Before there were voices, there was only blackness--blackness and him. Blackness so isolated and blank, it screamed. It danced and coiled and twisted, wrapping me in its inky embrace. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I could squint through it and see a hint of copper hair, a sample of shared laughter and past smiles. And soon, from the blackness voices emerged. There were rasping whispers and tinkling whispers and screechy whispers that came and went as the blackness would lighten and darken. There were so many words, so many murmurs and soft hisses that dashed through me, crawling out of my grasp when I tried to catch them. Like fallen eggshells I failed to fish them out of the air, failed to respond to them.
I was in agony, a purgatory encased in my own head. I thrashed at the edges of my mind, banging and screaming to be let out. I could feel the scratchy material of blankets piled on top of me and my whole body tingled, but I refused to stop. I needed to leave, to escape the cell within my head. I yelled and cried and begged, kicking and clawing. I could hear others screaming with me. Were there others in the cell?
The voices were getting louder. I wanted it to stop. I tried to open my eyes; it felt as if little weights were tied to each eyelash. The room was bright, too bright. I retreated back to my cell.
"Meredith! Merry, can you here me?" someone was yelling.
I wouldn't open my eyes again, I couldn't. Maybe I liked the blackness.
"I think she said something, did you hear that?"
“Oh Rich, give it up.”
"Mer, come back to me. Please."
I could feel fingers clawing at my hand, squeezing and kneading it.
I tried again, gingerly opening my eyes to the tangy fluorescent bulbs. It burned and I cried out.
The fingers let go and a foggy presence hovered above me.
"You're awake! You’re actually awake!" The pixelated man exclaimed disbelieving.  His head was covered with rusty blurred squares. He looked familiar, somehow.
I tried to talk but it sounded more like a throaty squeak, "Trevor?"
"No, no. Uh, I'll get the doctor. He'll be happy you're up."
My vision was adjusting and I realized the rusty pixels weren't hair, but a hat. The man looked sad and flustered as he edged out of the room.
A middle-aged women, with bushy blond hair and blue eyeliner smudged carelessly into her branched wrinkles, rose from the corner and smiled at me. "Hello dear, I'm Nurse Patina. I'm just going to change out your fluids."
She hummed with a jagged relentlessness as she worked. Her fingernails were clipped short and the ashy tendrils of hair on her neck bounced to her buzzing melody.
"You know, everyone's been very worried about you, they'll all be so happy to know you're all right." She told me without looking up from her work.
I stared at her in confusion. "What do you mean? How long have I been here?"
She looked up, her eyebrows weighed down by pity, "Oh Hun."
"How long?" I asked urgently.
"Only a little while." A deeper voice chimed in from the doorway, reassuringly. Another man, this one I didn’t recognize. A doctor, perhaps. He wore green scrubs with what appeared to be a toothpaste stain near his collar. Standing next to him was the man from earlier tapping his foot anxiously.
The doctor approached, holding a stethoscope, a small flashlight, and some kind of hammer thing I didn't want near me.
"Good morning Meredith, nice to finally meet you. I'm just going to check a few things, make sure the engine's running smoothly." The doctor chuckled to himself, shining the flashlight in my eyes, throat, ear, checking my pulse, and then tapping the hammer lightly against my arms and legs. "Well, you're quite the well-oiled machine aren't you? " He smiled down at me, winking as if we were in on the same joke.
“It’s a miracle,” the other man said, his voice breaking.
"We definitely don’t see this much around here, I’ll tell you that,” the doctor responded. “Now is it alright if I ask you a few questions?"
"Okay." I said, the sound coming out scratchy and new like a baby porcupine. I glanced at the man in the doorway and he smiled nervously at me. He looked so familiar, like the memory of a day old dream.
The doctor took out a clipboard. "Can you tell me your date of birth?" He asked, consulting his sheet.
"May 5, 1946," I said, that much I knew for sure.
"Good, how about your name?" The doctor asked.
"Meredith Allen."
"And the year?"
"1969." The doctor's face remained blank but from the doorway, I saw the man wince and drop his gaze to the white matte floor.
I swallowed hard and fast. Was that not right? "I mean, 1970?"
The doctor cleared his throat. "Can you try to remember your most recent memory?"
I knew what memory he wanted but that wasn't the one that had stuck by me. I didn't have to dig through my mind, I didn't even have to think. It kept me sane in darkness. It anchored me and soothed me. If I closed my eyes I knew I'd see the boat leaving the dock and Trevor with it. I'd smell the ghost of his shampoo, and feel the phantom trace of his presence beside me.
"I guess…the pills,” I grudgingly admitted.
The doctor smiled. "Good,” he said.
"What do you mean good?" The man in the doorway asked the doctor, in cracked tones, his hands gesticulating wildly at me, at the situation. "How is any of this good?"
The doctor looked at the nurse and then back at the man; bowing his head he walked out, gesturing for Patina to follow. "We'll give you two a moment." And with that, the doctor and nurse slipped out of the room.
The man came towards me, from the doorway, his face red and broken. "Merry, I was so scared."
His eyes looked so familiar, they were like staring into a mirror, and his voice brought back years of jokes and games and fights. "Richard?" I ventured. Could the man standing before me really be my twin?
"Yeah, it's me,” he said, smiling, moving in to hug me.
It was Richard and not Richard. His skin was weathered and dry, his scalp naked under the hat, and his eyes carried purple bags.
"Richy, what happened to you?" I asked, scared.
He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. His lips trembled, tears fell onto my blanket and he turned away.
"Where's Trevor" I asked desperately, My chest tight with cold fear.
"He passed. A couple of years ago," Richard whispered softly, sadness etched into his face.
"But he was just shipped off….It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks ago."
My brother looked at me. "They're all dead Meredith."
"What do you mean…all?"
"It's 2035. You've been asleep for sixty-six years Mer.”
No! No. It felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. I gasped for breath. I wanted to go back to the blackness.