Change of Heart

Synopsis - Beth Hastings has a secret and it involves her sister Alex. When Alex ends in hospital in a coma with heart failure, Beth tries to hide her guilt as well as her crumbling sanity. Meanwhile, nurses Claudia and Gareth must work out how a healthy Alex ended with health failure to begin with.
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Chapter 1 - Part 1

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.

Alex winced slightly. Beth’s tapping was getting on her nerves and she had been doing it for the past half hour. They were sitting in the waiting room of the office belonging to their father’s lawyer and Alex had closed her eyes in meditation. The constant typing of a computer from the lawyer’s secretary was barely tolerable. Beth’s nervousness, on the other hand, was driving her to distraction.

‘Will you stop that? It’s driving me nuts!’

Beth clenched her fist in a forced effort to stop her own nerves and flashed her sister a small grin.

‘Cover your ears then’ she teased but Alex wasn’t amused.

‘Oh, very funny.’

Alex’s response surprised her and Beth just shook her head in bewilderment. Surely, she could see the funny side of the comment. At that moment, their father’s lawyer made an appearance, collecting some paperwork from his secretary before focusing his attention on the sisters. He looked a little worst for wear and Beth surmised he had probably had a fairly stressful day.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he apologised, as he shook hands with the pair. ‘I was help up in court. This way please.’

The office he led them into was small and cluttered. If Beth thought his appearance was due to the stresses of the day’s work, the appearance of the office completely overturn her pervious impression of him. The in-out tray on the small wooden desk was flowing with papers and the pile of books that was resting on the edge of the table looked like it was about to topple over any moment.

Both Alex and Beth invited themselves to sit on two plastic chairs opposite the desk as the lawyer rummaged through the chaos on his desk.

‘Now, it appears your father wrote a will before he passed on,’ he informed the sisters, sifting through the multitude of papers piled up in the in-out tray.

Alex could hear the lawyer panting slightly as he desperately tried to maintain a state of outer calm in the height of increasing pressure.

‘Just bear with me,’ he blushed, as a manila folder filled with fell off the table into a nearby bin despite his best attempts to catch it. ‘It’s here somewhere.’

Beth and Alex exchanged bemused smiles but neither made any attempt to clear up after the lawyer. After what felt like an eternity, he pulled out an envelope from the bottom of the tray.

‘Ah! Here it is!’ he announced triumphantly, before clearing his throat and tearing open the envelope to produce the legal document. He gave an embarrassed smile and proceeded to read the contents of the will. ‘It says here … “I, Matthew Joseph Hasting, hereby leave my collection of 13th Century coins to my eldest daughter, Bethany Joanne Hasting. To my youngest daughter, Alexandra Charlotte Hasting, I leave the house and the amount currently residing in my combined bank accounts to the sum of $750,000.”’

Beth’s jaw just dropped in disbelief.

‘Whoa! Wait a second,’ she interrupted in protest. ‘I just get a brunch of lousy coins and Alex gets the house and all the money?’

‘Look, don’t worry about it,’ Alex spoke up, failing to see what all the fuss was about. ‘We’ll share it amongst ourselves.’

Beth had had enough. What was she going to do with a collection of rare coins? The only use they had for it was in a museum and didn’t help her in the slightest. In no mood to argue, she just stalked out, leaving the lawyer staring after her in shock. Alex cleared her throat, clearly embarrassed by her sister’s behaviour.

‘Sorry about that,’ she apologised to the lawyer and went out after Beth.

Alex and Beth were both sitting at the dining table having their meal later that evening. Alex had a strange feeling about what she was consuming. In fact, if she was honest with herself, the tomato juice tasted a little out of the ordinary.

‘There’s something about this juice,’ she mused, taking another sip of it.

Beth just looked up at her curiously.

‘What about it?’

‘It tastes … I dunno … different. Did you buy a different brand or something?’

Beth just shrugged and took a sip of hers. She knew what Alex was trying to imply but wasn’t going to let anything incriminate her.

‘Tastes alright to me,’ she replied, hoping to sound as natural as she possibly could and that Alex wouldn’t pick up on it. ‘Maybe it’s just your tastebuds.’

‘Yeah, maybe …’ Alex sighed and continued her meal.

They ate in silence for a moment until Alex looked up at her sister and found her toying with her food in disinterest.

‘What’s wrong?

‘Uh?’ Beth blinked, then sighed. ‘Oh, nothing. The will reading just rattled me, that’s all. What was Dad thinking? What the hell am I going to do with a bunch of 13th century coins?’

‘They’re probably worth a mint though.’

‘Yeah, but who in their right mind would pay for it? It’s beyond ridiculous! I might has well just donate them to a museum.’

Alex was about to reply when her mobile phone beeped, indicating a new text message. Sheepish, she retrieved it from the depths of her pocket and activated it. Her mouth dropped in shock when she read the contents.

‘I can’t believe he even would do that!’

‘Can’t believe who did what?’ Beth blinked but she had a fair idea who her sister was referring to.

‘He called it off. Through a bloody text message,’ Alex turned to face Beth, hoping for some reassurance from her older sister.

‘Did he say why?’ was all she asked.

‘Only that he was “thinking about it”!’ Alex snorted.

‘Bet there’s someone else and he’s too gutless to tell me.

The bastard!’

Annoyed, she pocketed the phone again and attempted to resume eating. Unfortunately, the most recent turn of events had caused her to loose her appetite. She just stared absent-mindedly at the bowl in front of her. Beth looked at her in sympathy.

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah, sorry. That text just threw me. I just can’t believe he actually called it off!’

‘I don’t blame you,’ Beth responded. ‘Most people do it face-to-face.’

‘Thanks for being so understanding anyway,’ Alex smiled, sipping the juice to wash the spaghetti down.

She still thought there might have been something odd about the taste of the juice but she couldn’t be sure. However, she also speculated there was a high chance that her emotions may be playing a part in the delusion as well and so she didn’t think there was any point mentioning it further.

‘Not a problem,’ Beth smiled. ‘I probably would’ve reacted the some way. Look, I know you’re probably not up to it anymore but try and finish the spaghetti. I’d hate for the smell to permeate the room.’

‘You can talk!’ Alex snorted then paused slightly before sighing. ‘I’m okay. I’m just pissed off with him, that’s all.’

There was another stretch of silence between the sisters as Beth watched Alex eat. Surely, it would’ve have started working by now yet Alex didn’t seem to be suffering any after-effects from it. Perhaps she hadn’t added enough. All her training taught her that it took anywhere between five minutes to fifteen minutes for any symptoms to start showing.

Any moment now, she thought with baited breath. You’re not going to know what hit you.

Beth was starting to get nervous. So much so that she nearly gave herself away and Alex noticed her immediately.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.

‘You nervous about something?’ Alex asked with a frown.

‘No, why do you ask?’ Beth blinked in surprise.

She’d been so tense in anticipation, she forgotten where she actually was.

‘You always do that when you’re nervous,’ was the shrugging reply as if the reason for Beth’s anxiety was of no real concern to her.

‘Sorry. Bad habit,’ Beth clenched her fist in a deliberately attempt to stop her nervous twitch.

‘You should do some meditation or something,’ Alex suggested casually, causing Beth to smile sarcastically back at her.

Luckily, Alex failed to notice and she proceeded to polish off her meal. Beth watched her, anxiously waiting for the effects to take hold. Ten minutes had past. The effects should have started by now. Beth watched her expectantly, holding her breath. If this didn’t have any effect on her now, it would’ve been all for nothing and she’d have to come up with another plan.

Just hurry and take affect, will ya! I better not have gone through all this trouble for you not to work! Beth half-pleaded to the foxglove extract in Alex’s juice.

Alex sat there for a moment and wondered what had just happened. She was feeling fine a minute ago. Now, her head was swimming slightly. Maybe it had something to do with the stress she was experiencing from Murray dumping her in such a cowardly fashion. The kitchen around her started spinning slightly and she blinked, trying to clear her increasingly blurred vision.

‘What’s wrong?’ Beth wanted to know but did nothing to assist her.

By now, Alex felt like she was breathing in a vacuum. While she could breathe out, she was having trouble breathing in and, coupled with her extreme vertigo, it was getting very distressing. She began to panic.

‘I … I dunno…’ she whizzed, struggling to explain what she was experiencing but failed miserably. ‘I ... feel weird ...’

Worst yet, the world was spinning around her at a dizzying speed and giving her something of an exploding headache. Beth seemed to take it as a sudden reaction to nerves.

‘And you’re talking about me being nervous,’ she snorted teasing.

Come on! Die already!

Alex wasn’t really listening anymore. By now, she could barely think straight and her thoughts were moving faster than she could vocalise them. For some reason, the muscles of her mouth were refusing to co- operate with her mind. Then, with one last breath, she suddenly slumped into her chair and promptly collapsed onto the ground, twitching slightly.

What’s happening to me? I can’t move. Beth? You still there? Why aren’t you helping me? she called out silently, despite the fact that she knew Beth couldn’t actually hear her. I … can’t … breathe … Help!

As her heart gradually slowed down, her body began to twitch.

Can’t … think … n-need- Alex’s muddled thoughts tried to make sense of what was happening to her. Can’t … think … Cold … very … cold …

Watching her closely, Beth could now see that Alex’s breathing was starting to become compromised. In fact, it was becoming more and more irregular and forced. Beth’s training told her that Alex was going into cardiac arrest and the breathing was merely a sign of the body being starved of oxygen. Agonal breathing was the term they used in the professional circles. It was a situation that warranted immediate medical attention – something that Beth was deliberately failing to give her.

Beth sat there for a moment and gave a small smile. It had finally worked. She took a quick glance at her sister lying on the floor to make sure she was well and truly out then wished she hadn’t. Instead of seeing a perfect result from her mission, she saw a vulnerable and highly fragile younger sister whom she had adored throughout her life.

Now, she was feeling guilty for what she had actually done. Beth took a deep breath and tried in vain to convince herself she had done it for the greater good but a nagging voice inside her head taunted her mercilessly.

Now, you’ve done it, the sneering voice said. Alex is going to die and it’ll be on your head! All because you didn’t have the guts to tell it to her face. You had to go and poison her, didn’t you?

‘Shut up!’ Beth retorted. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about!’

Are you kidding? I’m you, remember! You better hurry up and do something fast. You’ve wasted enough time arguing with me already!

She wriggled uncomfortably in her seat.

Well? What are you waiting for? Go on!

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.

‘Alex? You okay?’ she called out, hoping to get some sort of reaction from her sister but failed.

She couldn’t stand the sight of her unconscious sister any longer. In a panic, she got up from her chair and rushed towards her. All of sudden she was now hoping that Alex was just unconscious. Her original plans had now flown straight out the window. Unfortunately, upon assessment, Beth’s worst fears were realised when she discovered Alex wasn’t actually breathing. In fact, her lips had started to turn a greyish-blue.

‘Oh god, no!’ she cried in desperation, gently shaking Alex’s shoulders in an attempt to rouse her again. ‘Come on. Wake up. You can do it. ..’

There was nothing worst than waking up from a terrifying nightmare, only to find yourself in the middle of nowhere and encased in a vehicle that wasn’t actually working. The last thing Alex Hasting remembered before being jarred out the depths of unconsciousness was the unmistakable ambiance of a hospital intensive care unit. What had stood out most hauntingly for her though wasn’t what she saw, but what she heard. In fact, she couldn’t remember seeing anything at all. It was almost as if someone had thrown a dark cloth bag over her head and forced her to rely on her hearing instead.

Amidst the darkness of her subconsciousness, she vividly remembered hearing the concerned voice of her sister as the latter discussed the well-being of a critically ill patient with one of the nursing staff at the intensive care unit. Alex strongly speculated that the patient in question was actually herself because she discovered she couldn’t directly communicate with either of them.

‘Mum’s due back from holidays in a week,’ her sister had commented wistfully against the mechanical background sound of the ventilator and accompanying heart monitor. ‘I can’t let her see Alex like this. She’ll be guttered!’

