Border To Heaven - JATP Luke

Ch. I : Wake Up

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Chapter I : Wake Up

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"Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods yet?
Are we out of the woods?"

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I don't really remember the night I died. It was kind of a blur. But walking down Main Street twenty-five years later is somewhat comforting.

The bright, neon signs lining the side of the street distract from the now dark sky. I must've been walking the streets of downtown L.A. for hours, given that I've been out here since school ended.

Oh yeah, I go to school. You know what? I'll just explain the past two years for you.

I'm not sure of the exact day, but it was sometime in early 2018 when I woke up on the side of the street, surrounded by people in odd clothes speaking into odd little rectangular boxes. Some of them were crouched down next to me asking if I was okay and if I knew what had happened.

I now know that these people had spotted me lying on the ground, unconscious, and were on the phone with ambulances and police.

Either I passed out again or I just have a really shitty memory, because the next thing I remembered was waking up in a hospital room, an IV drip attached to my arm.

***

I peel my eyes open to find myself in an uncomfortable bed. Every item in the mysterious room is a blinding white, save for a vase of various blue and purple flowers on a small table in the corner of the room.

I move to stand up from the bed, but am held back by a tube attached to my left arm. I rip the tube from my arm and move to look out the small window looking over a clean cut rose garden.

"What are you doing out bed, dear?" A voice came from behind me.

I whip around to face the owner of the voice, finding a short woman, looking to be in her fifties or sixties, with a kind smile that lights up her eyes. The woman walked around the bed, dropping her clipboard on the table with the flowers as she did so, and put a gentle hand on my shoulder before motioning for me to sit back down on the hard bed.

"Where am I?" The question came out as a hoarse whisper.

"You're in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center."

Cedars-Sinai... the hospital? No, I can't be here.

"Can you tell me your name, honey?"

Despite having never met this woman before, there was something about her that made me want to talk to her.

"Ari." The name came out as a hoarse whisper.

The woman, Dr. Hughes – I read it on her name tag – looks at me with a small smile. "Well, Ari, do you know what you're doing here?"

I shake my head.

"Some people found you on the street. Said you stumbled out of an alley on Santa Monica Boulevard. They said you were barely conscious."

Any hope the Doctor had of that reminding me how I'd gotten here was quickly diminished. I have no memory whatsoever of how I ended up in a hospital.

"Look, don't stress yourself out over it. Just rest up. We'll get you on some more meds and then we can try again tomorrow." She gave my shoulder a gentle pat, before moving off of the bed and standing up beside me.