felt a pinprick on my arm.

“What are you doing?” Dad asked.

“She shouldn’t be awake,” Roussel said.

And then I wasn’t.

—

I drifted in and out of consciousness for a full day. I remember snippets here and there. Reflex tests, someone changing my bandages, injections, and so on. But I was only semi-alert until they stopped groping me, then I’d return to the void.

“Jazz?”

“Huh?”

“Jazz, are you awake?” It was Doc Roussel.

“…yes?”

“I’m going to take the bandages off your eyes.”

“Okay.”

I felt her hands on my head. The padding on my face unwrapped and I could finally see. I winced at the light. As my eyes adjusted, I saw more of the room.

I was in a small hospital-like room. I say “hospital-like” because Artemis doesn’t have a hospital. Just Doc Roussel’s sick bay. This was a room in the back somewhere.

My hands were still bandaged. They felt awful. They hurt, but not too bad.

The doc, a sixtysomething woman with gray hair, shined a flashlight in each of my eyes. Then she held up three fingers. “How many fingers?”