To her credit, the female nurse she had spoken to had managed to alleviate her anxiety by suggesting she go home to get some rest. Alex couldn’t remember any more than that because that’s when she surfaced from the tides of unconsciousness, panting heavily in cold sweat.

Now, she was sitting in the driver’s seat of a ute in the middle of a deserted country road with no memory of how she got there which was something of an oddity because her memory was usually pretty good.

She looked down at the National Park and Wildlife Services uniform she was wearing and was overcome with an intense wave of curiosity. She wondered if she was suffering a form of amnesia because she couldn’t remember doing anything in her professional life that resembled the duties or responsibilities of a park ranger either. Shaking her head in dismissal, she fumbled blindly for the ute’s keys that were still embedded in the vehicle’s ignition.

Common sense should have told her that her tunnel vision would have hindered any driving skills she possessed. However, in the wake of her current disposition, her mind was pre-occupied. She hated isolation and longed to return to the vibrancy of modern civilization. Finally locating the keys, she turned on the ignition – or at least she tried. The engine erupted in a stubborn, prolonged splutter before dying out completely. This was the last straw for Alex and she blasted the horn with as much force as her frustration allowed before climbing out and slamming the door behind her.

If Alex had been expecting any sort of reprieve from her predicament outside the ute, she would’ve been sorely disappointed. The drought stricken brown paddocks of the unforgiving countryside surrounding her stretched for kilometres as the harsh summer sun glared down on Alex’s unprotected face. It instantly reminded her of an apocalyptic barren wasteland and her limited peripheral vision didn’t help at all. She stared out into the paddocks, hoping against hope that what she was experiencing was all but a dream and that she would eventually wake up in the comfort of her warm cosy bed in the city. Had she woken from one nightmare only to wake up in another?

The screeching sound of a crow flying overhead jolted her back to the present and she soon realised that she’d need to find some shade before she succumbed to heatstroke. Scanning the endless paddocks, she soon came to across a slim dirt track amidst thick shrub. Seeing as there was no other relief from the blistering sun, she made a bee-line straight towards it.

The change in temperature was pleasantly immeasurable. Alex glanced around her and found herself amidst a forest of eucalyptus trees. She was so in awe of the sudden transformation of her surroundings that she failed to notice she was in fact moving further away from the road and the ute. She soon found herself lost. Hopelessly lost.

Cursing silently, she looked around the endless rows of trees and vegetation in hope of finding anything that would help her way back towards the main road. Confused, she spun around in an attempt to gain some sort of familiarity amongst her surroundings but failed miserably.

She soon became aware of a faint rumbling of thunder in a distance. It wasn’t overly distinctive but it had an oddly familiar rhythm to it. At first, she thought a storm was brewing but, on closer examination of the clear blue sky above, she concluded that wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon.

Boom. Boom. Boom-boom-boom.

She stopped for a moment, trying to remember where she’d heard it from. Almost on cue, it stopped as well, as if challenging her sanity. Alex thought for a minute then decided on a plan of action. Maybe if she continued forward, the rumbling would re-commence, letting her to analyse its origin again. She took an anticipatory step forward, listening intently.

Nothing.

She took another step. Still nothing. Annoyance slowly raged within her and she gave up, storming ahead in defiance.

Then it came back.

Boom. Boom. Boom-boom-boom.

She didn’t hear it at first because she was too pre- occupied with her premature defeat. Her attention was diverted when she realised the rumbling had gotten louder. Without any logical explanation whatsoever, her annoyance subsided and was replaced with intense curiosity.

‘That sounds very familiar,’ she muttered aloud as she looked around, trying to find its source. ‘Where’s it coming from?’

Unfortunately, the next step she took killed off any opportunity to investigate the sound further. Apart from the natural ambiance of the Australian bush, the silence was deafening. The longer she waited for the sound to return, the longer the silence stretched. Alex eventually moved ahead when she realised the sound wasn’t going to return and, in the process, unwittingly stepped on a twig …


The transformation of her surroundings was instant to say the least. In fact, it was starting to become a bit of a habit. With a blink of an eye, she suddenly found herself amongst thick vegetation and there was a black jacket on the ground. Who did the jacket belong to? She made her way to the base of the tree and picked up the garment in examination. The sheer size of the jacket told her that it wouldn’t have fitted the children anyway. The jacket reminded her of someone she didn’t expect to be in this area of isolation. On hindsight, he probably would’ve captured the magic of the country scenery with his digital single lens reflex camera.

A professional photographer, Murray Parkes wasn’t one to let the beauty of a certain landscape escape his watchful eye. It was one of the things Alex loved so much about him. They had met during one of his photo shoots and it was love at first sight. Alex smiled at the memory and brought the jacket up to her nose, savouring the smell of his aftershave.

‘I wondered where I'd dropped it,’ a very familiar voice greeted her. ‘Thanks.’

Alex looked up and saw the man himself. Where had he materialised from? A tall man, Murray posed a striking figure. On this occasion, he wore military style clothing and sturdy hiking boots which – if Alex had been paying any attention to, she’d have realise that it wasn’t his style of clothing at all. Granted, he certainly had the compact and muscular physique for it but he was a pacifist through and through. She flashed him a dazzling smile and greeted him with a passionate kiss on the lips before handing him back the jacket.

‘I know how much it means to you,’ she told him. ‘I remember you wore it when I first met you.’

‘Yes and I remember how unimpressed you were at the time,’ Murray reminded her, thoughtfully.

It was at this point of the conversation that the dialogue started to go slightly awry – not that either of them were paying much attention to it.

‘Well, what do you expect?’ Alex retaliated. ‘You were tearing across a protected area in that bloody Harley- Davidson of yours.’

Murray gave a lopsided grin.

‘At least you didn't throw it over the cliff. Speaking of which, there's something I want to show you.’

He put on his jacket and began leading her away. Now, she was curious.

‘Really? What?’

‘Words just can't describe it,’ Murray replied cheekily.

‘Sounds ominous.’

‘Come on then ...’

The climb over the ravine was steeper than Alex imagined. She wondered how Murray could be so energetic at this time of the day because she could no longer see him. That wasn’t to say he was no longer there. She could still hear his footsteps and panting ahead of her. She, on the other hand, was beginning to feel as if she had just run a four kilometre marathon and the muscles in her legs and arms were burning with exhaustion. Was she really that unfit? She looked up and wondered where Murray had disappeared to.

‘Murray! Slow down!’ she called in desperation.

He didn’t respond at first, rising Alex’s anxiety levels up a notch. A few seconds later, he re-appeared in front of her, shaking his head with laughter.

‘God, you're really out of shape! And you call yourself a park ranger!’

Without any attempt to help Alex or even register her need for assistance, he continued on his way as if nothing happened. Alex cursed under her breath. Typical men! Always wanting to show they were the greater sex. What exactly was he trying to prove anyway? She shook her head in disbelief and continued to struggle up the ravine. She had only climbed a few meters further when she heard a blood curling scream up ahead. That almost sounded like … No, it couldn’t be, could it?

Suddenly with renewed energy, she scrambled to the top of the ravine and found herself at the cliff edge. She wasn’t even sure how she managed to get there so fast. Without even thinking, she looked down and wished she hadn’t. Murray lay there broken and limp at the bottom on a ledge.

Beth Hasting stared down at the limp and unconscious body of her younger sister amidst frantic chest compression, desperately attempting to bring her back to life. Alex had stopped breathing ten minutes ago and time was of the essence. As a senior first aid instructor, Beth had been trained in basic life support but never, in her eleven years in the profession, had she ever needed to do it on someone she actually loved. Despite the occasional hiccups in their relationship, she loved her baby sister dearly and felt partially responsible for the latter’s invalidity.

‘Come on. Don't die on me, please!’ she pleaded.

Where the hell were the ambulance when she needed them? She’d rung them five minutes ago. Almost as if to answer her question, the front door she had left unlocked opened and the unmistakable sound of a stretcher could be heard wheeling in.

‘Hello?’ a female voice called out.

‘In the kitchen!’

The rattling sound of wheels came closer and Beth looked up to see two paramedics – one male and the other female - dressed in standard green reflective South Australian Ambulance uniforms approaching with stretcher in tow. She completed her last round of chest compressions then stepped back to allow the paramedics to fully access her invalid sister which wasn’t easy given the size of the kitchen.

Beth and Alex lived in a small rented apartment in the middle of Adelaide’s Central Business District. The kitchen they were currently in was small and cluttered, separated from an equally sized dining area by a thin bar. In fact, there wasn’t much space with the four of them in the kitchen – especially with Alex sprawled out inelegantly on the ground. It was the middle of the day. The smell of spaghetti bolognaise lingered in the air and an unwashed saucepan was left soaking in a sink full of soapy water. Not that either paramedic took much notice.

‘What happened?’ the female paramedic asked as her partner unstrapped the big green medical bag they had on the stretcher and took out a bag valve mask.

They then both took their positions next to Alex. Beth faltered slightly. She had to make sure what she told them actually made sense, despite her own distress at the situation.

‘I ... I don't know. I walk in and just found her like this,’ Beth stammered. ‘She's going to be okay, right?’

Did that sound convincing enough? The male paramedic looked up and saw the table at which Alex and Beth had been eating before the former’s collapse. It had been set for two. It was clear that there was some residue of tomato juice in one glass.

‘Who was she with?’ he asked, throwing Beth slightly off-guard.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The table …’ was the prompt.

Beth looked towards the table and realised what he was referring to. She said the first thing that came to her mind – which didn’t necessarily make sense.

‘Oh, she does that for us everyday,’ she replied dismissively then became annoyed at the line of questioning. ‘Look, what difference does it make anyway?’

The paramedic looked at her oddly and was about to say something when his partner interrupted, shaking her head in concern.

‘I can’t find a pulse.’

Whatever the paramedic was going to say to Beth had to be placed on hold because Alex’s predicament was far more important.

‘I'll pump, you bag.’

‘Right. When you're ready ...’ her partner decided, unclipping his CB radio and placing it on the lino floor.

He then placed the bag valve mask over Alex’s nose and mouth, creating a prefect seal before squeezing the flexible air chamber and releasing it again. This in turn breathed for Alex when she couldn’t do it herself.

Beth watched nervously as the paramedics worked their magic on her sister, tapping her fingers rhythmically on the bar table.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.

It was a habit she had unwittingly picked up whenever she was nervous. It soon dawned on her that her own reply to the male paramedic may trigger suspicions regarding the cause of Alex’s collapse and she looked around discreetly to make sure there was no evidence that would incriminate her in anyway. After all, her reaction to the paramedic’s innocent query was almost enough to ask more questions. Thankfully, both of them were now concentrating on stabilizing Alex’s condition to take much notice of Beth’s body language. Presently, the female paramedic felt for a carotid pulse and gave a sigh of relief but her face was still wrought with worry.

‘I’ve got a pulse but she’s still not breathing.’

The CB radio on the ground suddenly came to life but Beth’s attention was elsewhere.

‘What’s her name?’ The female paramedic asked.

‘Huh?’ was the distracted reply before Beth realised she was talking to her. ‘Oh, Alex.’

The female paramedic nodded slightly and bend down towards Alex while her partner continued to assist Alex in her breathing with the bag valve mask.

‘Alex, we’re just going to take you to the hospital to get you sorted out.’



Claudia Golding looked down at the unconscious fragile figure in front of her and gave an inward sigh. She had always wanted to be a nurse. Growing up in the 1960s Manchester in the United Kingdom, much of her influences in her future profession stemmed from her mother who had been a military nurse during the second world war. She migrated to Australia in the early 1980s and had not looked back.

The reports from the paramedics had not been good. She couldn’t fathom how such a healthy young woman could end up with breathing difficulties and heart problems despite not being on any medication or having eating or drunk anything out of the ordinary. As she took note of the readings coming from both Alex’s ventilator machine and heart monitor, the doctor in residence James Carver arrived to assess the latter’s progress.

‘Claudia, how is she?’ he began.

‘Still unresponsive,’ Claudia replied, enigmatically.

‘Pulse weak and irregular. BP 85 over 60. Oxygen level at 94%. Pupils are bilateral fixed and dilated. Coma scale at 3. The monitors are showing signs of heart arrhythmia. She’s lucky the ambulance got to her when they did.’

