The room dissolved into a blur of motion. Colors bled together. The roar of blood in my ears sounded like a freight train. I felt myself slipping, sliding down a long, dark tunnel. I tried to reach out, to grab the bedrail, but my hands were lead.
And in that final second, before the darkness swallowed me whole, the sounds of the room crystallized. I heard the metal clatter of instruments. I heard the rip of Velcro.
And I heard Andrés.
He didn’t scream my name. He didn’t drop the phone. He asked a question, his voice flat, cold, and utterly devoid of panic.
“Is the baby okay?”
Not Is my wife okay?
Not Save her.
Just the baby. The heir. The asset.
Then, the world snapped shut.
I don’t know how long I floated in the void. Time doesn’t exist when you aren’t really there. It could have been minutes; it could have been years. It was a black, silent ocean.
Then, sound returned.
It started as a dull hum, vibrating through the floorboards of my mind. Then, the squeak of rubber wheels on linoleum. The distant, rhythmic whoosh of a ventilator.
I tried to open my eyes. Nothing happened.
I tried to twitch a finger. Nothing.
I tried to scream. I’m here! I’m here!
The scream echoed inside my skull, loud and desperate, but my lips didn’t move. My lungs didn’t expand on my command. I was a prisoner in a bone cage.
“Time of death…” a weary voice began.
No! I screamed internally. I am not dead!
Then, a cold sensation on my chest. A stethoscope? No, something colder. A silence in the room that felt heavy, respectful, and terrifying.
“Wait,” a second voice cut in. Sharp. Urgent. “I have a flutter. Here. Look at the monitor.”
“It’s residual,” the first voice dismissed.
“No. It’s a rhythm. She’s not gone. She’s locked in.”
Chaos returned, but distant this time. Orders barked. Fluids pushed. The sensation of life support machinery being hooked up—tubes invading my throat, needles piercing my veins. I felt it all. Every pinch, every invasion. But I could not flinch.
Hours later, the room settled into the quiet hum of the ICU. The air smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee.
“Lucía, if you can hear me,” a male voice said—Dr. Martínez, the neurologist. “You are in a deep coma, potentially a locked-in state. We are doing everything we can.”
I can hear you, I thought, projecting the words with all my might. Please, tell Andrés I’m here.