Voices. There had been voices. Sometimes the words joined together to make sense. Sometimes the voices were distant, just beyond the range of picking out distinct words.
There had been one voice. It was vaguely familiar at first, but it had become more familiar over the endless time she had drifted through the grey darkness that had become her existence. The voice was clearer than the others, almost as if it spoke to her instead of just around her, and she was drawn to it though she didn't seem to remember what it said. But that it was there, day after day brought her some level of comfort and kept her from drifting away.
She had felt a pull against her, sometimes weak, sometimes strong. It had been tempting to give in to that insiduous tug, to let it pull her like a current through the eddies and tides of where she was. But then the voice would come, and she would find herself focusing on the sound and the dragging sensation would diminish. For a time.
Eventually, it began to register that it was lighter where the voice was. Not noticeably but just at the edges of perception. There was still an area of darkness from which the pull against her originated, though.
Then without warning, the swirling clouds or grey around her lightened and the constant drag from the distance lessened. She knew it was time to return, but she'd lost the way back. It had been so long.
Still, the voice was there, and when she heard it, she followed it, trusting it to lead her home. But it wasn't always there, and when it was gone, she no longer had a thread to follow, no longer had a point to which to travel. She was getting closer, she knew, but it was frustrating.
She began to hear the other voices more clearly, though she wasn't as sure of them....not enough to follow, at least. But she sometimes recognized words. Coma, condition, potion....
Then one day, the mists ebbed, and she realized she had a name. Emma. That's who she was. And she no longer floating freely but was confined.
She began to recognize that she could feel her body and that that was what she felt confining her. For a moment, she missed the feeling of floating among the mists, but she did not know where they had gone and could not follow them back.
Emma could see light against her eyelids, and she tried to open her eyes, but it was so hard. Finally, she managed to part them slightly.