James just nodded grimly. He didn’t like the sound of that at all. He took out a small hammer from the depths of his coat pocket and made his way to Alex’s bedside.

‘Alex, I'm just going to test your reflexes using the sole of your left foot,’ he advised. ‘Ready?’

He watched Alex for any reaction but none was forthcoming. Not that he expected any voluntary moment from her. As for reflexes, the real test was yet to come. Ever so gently, he stroked the end of the hammer handle against the sole of Alex’s foot – it jerked.

‘Well, at least they still work,’ he decided. ‘Okay, give her the standard 1mg IV of adrenaline. Lets see if we can stabilise her heart again. I’ll go and have a word with her sister.’

With that, he left Alex in Claudia’s capable hands and made his way out of the unit into the corridor where Beth was waiting patiently on one of the seats. She looked up at him and stood up to greet him.

‘How is she?’ was her first question.

James just sighed. He hated delivering bad news to family members – especially when they were expecting more than he could deliver.

‘It’s not looking good,’ he told her sympathetically.

‘We’ve had to put her on a ventilator. We’re running a series of tests on her so it’ll be a waiting game. At this stage, she’ll be in a coma for a while.’

At the back of her mind, Beth had expected that to be the case but she didn’t want to admit it.

‘Can I see her?’ was all she asked.

‘Not just yet. She’s still very unstable.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Was there anyone you would like us to contact for you? Your parents perhaps?’

Parents? That brought reality a little closer to home than Beth would have like. She hadn’t even thought of the consequences of their mother find out about this. Still, she managed to remain calm in the line of questioning.

‘No, it’s okay. Mum’s due back from holidays in a week,’ she responded but her anxiety eventually reared its head. ‘I can’t let her see Alex like this. She’ll be guttered!’

James could tell that the stress was starting to get to the woman in front of him.

‘You look exhausted. It must’ve been a very emotional day for you,’ he told her. ‘Why don’t you go home and get some rest? We’ll contact you when she has stabilised.’

It had been nearly five hours since Alex had been admitted into the intensive care unit at the Lion Heart Hospital. Both Claudia and her partner, Gareth Michaels, sat in their respective seats within the small nurses’ station. Claudia was busy writing up the progress note for Alex while Gareth scrolled through the computer screen he was reading.

‘Well, we have the initial blood test results back,’ Gareth told her. ‘She had alcohol reading of .07 but that shouldn’t be enough to cause any major issues.’

‘I don’t really understand it,’ Claudia frowned. ‘Her sister said she didn’t have any heart problems so she shouldn’t be having arrhythmia.’

‘Maybe she accidentally ingested something she shouldn’t have,’ her colleague speculated. ‘If that’s the case, this is either a case of attempted suicide or attempted murder.’

‘Don’t even go there. We’re not here to judge anyone. Lets just wait until the toxicology report comes back.’

Gareth was about to say something when Alex’s heart monitor started to alarm.

‘I’ll go,’ Claudia volunteered and made her way to Alex’s bed.

Looking up at her patient’s monitor, she noticed the blood pressure was much higher than usually and decided to test her pupil reaction. It was here that her concerns were raised significantly.

‘Gareth,’ she called out. ‘We’re going to need James here again.’

‘What’s wrong?’ was the question as Gareth made his way to the bed.

‘Her pupils aren’t reacting and her BP is slowly increasing.’

Gareth raised his eyebrows. This could mean one of several scenarios but brain swelling was the most likely for Alex’s current condition.

‘Her heart rate’s dropping as well which means she might have increased ICP. You better give her some Mannitol. I’ll call James.’


‘Can she actually hear us?’

There were certain objects that belonged to the natural exhibition of a musky ancient cave. Rock and brown dirt blended in perfectly with the environment. A CB radio, however, did not. As soon as Alex registered the voice, she opened her eyes and looked at the radio with intense curiosity. Was she still dreaming or did she actually hear Beth’s voice coming from it? There was a short silence.

‘No one knows for sure but we do know that the hearing is usually the last to go.’

Alex recognised that voice somewhere. It was the nurse who had been talking to Beth in her previous dream. What was her name? Claudia … Alex stared at the radio in wonder. Claudia’s voice was coming from it too. Did that mean …?

‘She just looks so vulnerable lying there ...,’ Beth’s soft voice continued.

Alex’s heart almost missed a beat as she scrambled excitedly for the radio. If she could just get their attention, maybe she can work out what was happening to her and get out of here. With shaking hands, she activated the radio and spoke into it, hopefully.

‘Beth? 'That you?’

The voices did continued in conversation without any indication that she had heard her but they were no longer coming from the radio, instead resonating around the echoing cave. It was all very confusing.

‘There is some good news,’ Claudia continued. ‘Her pulse is still strong so there's a very high chance she can still hear you. The best thing you can do for her now is talk to her.’

Good news for whom? Alex thought distastefully. What’s going on?

Alex slowly put down the radio and looked around the cave, listening intently. The whole thing was getting a little too weird for her liking and she longed to just get out of there in one piece.

‘Do we know what happened? I mean, how she ended up like this?’ Beth asked, curiously.

Alex had had enough. After all, there wasn’t anything stopping her from leaving, was there? She got up and ran to the month of the cave. There was something odd about the mouth. Normally, the mouth of a cave led out to a path or clearing of some description but this one didn’t. Alex stopped at the mouth and looked down, realising nearly too late that there was no ground following the cave mouth but a mountain’s cliff edge. If her heart wasn’t beating as fast as a drum before, it certainly was now. Saying she hated heights was an understatement and she was on the verge of hyperventilating. She slowly stepped back in terror with the sudden realisation that she was trapped.

‘Just get me out! Please!’ She screamed, hoping that someone – anyone – would hear her.

‘We found some toxins in her body. Do you know what she ate before she collapsed?’ was Claudia’s query.

Now, that got her attention and she needed a moment to think what they were talking about. What did Claudia mean by “collapsed”?

‘Toxins? What toxins?’

There was a short pause before Beth responded.

‘I made her some spaghetti before going out to hang the washing,’ she said then continued in haste. ‘But I made it the way I always have.’


There was something very unsettling about seeing a loved one hooked up to a mechanical ventilator and heart monitor and being observed around-the-clock by trained medical staff – especially if the loved one was someone much younger than you who still had their whole life in front of them.

Beth was usually a confident woman who took life with both hands and just lived it to the fullest. At thirty- eight, she wasn’t one to let lost opportunities let her down. In fact, she always made sure that they were never lost in the first place. However, seeing Alex lying in a hospital bed at the intensive care unit stopped her in her tracks. Alex had always been the weaker of the two - not least because of her disability – and Beth felt obliged to care for her. Alex’s well-being, for the majority of her life, had been her responsibility and she was half terrified that their formidable mother would find out what had happened.

Debra was currently on holiday in the United Kingdom visiting her sister and was due back within a week. Beth knew their mother had certain expectations during her absence, one of which actually involved keeping Alex alive when she returned home. While Beth was a fairly strong individual, their mother never failed to make her feel inadequate at the most inopportune moment. It was something in the latter’s personality that demanded respect and gratitude but Beth couldn’t quite work out what it was.

Beth stared numbly at the fragile figure in front of her. Alex’s pale face reminded her of a delicate porcelain doll which needed to be handle with care whenever touched. That in itself wasn’t far from the reality of the present situation.

Claudia, an elegant older woman in her late forties, was busy injecting some antibiotics into Alex’s intravenous line. Presently, she looked up and noticed Beth’s anxiety. She gave her a sympathetic smile, taking note of the unease of having a loved one in such a predicament.

‘Hey, it's okay,’ she assured her in a distinctive British accent. ‘I'm not trying to lay blame on anyone. I'm just trying to help you work out what happened.’

Beth just smiled sheepishly, partly in guilt and partly in uncertainty. Claudia looked up at her thoughtfully. Maybe time to try another tact – alleviate any further anxiety.

‘So, what does she do? For a living?’ she offered, conversationally.

‘Um ... she's a model. For posters and catalogues and stuff ... Her eyesight's not the best,’ Beth wondered where the conversation was heading.

She didn’t get a chance to find out though because a heart monitor went off elsewhere in the unit which Claudia had to attend. The registered nurse made her apologies and informed Alex she would be back with some medication. With that, she disappeared around the corner, leaving Beth alone with her sister. It took Beth some time to gain enough courage to take a seat next to the bed. Without even realising it, she began tapping on the bedside railing.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.

‘I don't really know what to say,’ she told Alex, meekly.

‘It just feels so weird talking to you but not knowing if you can actually hear.’

In fact, the whole thing felt utterly ridiculous. Who knew if Alex could actually hear her? For all Beth knew, she could be completely wasting her breath. All the medical professionals had done was speculate that a comatose person could hear them but there was no actual evidence that it was even true. Even if there was, most people who woke from coma usually forgot what had been said to them anyway. Besides, what was the point of talking to someone if they couldn’t even reply?

It was like talking to a brick wall. The longer Beth sat there, the more guilty she felt about the whole thing. She knew exactly why Alex was in the situation and there was nothing she could do to reverse it. She instinctively looked at away.

‘It was a really, really stupid thing to do,’ she admitted.

‘You know I don't usually do things on a whim. I don't know what came over me. It just ... happened.’

She looked back at her unresponsive sister as if to expect some form of forgiveness from her. Of course, Alex didn’t move an inch and Beth started to become slightly desperate.

‘Don't die on me,’ she pleaded sincerely. ‘Please? I feel really awful about this. You have to believe me.’

To a surprise, a reaction was registered but it wasn’t entirely the type she was expecting. Alex’s body started to twitch and her unfocussed eyes slowly opened. Beth watched her closely.

‘Alex?’

The heart monitor alarmed making her jump. As a general rule, Beth didn’t like the sound of alarms and this one was no exception – especially when it was directly associated with her sister. Her nervousness turned to fear when the nurse returned and glanced at the monitor just as Alex’s invalid body stiffened.

‘Can you hear me?’ she asked with baited breath.

Then without warning, Alex started convulsing. Within ten seconds of the alarm, Claudia had returned to her bedside.

‘It's okay,’ Claudia assured her as she silenced the alarm. ‘I'm just going to give you some valium to relax those muscles.’

She then proceeded to fill a nearby syringe with fluid before attempting to inject it into Alex's intravenous line. Unfortunately, the severity of Alex’s convulsions made it virtually impossible to access the line without help.

‘Gareth! I need a hand here!’ she called out as the ventilator started to alarm, causing her colleague to join her by the bed. ‘She’s moving too much. I can’t get a clear shot.’

After some effort on both nurses’ part, Alex eventually relaxed and her eyes closed once more, as she returned to her unconscious state.

‘I’ll go write it up,’ Gareth informed his partner and returned to the nurses’ station.

‘That’s it. Just try and sleep it off for now,’ Claudia assured Alex gently, stroking her hair.

Beth, who had been watching the situation unfold in silent horror, finally found enough courage to voice her concern.

‘What just happened?’

‘She suffered a severe seizure, possibly from the brain swelling,’ Claudia informed her, taking down a few notes on Alex’s progress chart. ‘She’s not out of the woods yet but we’ll need to keep a close eye on her.’

Beep. Beep. Beep-beep-beep.

Claudia looked up at Beth who was taking out her phone from her trouser pocket in annoyance. Flipping open the casing, she read the message in dismay. She was already late for work.

‘Oh, crap ...’ Beth stood up and gently stroked Alex’s golden hair. ‘Hey, I gotta go to work but I'll be back later, okay?’

She stood there for a moment, staring blankly at Alex. She had lost the momentum of the conversation she had before the alarm went off. She couldn’t very well continue it in front of Claudia without the nurse making any assumptions about her. She could feel Claudia’s eyes boring into her and, suddenly uncomfortable, hastily made her exit.


It had been three hours since Beth had left the hospital. She was now seated behind the desk in her office at work, feeling utterly insignificant. Given the events surrounding Alex’s condition, it was fair to say that Beth’s concentration had dwindled somewhat and it didn’t help that she actually had to teach the chest compressions to her students. In fact, she had faltered so badly at that stage that someone else had to replace her for that section of the class. After all, she had put theory to practice on her own sister and going through the motions in front of a group of prefect strangers was a little too close to home.

