To set this up…Ethan is a rich, entitled young adult. He and his mother (who’s the head of the family business and generally holds the purse strings) have just had a major argument about the way he’s living his life. She wants him to settle down and become a responsible citizen, he’d rather party and pretty much just have a good time. After the argument he flies off (literally) in his experimental air car and is involved in an accident.
Pain. So much pain.
Ethan struggled to come fully awake but it was as though a great weight was holding him down.
Sirens, voices – too indistinct to make out individual words.
Movement, sending a fresh wave of agony through him. Ethan gave up the struggle to make sense of it all and let the darkness carry him away.
“Shouldn’t he be awake by now?”
Ethan started to swim out of the darkness, hearing his brother’s voice. I’m awake, he wanted to say, but his voice and his body wouldn’t obey his mental commands.
“Dr. Alexander said it should be any time now, but not to be worried if it takes longer than we expect.”
Mother, that was his mother’s voice. Why were his mother and brother both here? And why did they sound so worried.
“There! Did you see that?” Douglas asked, excitement in his voice.
“What?”
“I thought I saw his finger move.”
“I’ll call the nurse,” his mother said.
Nurse? Why would she need to call a nurse? Where was he?
There was a sound of movement, but before he could figure out what was happening, the pain hit again. Had he been able to, Ethan would have screamed.
“Ethan moved his finger.” His mother’s voice floated over top of the pain.
“It was probably just an involuntary nerve impulse,” a new voice said. There was a pause, then, “And no wonder. His pain blocker is wearing off. Just let me adjust this.”
Ethan felt a flood of warmth run through him, taking the excruciating pain with it.
“There, that should do it,” the strange woman’s voice said. “Dr. Alexander wants to keep him on pain blockers for another few days, to give the healing process a chance to get a good foothold, but then we’ll have to start weaning him off of them.”
“Is he going to be in a lot of pain?” Douglas asked.
“His injuries are very serious, he’s going to be a long time recovering.”
“Thank you nurse,” his mother said.
What injuries, Ethan wanted to ask. What’s happened to me? But he couldn’t break through the fog that was enveloping him. As he drifted off into the darkness again, the last thing he heard was his brother saying, “She never answered my question about the pain.”
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