‘What the hell happened out there?’

Beth just groaned. She just didn’t feel like confronting her boss about her what she’d just gone through again. It was embarrassing enough as it was.

‘Hank, please!’ she responded, looking up at him. ‘I know I stuffed up so can we just leave it at that?’

Hank Meyers was leaning against her desk, perplexed by her reaction. Beth was one of his more dedicated workers and he couldn’t understand what had come over her.

‘Come on, Beth,’ the American coaxed. ‘Help me understand. You did great with the theory but when it came to the CPR ...’

Beth hung her head. There wasn’t anything she could really say that didn’t involve telling Hank what had actually happened.

‘I'm sorry.’

‘Well, I hope for your sake the students don't demand a refund. We're in enough trouble as it is.’

Beth didn’t say anything. Hank looked straight at her, searching. She wasn’t usually like this.

‘You can tell me, you know,’ he told her but Beth just shook her head.

‘I can't. It's ... personal.’

Hank waited for a moment, hoping that Beth would open up to him. Nothing came. He gave up. Sometimes trying to get Beth to talk was like trying to get blood out of a stone.

‘Okay, I won't push you but I do need you to be on the ball here. Especially with the meeting tomorrow. You will –‘ he asked, uncertainly.

He had every right to be. The company was in financial crisis and everyone was counting on her to negotiate a deal with their creditors. Beth knew that and just nodded her head impatiently.

‘Yes, I'll be there.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Look, I'm sorry. Maybe I just need a good night's sleep.’

Hank appraised her slightly. He did sympathize with her, knowing how much pressure she’d been under lately.

‘Try not to overdo it, okay?’ he told her softly.

Beth just nodded absentmindedly, thankful for the retreat. Her glance drifted to the framed photograph of Alex, herself and their parents beside her work computer. Beth remembered the day well. It had been taken approximately last year during the Christmas and New years period. The memory still fresh in her mind, she could almost feel the fresh sea breeze caressing her face. It was one the happier moments in her life.

Hank couldn’t help but notice Beth’s concentration had wavered. He followed her glance towards the photograph. He didn’t know the beaches of Adelaide very well yet, having only just migrated to Australia from California five months prior. The jetty in the photograph, however, looked vaguely familiar.

‘Glenelg?’ he hazarded a guess.

‘Huh?’ Beth blinked, quickly returning to the present.’ Oh, yeah. It was taken a few months ago before Dad died.’

It had been on Alex’s insistence that they invite their mother to spend the day with them. Alex might have been the weaker of the two but, when she set her mind on something, there was little anyone could do to change it and their father was no exception. Beth doubted Alex had realised just how far their parents had drifted apart over the years but she knew her younger sister had always been their favourite and would do anything for her. Beth often felt cheated by their parents but knew Alex’s love for her was paramount which provide some comfort to her.

‘It’s such a beautiful place,’ she sighed, pushing her parents’ rejection to the back of her mind and concentrating purely on the tranquillity of the beach.

‘Enough to go take your mind off things for a while?’ Hank queried.

Beth just gave a sad smile.

‘You could say that.’

She would probably need more than just a sea-change to take her mind off what she was going through but the idea was a good start nonetheless.

‘Look, why don’t you take the rest of the day off?’ Hank decided. ‘I’ll take care of things here.

Beth looked at him curiously but his facial expression left no room for discussion.

‘Take a trip down there to clear your mind if you think it’ll help,’ he continued. ‘But I don’t want to see you back here until tomorrow.’

Beth gave a grateful smile and nodded. She knew she could always count on Hank to look after her well-being.

Alex had finally managed to get out of the cave and she didn’t even know nor could she remember how she had achieved such a feat. One minute she had been trapped in the enclosure against the unexplainable drop of an unknown cliff face. The next, she was back by the shrub-land she had previously been wondering around in. Once again, there was vegetation everywhere and she was more disorientated than she had been before.

Not one to be enclosed in an area for any period of time, she spun around blissfully, enjoying her freedom while it lasted. That was until she realised she had to find a way home.

She groaned. Now, what was she going to do?

It took her a while to notice there was an odd sound in the air. It was extremely faint but definitely there. Alex stood still for a moment, straining to hear and realised she was in fact listening to a rather heated argument between two individuals. The voices triggered a distant memory somewhere in her mind but they weren’t instantly recognisable. She looked around, curiously. Maybe if she could see who was arguing, she might remember who they actually were ...

No one. Or was there?

At least she knew which direction they were coming from and took a few steps forward. It didn’t seem to make any difference at first so she persisted. One deliberate step at a time. Then she heard them.

Debra Hasting was upset. Usually someone who was in control of her own destiny, she’d been trying unsuccessfully to explain why her departure from the
family was the best thing for them but husband Matthew just wasn’t interested. He couldn’t understand why a loving mother such as herself would just leave their two young children without a word of goodbye. Debra, however, insisted there was no other way.

Alex watched in wonder as both her parents came into view. It wasn’t the fact that they had suddenly materialised next to her ute on the deserted country road that caught her interest – even though it should have. It had more to do with their age. Alex had only been five when her mother left the family and the woman in front of her should be thirty years younger than her present age of fifty seven.

Matthew was a handsome fellow of sixty-two and looked very good for his age. His greying hair against his tanned skin reflected his gentle, understanding soul but he wasn’t in the mood to be friendly at the moment. He stormed out of sight, leaving the younger Debra standing there, slightly shell shocked by the former’s reaction.

Presently, Debra managed to regain her composure and made her way to the tray of Alex’s ute where she began rummaging through the assortment of camping accessories. Alex wondered where they had come from. She certainly didn’t remember seeing them there before. Perhaps it wasn’t even her ute.

It soon dawned on Alex that the presence of her mother could be the ticket back home. She erupted into a massive grin and was about to call out to her when another individual came to view. She was a young girl of about eight with long sandy brown hair. She looked oddly familiar and Alex was sure she had seen her somewhere other than her previous encounter of her under the tree, playing doctors and nurses. She
continued to watch in wonder as the girl and Debra engaged in conversation.

‘Mum, what are you looking for?’

Debra turned to the girl and gave a small sigh.

‘I need some money.’

Alex gave a frown. There was something odd about the

whole thing. It was starting to sound very familiar but the placement of the people in the scenario didn’t quite make sense. Nor did the setting. It was almost as if she had been transported back in time to the day her mother left, yet Debra was presented as her present age. Not only that, the incident had actually taken place at the family home – not by a ute on a deserted country road.

‘I know where I can find some,’ the girl assured, causing Debra to brighten up.

The girl then made her way to the passenger side window of the front seat where the window had been wound down completely. She stuck her hand through the window and pulled open the glove box, revealing a wallet.

It was here that Alex realised who the young girl was. Beth had made exactly the same mistake all those years ago and now Alex seemed to be reliving the past in a rather demented version. Could she change it for the better?

‘Beth, no. That’s Dad’s ...’

Beth failed to hear Alex however and, grabbing the wallet, handed it to Debra. Debra took it and gently kissed Beth on the forehead, smiling.

‘Thank you, honey.’

With that, she turned on her heel and left. Both Alex and Beth stood there watching her go in completely shock. Alex couldn’t believe that Debra would just walk away from Beth like that. She was about to call out to Beth when Matthew returned with another young girl.
It was the same girl who had been playing with Beth previously under the tree and Alex recognised her instantly. She was the younger version of herself.

Matthew had become somewhat more cheerful than he had previously been but Alex knew it wasn’t going to last. In fact, he sounded a bit too cheerful as if attempting to make an extra effort to keep them occupied. With the familiar blue ten-dollar note in his hand, he turned to both girls.

‘Okay, girls,’ he began enthusiastically. ‘Who wants ice cream?’

‘Me!’ both girls piped up in unison.

Matthew grinned widely and reached out to open the glove box. The grin on his face was promptly wiped off when he realised the glove box was empty. He was sure he’d put his wallet in there. He had no reason to take it out until now. Perhaps the girls knew.

‘Have either of you seen my wallet?’ he asked them.

Younger Alex just shook her head in wonder but Beth felt the need to admit the truth, causing Matthew to look down at her.

‘I gave it to Mum. She needed the money.’

Alex couldn’t help but cringe when she saw the dramatic change of expression on her father’s face. It was almost as if someone had stuck a branding iron into his back. Alex knew what her father was like when he was angry. Arguing with him wasn’t something you wanted to experience if you wanted to maintain your pride. Seething in betrayal, he yanked open the passenger side door and glared at Beth but directed his order at his younger daughter instead.

‘Come on, Alex. Lets go get that ice cream,’ he responded darkly.

Oblivious to the tension that was brewing, young Alex climbed excitedly into passenger seat. Beth tired to follow suite but her father unceremoniously slammed the door in her face, preventing her from climbing in. This not only shocked Beth but young Alex as well, who spun around in surprise.

‘Dad, what about Beth?’ she frowned.

Matthew ignored her completely and made his way to the driver side door. There was a stretch of silence as five-year old Alex tried to comprehend what had just happened. Not one to argue with her father, she poked her head out of the window at Beth and gave her a friendly smile.

‘It’s okay, Beth,’ she assured. ‘I’ll share my chocolate one with you.’

As the words left her mouth, the engine roared into life and the ute drove off with young Alex still looking out the window at her older sister. There was a distinctive silence as Beth stood there, trying to register what had happened. It didn’t take her very long to realise that her father wasn’t going to come back. By then, the ute had disappeared into the dust and she was now all but a small lonely figure, standing in the middle of a deserted country road. Feeling desperately alone with nowhere to go, the eight-year old’s lips soon began to tremble and she burst into tears.

Alex couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. No child that age should be left standing alone in an isolated environment, no matter how naughty they had been. It just wasn’t right. Alex certainly felt her pain because she was currently in the same predicament. She couldn’t stand it any longer. She stood up to go to the child.

Then she heard it. It was faint but it was definitely there. It was almost as if it was trying to tell her something.

Boom. Boom Boom-boom-boom.

Alex looked around. Why did she keep hearing the same sound over and over again? Nothing. She listened intently for the sound to return but it didn’t. Perhaps she imagined it?

Shaking her head dismal, she returned her attention to the child on the road, only discovery that she had disappeared. Where did she -? Alex went out onto the road itself, hoping to find the child wandering along it but there was no sign of her.

‘Beth? Where are you?’ she called out.

An odd sense of déjà vu washed over her and it was here that she realised something. She had called out to Beth several times already but it wasn’t the younger version of her sister she had been trying to get the attention of. She had called out to a sister who couldn’t hear her in an environment she couldn’t escape from. She looked up, hopefully. Would this time be any different?

‘Come back. Please?’ she begged.

The silence stretched on. Nothing.She groaned Why couldn’t things go right for her just this once?

‘Alex ...’ a faint ghostly voice that sounded a lot like

Beth called out. Alex spun around and widened her eyes in surprise.

There, in the middle of the dry brown paddock was the adult Beth. Or at least, that’s who Alex thought she was seeing. At this stage, she didn’t really care. Beth had finally come for her and she was going to take advantage of that. She began to move towards her sister, only to find her turning around and fading away fast. Alex didn’t even take any time to think why this was happening and scrambled towards her in panic.
‘Beth, wait! Don’t go, please!’ she begged once more, stumbling over a fallen branch in the mad dash to her sister but Beth ignored her and disappeared from sight completely. ‘Don’t leave me here. Please ...’

Too late. She had gone.

Alex kneeled on the ground and stared into space without expression as she battled to decide exactly what she was feeling. Depression won out and, feeling as lonely and desperate as the child version of Beth had been before her, she wept uncontrollably.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Beth stared absentmindedly up at the ceiling, trying her hardest to ignore the constant ticking of the alarm clock on the bedside table. It had just gone past midnight and she was having trouble sleeping. Beth’s love for Alex was paramount – which probably didn’t help considering she was now sharing the bed with Murray who was snoring away gently beside her.

She wasn’t even sure how it all happened. Murray had approached her with a surprising admission – he had fallen for her and appeared to be losing interest in Alex. Beth had tried to discourage him but he was adamant. The rest was a blur and Beth soon found herself falling for him. It probably had something to do with loving him right from the beginning.

Now, she was staring up at the ceiling of Murray’s bedroom. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t shake it off. She had to admit that it had been done with deliberation and intent. Unfortunately, she hadn’t paid due thought to the consequences of her actions and now she had to deal with them. She glanced nervously at the slumbering figure beside her, wondering how he would react if he ever discovered the truth.

After what seemed like an eternity, she gradually let her mind wander, lulled by the perfect rhythm of both the alarm clock’s ticking and Murray’s snoring. Suddenly a new sound interrupted the musical atmosphere but it did nothing to accompany it. It was a distinctive creaking sound, causing Beth to frown and
look up. Standing in the open doorway was a very familiar figure who, under normal circumstances, stuck out like a sore thumb. Alex glared menacingly at her older sister, There was something odd about her and it had nothing to do with the hospital gown she was wearing.

‘Alex? You’re supposed to be in hospital,’ Beth quipped curiously, sitting up in bed.

‘Yeah, no thanks to you!’ Alex snorted, slowing making her way to Beth.

It was here Beth realised what was amiss. Alex no longer respected her sister as she had done for most of her life. If Beth wasn’t nervous before, she certainly was now. Oddly enough, Alex’s sudden discharge didn’t seem to faze Beth at all. She was more interested in Alex’s frame of mind.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Do I look stupid? You’re the reason why I’m in the bloody hospital!’

Beth licked her lips nervously. Alex clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe she could negotiate with her..

‘Alex, Look. Just calm down. We can talk about this.’

Alex just laughed without emotion and brandished a screwdriver. Beth didn’t even stop to think where she could possibly hide the work tool under her bare hospital gown. She quickly glanced at Murray who appeared not to have been disturbed by Alex’s sudden presence. His gentle snoring continue. Alex didn’t seem to care.

‘You know what? I’m sick of talking!’ she growled, advancing closer towards her older sister. ‘You’re going to pay for this!’

Alex’s eyes looked positively menacing and her face hard with determination. Beth was half afraid she would actually carry out her terrible deed.
Then, without warning, a car suddenly screeched and drove off in a distance, causing Beth to blink. Slowly, she looked around and found herself still lying in bed next to Murray who stirred slightly but didn’t waken. Beth looked up to find the door to the bedroom closed and Alex was nowhere to be found. Had she dreamt the whole thing?

She lay there for a few moments, staring back up at the ceiling and trying to organise her chaotic thoughts. No matter how hard she tried she still couldn’t shake the guilt that had engulfed her and she decided that she needed to get up and clear her head for a while.

Distracted, she entered Murray’s spotless and spacious kitchen and headed straight for the stainless steel refrigerator to retrieve a carton of milk which she proceeded to pour into a glass. Taking a sip from the glass, she tried her best to calm down. The vision of Alex tyring to kill her with a screwdriver was not one she was going to forget in a hurry. Unfortunately, her restlessness proved too much and she soon lost interest in the glass in her hand.

Placing it down on a nearby bench top, she stormed out into the balcony, desperate for some fresh air. Still very much on edge, she struggled to maintain her breathing, jumping every time police or ambulance sirens rang out in a distance. Her heart was pounding heavier than before and she tried her best to assure herself that it was just part of her imagination – even though she knew Alex was right. It had been entirely her fault for Alex’s demise and she was desperate to keep it to herself. It had been a stupid mistake which she never anticipated would result in this. If she was honest, she’d conclude it was her instinctive passion for her sister that actually prevented the situation from worsening.
She was so anxious by the imaginary events, she didn’t even hear Murray come out and nearly jumped out of her skin when he gently placed his hands on her shoulders.

‘Can’t sleep?’ he asked.
Beth took a deep breath.
‘I’ve had better days,’ she stammered slightly.
Murray turned her to face him and looked straight into

her teary eyes.
‘She’ll pull through,’ he assured her. ‘I know she will.’ Beth dared not say anything. She was wrecked with

guilt and knew that if she opened her mouth one more time, she was bound to say something that would incriminate herself and she couldn’t afford that – not in front of Murray. At the brink of tears, she just nodded numbly and Murray held her in comfort.

Alex’s world was looking up. The fact that she still had no idea how her previous experiences had resolved themselves was of little concern – even though it should be a priority in her mind. For some unknown reason, however, the past events had no baring on her current predicament which wasn’t entirely unpleasant on the outset. She had finally been re-united with her sister though she had no memory on how that had even been achieved.

She was glad for the camping trip that had been organised with Beth in the middle of the Australian bush. If she was honest, she didn’t think Beth was one for the great outdoors either but this particular excursion had proven her wrong. She had volunteered to collect more wood for the campfire, leaving Beth tend to the dying fire. Alex didn’t even think twice about the military style attire Beth was wearing. Beth looked up at her as she entered the clearing.
‘Ah, you found some!’ she greeted cheerful, poking the last ambers of the campfire back to life. ‘Put them down for a sec and help me with this.’

With that, she stood up and made her way to a rolled up tent kit that was lying beneath an eucalyptus tree.

‘Don’t you ever get tired of being so bossy?’ Alex replied heartily, dropping her load promptly on the ground and giving Beth a hand with the tent.

‘Course not!’ Beth teased. ‘Now, shut up and show me how to put this bloody thing together.’

Alex just shook her head with a smile. She was right. Beth didn’t know the first thing about camping. She picked up a steel pole.

‘Since when have you become interested in camping anyway?’ she asked curiously.

It was a fair enough question. Beth hated gardening. The thought of her camping was even less remote. Aside from that, everything else was making sense – so far. Not that Alex was paying much attention to any of it. Beth just shrugged.

‘I’ve always been interested. I ... just never got around to it until now,’ she began, then noticed Alex looking at her with scepticism. ‘And don’t look at me like that. I’m here, aren’t I?’

With that, she proceeded to crawl into the flattened tent.

‘Yeah, okay,’ Alex conceded, watching her sister disappear under the canvas. ‘I’ve just never seen you as a camping sort of girl.’

Beth appeared to be having trouble keeping the support pole upright in the tent. Alex frowned slightly. Something was a bit odd about the whole thing but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

‘Wait a sec,’ she began. ‘You’re my sister. I’m supposed to know what sort of person you are.’
Beth stopped what she was doing and just looked at her as if she’d just grown four heads.

‘Will you relax? I don’t know what you’re like half the time,’ she began as the tent suddenly collapsed on her.

Alex couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of her sister’s incompetence.

‘Apparently, that applies to tents as well. You okay in there?’ she asked, only to be met with silence.

It was at this point Alex should have realised that the whole situation had gone slightly awry. On hindsight, she knew that her sister would make some sort of cry for help or at least try to crawl back out from under the tent to assess the damage. However, for some odd reason, the tent looked decidedly flat and no movement could be detected. It was as if Beth had suddenly disappeared into thin air and Alex didn’t seem to register any of it.

Curiously, she moved towards the fallen canvas in an attempt to find her hidden sister and was met with a familiar tapping sound from within.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap-tap.

‘Beth?’

What the hell was Beth playing at? The sheer rhythm of the tapping should have stopped her from proceeding further but it didn’t. In fact, against all logic, it made her more curious than before. She continued to fumble blindly through the dark empty tent when her hand fell onto a cold metal rod-like object. She stopped and, slowly gasping the object, brought it into view. There, in front of her, wasn’t the steel pole Beth had previously been trying to put up but an army rifle. She dropped it in fright and took a cautious step backward.

Where had that come from and where did Beth disappear to? Was she really camping or was her mind playing tricks on her again?
She didn’t have time to ponder on the issue because she was suddenly overcome with a sense of great urgency. She wasn’t even sure what was causing it but she assumed it had something to do with the sudden burst of activity around her. She could heard the faint whisper of two-way radios in a distance and it sounded like a military operation was in progress. She blinked for a second. What were the military doing out here in the bush and why?

Without even thinking why she was doing so, she got up, turned on her heel and made a run for it.

Beth was a woman on a mission. Having been agitated considerably by the events of the previous night, she had spent the better part of the morning in the central business district of Adelaide looking for a suitable gift for her invalid sister. What she found was a beautiful white teddy bear dressed in a velvet blue bow tie. It was something of a peace-offering to Alex for what Beth was putting her through although logically, the latter was unlikely to have any reaction to the soft toy whatsoever. Still, Beth had managed to convince herself it was for her own peace of mind as well – especially considering the circumstances surrounding Alex’s invalidity.

Feeling somewhat more at ease, she made her way to the hospital’s intensive care unit. The place usually gave her the jitters but it was nothing compared to the internal demons Beth were currently battling. Little did she know, the apprehension was about to get much worse. As she approached the entrance to the unit, she happened to overhear a conversation between Claudia and one of the other nurses.

Ordinarily, she couldn’t care less what nursing staff talked about in their spare time. She usually ignored the conversations of fellow health workers because of the
ethical issue of confidentiality breaches. This conversation, however, was not one she could ignore easily .

‘I don’t know how she can do it,’ was the conversation Beth overheard as she neared the entrance. ‘If it were me, I’d have a nervous breakdown.’

‘If you loved your sister as much as Beth does, you probably wouldn’t think twice about it,’ Claudia assured her unseen colleague, causing Beth to stop at the doorway.

It was true. She did love Alex dearly but it was under other circumstances that brought her back to visit her younger sister.

‘Yeah, she’s in here just about everyday,’ the other nurse agreed whole-heartedly. ‘I reckon she deserves some sot of medal. Talk about dedication.’

It was here that Beth started to feel extremely uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, subconsciously fiddling with the bow tie that was neatly tied around the teddy bears neck. She stopped in her tracks and leaned against the wall, struggling to maintain some degree of calm. Here she was appearing to be a heroine of sort towards her sister in the eyes of the nursing staff yet, in reality, it was her guilt and shame that was causing her constant visits. Of only they knew ...

‘You know that I admire about her the most?’ the nurse continued, completely unaware of Beth’s presence outside. ‘Is that she is still able to go to back to work after everything that’s happened.’

‘Well, she can’t exactly put her life on hold,’ Claudia reasoned, matter-of-factly. ‘Someone has to pay the bills.’

‘Maybe,’ the other conceded. ‘Although, being a first aid instructor, I though she’d at least take a few days off.
Imagine trying to teach CPR straight after trying to save your own sister.’

At the mention of work, Beth suddenly remembered the meeting she was supposed to have had with creditors that morning. She instinctively glanced at her watch and realised she’d missed it completely. The creditors would have given up waiting for her in disgust an hour ago. How could she have let that slip her mind?

‘Shit!’ she softly cursed herself. ‘Hank’s gonna kill me!’

It was nearly half an hour when Beth arrived at her workplace and she noticed a complete change of atmosphere. Normally, her colleagues would be at their desks minding their own business or chatting amicably to themselves next to the coffee machine. When she arrived, however, they were all gathered around a central desk and an awkward yet brief silence descended upon her. They all turned to scowl at her as she walked through the main door and Beth could only make one guess about what they were thinking.

‘Looks like the Queen finally decided to show up,’ one of them sneered unkindly.

His mood was completely forgivable given the consequence of Beth’s no-show at the meeting. The tension in the room could be cut with a knife.

‘Pity she couldn’t show the same courtesy to Essential,’ another snorted referring to the creditor company.

‘Hank wants to see you,’ the first barked as Beth made her way to Hank’s office.

If she didn’t feel ashamed before, she was certainly feeling it now. There was nothing worse than being proven completely unworthy and incompetent right in front of your trusted work colleagues.

‘Better you than us, I’d say,’ the second sniggered.
Beth tried to ignore them but it was proving very difficult especially when she was the subject of the taunts. She took a deep breath and gave the door to Hank’s office a firm knock.

‘Enter!’ came Hank’s muffled voice through the closed door and Beth made her nervous entrance.

Hank was on the phone when Beth stepped through the door. The office was well-furnished which included a nice big desk complete with the latest computer technology. To the left was a stylish mock leather sofa which seductively enticed visitors to rest their tired legs. However, Hank’s mood did little to invite anyone – let alone Beth – to sit on the sofa to relax.

‘Oh, come on, that’s a bit drastic, isn’t it?’ he was saying then paused to listen to the unheard response at the other end of the phone. ‘Oh, I see. Yeah, that’s fair enough.’

He looked up briefly to see Beth standing there.
‘Yeah, she’s right here. I’ll tell her. Bye.’
With that he slammed the receiver down. He looked

slightly worse for wear which was understandable considering the circumstances. He glared at Beth, furiously .

‘Where the hell were you this morning?’ he yelled. ‘W e’ve just gone into receivership! Y ou said you weren’t going to miss the meeting!’

Beth winced. It was as bad as she had expected but there was little she could actually do now. What was done was done.

‘Yeah I know,’ she muttered guiltily. ‘I’m really sorry. I had -’

Hank wasn’t interested.
‘Well, “sorry” doesn’t quite cut it,’ he responded

sarcastically. ‘Fifteen months of hard work down the tube! We hired you as a financial advisor – someone
who would be able to give us the best profit return and we end up with this!’

Beth was beginning to feel that this was a little unfair. It wasn’t entirely her fault - was it?

‘I did try to make the meeting,’ she began to explain. ‘ Honestly, I did but-’

‘You obviously didn’t try hard enough,’ Hank growled. ‘I’ve been on to the boss. He wants you out.’

The statement hit Beth like a tonne of bricks. Did he just say-? She battled to calm the fierce beast that raged within her. She had enough problems to deal with. She needed the money to keep up the rent.

‘What? That’s hardly fair!’ she protested but Hank cut her off.

‘Fair? We had a solid strategy in place, based on your advice to put to the creditors,’ he shot back unforgivingly. ‘And you blew it!’

Beth stared at Hank for a moment, her anger subsiding as soon as it had exploded. He did have a valid point and unfortunately she had nothing to counter the argument with. She could do nothing more than try and explain why she missed the meeting. Perhaps then Hank will be more sympathetic to her plight.

‘I ... I don’t really know what to say,’ she stammered. ‘I had an emergency I couldn’t get out of.’

Somehow the explanation of Alex being in hospital didn’t seem that easy to put forward. Not that it mattered anyway. Her destiny had already been cemented in concrete and there wasn’t anything she could do to change it.

Hank sighed. He was sympathetic but he didn’t have any control over the outcome. He was just the supervisor of the branch. Even he was answerable to the company’s manager. He knew Beth was angry at him
but he hoped she would at least see that he was just trying to do his job.

‘Well, my hands are tied,’ he apologised somewhat regretfully. ‘I’m sorry but they want your desk cleared out by this evening.’

Beth just stared at him in shock. She had things to do for Alex that day. She just didn’t have the time.

‘But I can’t I - ’ she began to explain but it was no use.

‘The matter is closed, Beth. Unless you want a court case on your hands, you had better be out of the building by 5,’ Hank appraised her sympathetically.

A court case was the last thing she needed. She had enough to worry about without legal proceedings throwing a spanner into the works. She hung her head in shame and, without a word, retreated out into the corridor.

They were after her and she knew it. She wasn’t entirely sure why they were after her but she wasn’t going to take any chances. She was running as fast as her legs could carry her. Dashing blindly through the bush, Alex glanced back to see how much of a distance she had made between herself and her pursuers but she failed to find anyone. She stopped for a moment wondering if she was imagining things.

A single gunshot rang out in the air, startling her and causing her to make another run for it. Up ahead, she spied some thick shrub and it gave her a perfect hiding place from her pursuers. In a panic, Alex scrambled behind the shrub and waited with baited breath.

There was silence for a moment and she peered curiously from through the leaves to ascertain exactly what her predicament was. She was less than surprised to see an army of soldiers patrolling the plains. The hovering of a helicopter caused her to duck behind the shrub again but she couldn’t see anything above her.

‘I’m sure I saw her head this way,’ a very familiar voice floated in the air amidst the whispers of two-way radio.

Alex couldn’t help be smile at the sound of her sister’s voice was preparing to attract her attention when someone else made themselves known.

‘You know we can’t afford to let her get away,’ Murray told her.

Alex looked up from behind the shrub and was shocked to see both of them dressed in military uniforms and carrying army rifles. As far as she knew, neither of them were even in the army. Surely, they weren’t the ones after her, were they? Shocked, she sat herself back down behind the shrub, accidentally rustled some the leaves in the process.

Out in the clearing, both Murray and Beth instinctively turned towards the sound.

‘What was that?’ Beth couldn’t help but ask.

‘She’s around here somewhere. I can almost smell her perfume,’ Murray replied, sniffing the air mockingly.

Beth gave a little smile as they both systemically began scanning the area for their suspect. Murray’s eyes soon rested on the shrub Alex was hiding behind and motioned Beth to say something as they both slowly moved deliberately towards it with rifles at the ready. Alex was going to pay for this ...

‘Give yourself up, Alex!’ Beth encouraged her younger sister. ‘You knew blowing up a government building would result in this!’

From her hiding, Alex couldn’t help but frown in shock. What government building? And when was she supposed to have gained the time and skills to blow one up? A burst of radio interrupted her thoughts and Beth suddenly sounded like she was speaking from a radio instead.

‘Alex! We know you’re hiding!’ Beth’s voice called out. ‘Come out wherever you are!’

Alex was no longer worried about being captured anymore. She was more curious about where the radio Beth’s voice seemed to be coming from was. She soon spotted a tent pitched nearby.

‘You can run but you can’t hide, Alex!’ Murray joined in.

Moving towards the tent, Alex hesitated for a moment, not knowing what she might find in the tent. Taking a breath, she slowly reached out to open the flap.


There were two very distinctive sounds that were currently interrupting the peace within the Hasting apartment. The booming of a busy vacuum cleaner overrode the loud yet persistent knocking at the front door. Beth, being at closer proximity to the vacuum cleaner than the door, understandably failed to hear the knocking until she had turned off the household cleaning device.

Her mood was somewhat edgy given her previous account at work and she had decided to keep her mind busy by doing a bit of spring cleaning. The knocking at the door soon turned to thumping and Beth growled in annoyance. Didn’t people have any patience these days?

‘Okay, okay!’ she called out in exasperation as she stepped over the vacuum cleaner to move towards the front door. ‘I’m coming! Geez!’

The visitor to whom she greeted with some agitation looked more annoyed than she actually felt. In fact, she probably should have been expecting him. Her landlord, Rossi, stood there looking rather grimly at her, clearly unimpressed by her tardiness.

‘Do you always that this long to get your act together?’ he challenged, glaring straight into her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ Beth apologised rather meekly. ‘I couldn’t hear you over the vacuum cleaner.’

Rossi just grunted and waited for something. Beth’s annoyance, while it had subsided somewhat, had by no means dissipated and she was starting to become more than just a little impatient as well.

‘Did you want something, Mr Rossi?’ she asked with restrained anger.

Rossi, on the other hand, made no attempt to withhold his.

‘Yes, your rent,’ he demanded, causing Beth to tap nervously on the door frame. ‘It’s a month overdue. I warned you a week ago.’

‘Er ... yeah. Sorry,’ Beth began.’ Look, I’ll get it sorted out over the next few days. I’m in a bit of a pickle at the moment.’

Rossi wasn’t impressed.

‘Two days. Then you’re out.’

'What?! I need more time that! One more week. I promise.’

Rossi glared at her intensely. He certainly wasn’t going to be told by a tenant when to collect the rent.

‘Two days,’ he insisted adamantly. ‘I need that rent money. I’ve got a business to run here!’

With that, he turned on his heel and stalked down the walkway. Beth stared at him in disbelief, still trying to digest the ultimatum that had just been delivered to her. Two days? There was absolutely no way she was going to come up with the money in that time.

Feeling as if her world was crashing down around her, she slammed the door in frustration and turned to return to the vacuum cleaning. She had gotten no more than two steps forward when there was another knock on the door. Beth growled and spun around, glaring at the door loathsomely.

Right, this time no bars hold! she decided firmly.

She grabbed hold of the handle and yanked the door open with the intent of giving Rossi a piece of her mind. However, she was less than prepared to see Murray standing there, who was looking as surprised as she felt. Her anger suddenly subsided, replaced by mild embarrassment.

‘You okay?’ the latter asked in concerned.

He had never seen Beth so flustered before. Beth just sighed and made her way down the hallway.

‘Yeah, sorry,’ she muttered. ‘I’m just having a bad day.’

‘Tidying the place up?’ Murray offered conversationally as he followed her in, glancing down at the vacuum cleaner that occupied half the width of the hallway.

Beth gave a little shrug. She wasn’t really thinking too straight at the moment.

‘Yeah, well. I need to keep it clean for when Alex comes back,’ she replied.

If I still have the place, that is, she added silently.

There was an awkward silence between them for a moment as they considered the statement. Murray decided to break the ice and handed her a large yellow envelope. Better to change the topic rather than unwittingly upsetting Beth again.

‘I came to drop these off,’ he told her as Beth opened the envelope in examination. ‘They’re the prints from her last shoot.’

Beth studied the photos for a moment. She remembered the shoot well. Alex had been modelling several swimwear at the beach for a local clothes designer.

‘She’s a great subject for the camera,’ Murray replied wistfully. ‘Especially in the sun.’

Beth lowered her head in silence. Yes, Alex had a great figure and she was feeling extremely guilty about her younger sister’s predicament. Neither of them said anything for a moment for the conversation had dried up as quickly as it had started.

‘I saw your landlord on the walkway earlier,’ Murray began, trying to change the topic then wished that he hadn’t.

Beth growled in annoyance and made her way straight to the living area where she proceeded to pace restlessly.

‘Yeah, he wants to evict us unless I can pay him the rent,’ she snorted. ‘I mean, where am I going to find over a thousand dollars in two days? I’ve barely got enough for this week’s groceries!’

It was here that it suddenly occurred to her. She didn’t even pay the rent. That was Alex’s responsibility. Her part of the deal was to take care of the essential shopping. She groaned.

‘It’s bad enough Alex’s in hospital. She paid the rent.’

‘Shouldn’t your pay cover it?’ Murray asked optimistically .

Beth didn’t respond. It was embarrassing enough as it was that she had brought the entire situation upon herself. Timidly, she took a seat on the couch and Murray sensed it.

‘Beth? What’s happened?’

‘I’ve been fired,’ she muttered.

There. She’d said it. It was out in the open for the world to scrutinize. Murray didn’t say anything for a moment and she felt the need to explain before he got the wrong impression.

‘I ... I was supposed to met our creditors this morning to put our case forward that we’d be able to clear our debt.’

Murray took a seat next to her. Something was slightly amiss here. He knew that Beth had been at the hospital that morning, visiting Alex.

‘This morning? But weren’t you at- ’

Beth didn’t wait for him for finish the question and just nodded miserably What she didn’t expect was for him to suddenly jump up again in anger.

‘That heartless bastard! When I get my hands on him, I’ll-’

Beth just groaned. The last thing she needed was for her boyfriend to be assaulting Hank for insensitivity.

‘Murray, don’t! It’s not worth it,’ she tried discouraging him but he wasn’t having a bar of it.

‘Are you kidding? He fired you because you cared enough to be with Alex!’

‘No, he didn’t! I didn’t get a chance to tell him.’

There was a pause as Murray just looked at her and realised the rashness of his reactions. He slowly took a seat next to her once more.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

Beth gave a sigh.

‘I have no idea,’ she told him. ‘But I need to find that rent money somehow.’

Murray softened and gently took her hand.

‘Hey, if worse comes to worse, you can come stay with me,’ he promised.

Beth was sure she had felt it. She glanced at her younger sister who continued to lie unconscious in the bed at the intensive care unit with the hope that she was finally waking up. After a few tense seconds with no further reaction forthcoming, however, the faint glimmer of hope slowly distinguished but Beth wasn’t about to give up just yet.

‘You can do it, Alex,’ she pleaded. ‘I know I didn’t just imagine it.’

Still no response. Perhaps she had imagined it. Claudia soon arrived to access Alex’s vital signs and Beth needed to know if it was even possible. It had to be. The very fabric of her sanity and eventual freedom from the conviction of the sin hinged on its possibility.

‘Sister, she moved,’ she piped up enthusiastically, only to be met with curiosity from the nurse.

‘Moved?’ Claudia repeated, half wondering if the younger woman in front of her had finally lost her grip on reality.

As far as she could see, Alex was still in the exact same position when she last saw her.

‘She just squeezed my hand,’ Beth continued in excitement. ‘It was as if she was reacting to my voice.’

Claudia gave an understanding smile, now confident that the stress the other woman was under had her imagining things that reflected the best possible outcome for all. All her medical knowledge told her that Alex’s reflexes were not necessarily due to her reaction to audio stimulation.

‘Try not to get too excited,’ she assured. ‘It might just have been an involuntary muscle contraction.’

Just then, Beth’s mobile phone rang, making her jump.

‘Er ... sorry,’ she apologised and made a motion to turn off the offending object.

Hanging her head sheepishly, she looked at the caller identification. It was her mother. What her mother wanted, it could wait. She had more important things to worry about – like hoping that Alex would wake up from her current condition soon before their mother actually returned home from her holiday. She promptly turned off the phone and pocketed it before turning her attention towards her sister.

There was something odd about the way Alex was lying in front of her and Beth couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Without warning, Alex’s eyes snapped open and the previously incapacitated younger women glared angrily at Beth as if to lay complete and utter blame on her. Given the circumstances surrounding Alex’s condition, Beth couldn’t help but gasp in shock, causing Claudia to look up at her curiously.

‘What’s wrong?’ the nurse queried with a hint of concern in her voice.

Beth blinked and looked up at her, still edgy from Alex’s alleged reaction. Surely, she had registered it as well. It was far too obvious not to. She glanced cautiously at Alex once more only to discover that her sister had returned to her unconscious state.

What was happening to her? Was she going mad? Beth could feel an anxiety attack coming on and tried desperately to keep it at bay. The last thing she needed was to have to explain what she had just imagined and incriminate herself. She was also well aware that Claudia was waiting for some sort of answer to her outburst.

‘Er ... nothing,’ she flustered. ‘I’ll ... um .. be back in a minute.’

Without a second’s hesitation, she hurried out into the corridor to calm her nerves. It was far too close to home. She closed her eyes briefly in meditation, concentrating purely on keeping a brave forefront in the face of impending scrutiny. After a few seconds of relaxation, she opened her eyes again and looked up to see a large photo print of the Australian bush hanging on the wall in front of her. In the background of the print was a pitched tent. Beth frowned and stared at it. Could she see something moving in the tent itself or was her imagination merely running wild again?


Alex looked around her and found herself in a camping tent. It was here she began to realise there was something of a fracture in the sequence of events. Her last recollection was outside by a campfire, looking into a bowl of spaghetti and it was starting to scare her. Quite instinctively, she began scrambling back out of the tent, trying to work out exactly what was happening to her.

‘Something’s not right,’ she kept telling herself as she made her way out into the open again. ‘I’m imagining this.’

As soon as she registered that she had enough room surrounding her to stand up, she did so and turned around in an attempt to escape the maze she seemed to have been trapped in. What she didn’t expect was to be standing at a cliff face overlooking a spectacular valley of Australia flora and wildlife. The view was absolutely breath-taking and she couldn’t help but take a few seconds to absorb it.

‘Oh, thank god!’ an oddly familiar voice sprung up from behind. ‘Do you realise how many of us are looking for you?’

It was a voice that Alex hadn’t heard in some years yet it was distinctive and recognisable. She turned around found her old school friend, Samantha Johns, standing in front of her.

In her mid-thirties, Samantha had been close friends with Alex in high school but complexities of life had slowly caused them to drift apart. Alex’s last recollection of Samantha was that she had joined the police force as a plain-clothes detective. She studied Samantha’s elegant figure and alarm bells started ringing at her very presence.

‘Sam? What are you doing here?’

‘What do you mean what am I doing here?’ Samantha couldn’t help but blink at the question. ‘You’ve been reported missing since yesterday.’

On hindsight, she should have been prepared for Alex’s disorientation but her next statement threw her completely as the former started shaking her head in disbelief and took a step back.

‘Stay away from me, Sam,’ Alex demanded. ‘You’re not real!’

There was absolutely no way of explaining what Samantha was doing in her subconsciousness and Alex wasn’t going to be pushed into thinking it was just the natural order of things.

‘Of course, I am,’ Samantha attempted to assure her then licked her lips nervously. ‘Alex, please. Just come away from the edge ...’

Samantha had every right to be nervous. One of her closest friends was on the edge of a cliff and she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself if she wasn’t able to talk her into moving away from it. After all, she had spent the last three years specialising in hostage negotiation. Unfortunately, Alex didn’t share the same concern. Friend or no friend, Samantha wasn’t even supposed to be here. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

‘Why?’ she challenged. ‘So you and your mates can kill me? You’re not even in the army anyway!’

If Samantha wasn’t concerned about Alex’s mental state before, she certainly was now.

‘What are you talking about?’ she began. ‘Look, just calm down. You’re not well.’

Just as she said those words, the familiar faint echoing sound of a ventilator and heart monitor filled the air but Samantha appeared to not have heard it.

‘You hear that?’ Alex began, only to have the detective in front of her shake her head in confusion.

It was enough to secure her belief that her mind was still playing tricks on her and she wasn’t happy.

‘This whole thing. Can’t you hear it? It’s an intensive care unit!’ she explained, getting more upset by the second. ‘I’m in a bloody coma!’

Samantha looked at the other woman in grave concern. Alex was slowly losing her grip on reality and she needed to get her away from the edge – fast.

‘Alex, you’re scaring me,’ she appealed to her, her heart pounding in anticipation. ‘Come on. I’ll take you home.’

She held her hand out in a last ditch attempt to reassure her stress-stricken friend.

‘Please?’ she pleaded looking straight into the other’s eyes.

Alex could hear the sound of the heart monitor and ventilator strengthening, and looked at the hand Samantha was offering with caution. Her friend couldn’t actually hear the ambience of the hospital so maybe it was a good thing. Perhaps Samantha was her ticket out of this god-forsaken place.

Alex gave a small smile and made her decision. She held her hand out towards her friend with the intent on letting the latter pull her to safety. However, just as their hands touched, the sound of the heart monitor raced to an unbelievable speed, causing Alex to jerk her hand away from her friend in shock.

‘Come on, Alex. It’s time to go,’ came a rather sinister encouragement.

It was no longer Samantha’s voice. Confused, Alex looked up and found herself facing Beth but it wasn’t the loving sister she had always known. This manifestation of her sister clearly had an evil underlying motive. Alex panicked and started backing away from her – closer and closer towards the cliff edge.

‘Leave me alone!’ she screamed, causing Beth to stop and looked at her mockingly.

‘Don’t you want to come home?’ Beth challenged with a sneer, taking a few steps forward towards her sister. ‘Mum and Dad are waiting.’

‘Just back off! I mean it!’

Alex turned away from Beth and stopped where she was, overwhelmed by the sheer drop of the cliff towards the unforgiving foliage below. Her heart was now racing and she had to take a few deep breathes to calm herself. She had half hoped that Beth would grab her from behind and start dragging her away from the cliff edge but no such action was forthcoming. She turned around to face her sister but she was no longer there.

When Murray promised that Beth and Alex were welcome to stay with him, he meant it and Beth took advantage for the offer. With the threat of eviction hanging over her, she decided that Alex needed somewhere to place should she eventually be convicted of the sin she had committed. Beth had also convinced herself that the gesture was a form of making up her actions to her younger sister.

Murray, on the other hand, was a bit surprised by Beth’s sudden decision to move in. While he should have expected the situation to eventuate, he was a little uncomfortable with the fact that Beth had decided to move all of Alex’s things first. It made little sense to transport the belongings of an unconsciousness sister’s prolonged stay in hospital when Beth’s living arrangements demanded greater urgency. He surmised that it would take at least another few weeks before Alex would be discharged from the hospital.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ he asked as they proceeded to bring in boxes of personal items into his living room.

‘Why not?’ Beth reasoned. ‘Look, I doubt I’m going to find the money in time. At least, this way Alex will have somewhere to stay.’

‘But what about you?’ Murray queried only to be met with a casual shrug from the latter. ‘When I said you can stay here, I meant both of you.’

Beth shook her head. She’d already made up her mind. ‘It’ll just be too ... awkward. I need to put her first.’

Ordinarily, Murray would have accepted her explanation as complete respect for Alex but something didn’t quite add up.

‘What will be awkward is that she’ll think I’m stuffing her around after dumping her,’ he retorted then interrupted before Beth had a chance to protest. ‘Beth, I’m not taking no for an answer.’

Beth appraised him slightly and sighed. He did have a good point. If she were to argue with his logic, it would just raise more suspicions and she couldn’t afford for her relationship with him to disintegrate. Things were bad enough as they were.

‘Alright but let me move Alex’s stuff first,’ she bargained. ‘That way, she’ll have something to fall back on if anything unexpected happens.’

Murray gave her a reassuring smile. They had been moving Alex’s thing all morning and it was making him hungry. He was almost certain that Beth would be peckish as well.

‘Did you want something to eat? Like a sandwich or something?’

‘Yeah, that’d be great,’ Beth returned the smile, glad that the discussion was finally over. ‘Thanks.’

Murray could tell that Beth was still a little uncomfortable with the situation her landlord had place her in and decided not to push the point. Instead, he made his way to the kitchen to prepare something to eat.

Meanwhile, Beth’s eyes had gravitated to a small dairy that had been sticking out like a sore thumb. Opening the dairy with intense curiosity, she flipped through the pages until she stopped at the last entry – dated 28th November.

Have you ever asked yourself what makes life so enjoyable? Well, I found the answer in the form of my very own sister. It’s no surprise that I absolutely love seafood with a Capital L. Yeah, I know it’s expensive but that’s what I love about Beth. She’ll bend over backwards to make sure I’m happy. You wouldn’t believe what she did for me today! I came home from work and not only had Beth prepared the most scrumptious seafood salad known to man, but she’d even bought tickets to the latest musical at the Entertainment Centre! It wasn’t even a special occasion either. Beth may be impulsive at times but she sure knows what to be impulsive with! She’s the best sister anyone can have and I feel very lucky to have her. She always looks after me even though I’ve been a pain in the butt. I mean, seriously, how could anyone not love her? I really don’t know what I’d do without her.

Beth hastily shut the dairy. She couldn’t bare it any longer. The entry in the dairy clearly indicated how much Alex loved her and Beth was feeling more guilty about what she had done.

The presence of a small brown teddy bear caught her eye and she picked it up lovingly. That was until she noticed the name sewn on it – Murray’s. That could only mean that he had given it to her. Her hands trembled as she could almost her heart racing in anxiety.

‘Beth?’

She looked at him, hastily throwing the teddy bear back into the box and trying to present a calm exterior. It wasn’t easy, given the circumstances. Murray was holding two plates of sandwiches and have a look of concern on his face.

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah, I was just ... wondering what sort of stuff she had,’ she replied uncomfortably.

Unbeknownst to her thoughts, Murray just smiled and made his way to her, putting the plates on the coffee table next to them. Beth narrowed her eyes with great suspicion.

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ he replied casually, draping his arms around her lovingly. ‘I’m just wondering how I managed to snag such an unselfish angel like you.’

Beth smiled uneasily. If only he knew ...
‘I’m serious. I must be one lucky man,’ he insisted and gave her a long passionate kiss.

Beth had debated resisting the kiss at first but, desperate to avoid any suspicions, relented and melted into his arms.

Alex no longer cared about what her subconsciousness was throwing at her. She had decided a while back that if it didn’t make any sense to her, it was not going to concern her even though it should. When you were trapped in a situation where you had little or no control of, you needed to be on the lookout for any mode of escape. Given the events leading up to her inability to control her own destiny, Alex was beginning to realise that she needed to be mentally strong if she was going to overcome the vacuum she was trapped in.

She continued to march through the thick bushland in an attempt to find a way out of her predicament, ignoring the constant echoing of the intensive care unit ambience that surrounded her. No matter how hard she tried, however, the ambience resonated within her, irritating her more than she cared to register. She stopped what she was doing and looked around in annoyance.

‘Stop it!’ she called out to no one in particular. ‘I can’t even leave! Give me a way out and then I’ll start listening!’

Without waiting for an answer, she stormed ahead in no particular direction. Not that it made any difference whatsoever. No matter where she went, she was still trapped. She gradually became aware of the faint sound of the beach and gave a ridiculous laugh.

‘Oh, nice one! I’m in the middle of the bloody country! Where the hell’s the beach?’

She waited expectantly for a moment for some change in ambience.

‘Well?’ she demanded in determination.

Nothing.

Yeah, that’s what I thought, she snorted and continued on her way.

She wasn’t going to get drawn into it anymore. From past experiences, the more she took notice of them, the more confused she got. A familiar scent invaded her nostrils with such force that she stopped in her tacks and gave a deliberate sniff. Was that sea salt she could smell? She shook her head in disbelief and kept going.

‘No, my mind’s just playing trick again,’ she muttered to herself before yelling out to her subconscious once more. ‘I know what you’re doing. It’s not going to work!’

‘Alex!’ a very familiar voice called out in a distance. Alex blinked.

What was Beth doing here and where was she? She looked around curiously, trying to find her older sister but couldn’t see anyone. As she kept moving, the beach ambience was slowly replaced with the sound of splashing water, becoming louder and more distinctive with every step she took. She took a deep breath and tried to calm herself.

‘I’m not going crazy. I can beat this,’ she kept telling herself. ‘I just need to find a way out.’

‘Alex!’ Beth called out again.

Alex looked up and gasped in disbelief. While Beth bathing in the watering hole was no real abnormality, Alex was more concern about what her presence was trying to tell her. She was never one take a dip in water – since she couldn’t even swim – but she found herself gravitating towards her sister by some unknown force.

‘Come on in!’ Beth urged blissfully. ‘The water’s beautiful!’

Alex stopped in her tracks and shook her head. It was another trap. She could just feel it. She appraised her older sister in wonder and then something odd happened. Beth opened her mouth to speak but it wasn’t her voice that came out. It was Claudia’s.

‘You haven’t had a good wash in two days. This will freshen you up.’

Given her hatred towards water, Alex panicked and hastily began backing away from the water’s edge but it was no use. Before she knew what had happened, she found herself standing in the middle of the watering hole. She had suddenly swapped places with Beth and she didn’t like it. She slowly began to hyperventilate. Claudia’s voice continued as Beth smiled back at her.

‘She means well. Try not to be too upset by what’s happening.’

Then, without warning, Alex felt herself being dragged under the water by some invisible force, causing her to panic even more and thrash about frantically.

‘No, let me out!’ she screamed. ‘Beth! Help!’

Beth just stood there staring at her, making no attempt whatsoever to rescue her from her life-threatening predicament.

What was she doing? Alex couldn’t help but think as she made a desperate attempt to keep herself above water but failing miserably. She knows I can’t swim!

Her heart cried out in aguish and her last thought was that the sister she thought loved her didn’t actually care what happened to her. Yet she couldn’t for the life of her ascertain why as she was dragged under to her watery grave.

For the second time in as many days, Alex woke up in cold sweat and looked around to find herself in a pitched tent. Her last recollection was being dragged under in a watering hole. Yet, here she was sitting comfortably in a sleeping bag and concluded that it had all been a bad dream. Outside, she could hear someone whistling a familiar tune and slowly made her way out into the open.

The fact that she was wearing a park ranger’s uniform should have alerted her to the fact that something wasn’t quite right – especially seeing as it was the same attire she had been wearing in her dream. Murray was tending to the campfire and looked up as she approached him.

‘Ah! I see that beauty has finally awoken!’ he greeted heartily, standing up to give her a quick peck on the cheek.

‘How long was I out for?’ Alex wanted to know.

Murray just shrugged. He hadn’t kept watch on the time. He’d been too busy tending to the fire, which he returned to. There was an awkward pause as Alex took a seat on the camping chair. She knew Murray didn’t just shrug off anything and always made an attempt to hazard an educated guess about any query. She was about to quiz him further when she noticed something odd about the assortment of food by the fire. She picked up a can of spaghetti and examined it curiously.

‘What’s this for?’

Murray looked up once more and blinked. Was she playing games with him?

‘For a park ranger, you don’t know much about camping, do you?’ he chuckled, despite himself. ‘What do you think it’s for?’

An odd sense of déjà vu washed over Alex as she continued to stare at the can she was holding. Murray studied her oddly.

‘You okay?’ he asked in concern. ‘It’s not going to bite you.’

‘Huh?’ Alex looked up, distracted. ‘Oh, nothing.’ She paused. ‘I just had a really weird dream. I woke up in the middle of the outback in my car.’

Murray just gave a small smile. It didn’t really surprise him. Alex was always having weird dreams.

‘Well, you’re awake now,’ he teased. ‘So you don’t have anything to worry about. Oh, by the way. Beth popped around. She wanted to know how the water was.’

At the mention of water, Alex couldn’t help but look up. This was starting to get a little too freaky for her and she decided to proceed cautiously in case she was hearing things.

‘What water?’ she wanted to know.

‘The one in the watering hole,’ Murray replied then frowned. ‘What’s the matter with you today? Apparently, you had a ripe old time splashing about in there.’

She was right. She hadn’t been hearing things. It had suddenly dawned on her that she hadn’t just woken up from a weird dream but instead it was part of the entire scenario and she was still trapped.

She stood up from the camping chair she had been comfortably seated in and gradually began to back away from Murray, who was now nothing more than just a figment of her subconscious, with extreme caution. ‘Alex? What’s wrong?’ Murray looked at her in more concern than he had exhibited previously.

‘I ... I ...’ Alex stammered, still trying to come to terms with the workings of her rambling mind, as she looked around desperately. ‘I’m not really awake, am I?’

‘What are you talking about? You’re standing right in front of me.’

‘What do you mean by Beth “just popping around”?’ Alex challenged him. ‘No one just pops around when they are camping.’

She stopped for a moment and listened. If there was any time for the hospital ambience to make its annoying appearance, it would be now – just to prove that she wasn’t going mad. Unfortunately, her subconscious refused to co-operate and all she could hear was the sounds of nature.

‘Oh, what?’ she called out to herself. ‘Now you’re scared?’

‘Alex, just calm down,’ Murray tried to reason with her but she wasn’t listening.

‘Come on, where are those sounds I’m supposed to hear?’ she challenged, completely ignoring the man standing in front of her. ‘I’m not really camping, am I?’

She was going to bring out her subconscious no matter what. All it took was some will power .

‘Come on, you’re scaring me,’ Murray’s voice was laced with concern but Alex didn’t care.

She had more important things to worry about.

‘Well, boo hoo for you,’ she retorted sarcastically. ‘That’s exactly what Sam said before and I’m not falling for that again!’

By now, Murray was so concerned by her mental state that he moved forward to try and calm her but she retracted violently and glared back at him in determination.

‘Just back off!!’ she growled. ‘Doesn’t anyone ever listen to me!’

She was getting more frustrated by the minute and having Murray in front of her wasn’t helping in the least bit. Murray just stared at her, not knowing quite what to say .

‘Look, I’ll prove it,’ she told him. She was so desperate to prove to him she wasn’t crazy that she didn’t care she might actually appear that way. ‘I’m going to close my eyes and when I open them again, you’re going to disappear.’

Alex’s completely lost it, Murray thought firmly. There’s no other explanation for it.

‘Oh come on,’ he retorted, only to have her glare back at him. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

She was going to prove to him, one way or another, that whole scenario was a complete fabrication conjured up by her wandering subconscious. And that she had some control over it. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and mentally counted to ten. When she eventually opened them again, she groaned in frustration. He was still standing there! Why wasn’t anything going right for her?

‘It’s not fair!’ she cried out in despair. ‘Nothing makes sense!’

‘You can say that again,’ Murray muttered under his breath but Alex heard him.

‘You’re not helping, Murray!’

‘What the hell am I supposed to think?’ he retaliated in annoyance. ‘You’re going off about who-knows-what and I’m just supposed to pretend it’s not happening?’

‘That’s because it isn’t!’ Alex returned, more upset than she had been previously. ‘You’re not here. I’m not even supposed to be here! This whole thing is a facade!’

She turned her attention to her subconscious and yelled at the top of her voice.

‘And it’s all your fault!’

‘Alex ...’ Murray began but she no longer cared.

‘Just leave me alone,’ she grumbled and wandered off to find some solace in her disoriented subconscious.

She knew it was there somewhere and she had just been made a fool right in front of someone dearly cared about.

Why are you doing this to me? She asked herself mournfully. Why can’t you just show me what’s really happening to me?

Almost as if to answer her question, the very faint echoing of an inaudible hospital PA announcement could be heard in a distance. Alex stood where she was and listened intently. It couldn’t be, could it? The announcement gradually became louder.

‘Calling Doctor Quick. Code Blue Ward 5C Room 302. Calling Doctor Quick. Code Blue Ward 5C Room 302.’

General hospital ambience soon followed and a massive smile eruptive onto Alex’s face. She spun around to face Murray in triumph but he had disappeared. She didn’t care. All she knew now was that she wasn’t really going mad.

‘Thank you!’ she called out joyously. ‘I knew I was just imagining it!’

She stood there, grinning from ear to ear for a few moments until it soon dawned on her, realising how ironic her statement actually sounded. Another reality had just presented itself as well. Yes, she was still trapped in her unforgiving subconscious and, no, there was still no obvious way out. The smile on her face promptly disappeared. She groaned in despair once more.

‘Just let me out! Please!’


Armed with three cloth bags of grocery shopping, Beth struggled to open the front door of the apartment. She had spent the morning at the local suburban shopping centre, trying to keep her mind occupied with matters other than her sister’s invalidity at the intensive care unit. In fact, such was her enthusiasm in her shopping venture, she had gone overboard and ended up with two weeks of groceries. Now, she was wondering what she was going to do with them all. As she made her way down the hallway, she noticed the answering machine flashing to indicate she had one incoming message. Curiously, she activated the machine and continued to make her way to the kitchen to put the shopping away. The machine delivered the customary caller greeting before a very familiar voice boomed from the machine’s speaker – her mother’s.

‘Beth, it’s Mum,’ the older woman greeted in her curt voice as she normally did. ‘I’ve just confirmed my flight to come home. I’ve leaving London on Tuesday and should be home by Thursday morning.’

Beth held the carton of milk mid-air and listened, taking a few nervous breaths. Her mother was coming home far too soon for her liking and Alex was certainly in no condition to greet her when she did.

‘I’m going to need one of you to pick me up from the airport,’ her mother continued. ‘You’ve got Auntie Trace’s number. Give her a call to let me know what you decide. Love you.’

The carton of milk in Beth’s hand quivered slightly, causing her to place it back down on the counter and she struggled to maintain some form of calm. She needed things to go right for her – just this once – if she was going to make it look like she had taken the responsibility like an elder sister should.

There was a sudden knock on the door. Beth looked up and noticed her mother standing there. She was well aware that the presence of the woman she feared most should not even been in the country but her anxious subconscious refused to let the scenario rest until the possibility had presented itself.

Despite her short stature, Debra Hasting looked down at her elder daughter like a keen vulture eyeing a dying caucus. There was something in the way she presented herself that terrified the otherwise confident younger woman. Debra was the editor of a local yet successful lifestyle magazine and was used to getting her own way. Ambitious, ruthless and commanding, she very rarely took no for an answer. In fact, she was often so dominating, she was blinded by the fact that she was suffocating Alex with love, prompting Beth to stand up for her younger sister against the ambitions of their mother.

Following the death of their father, Debra had taken a belated interest in the affairs of her daughters, much to the chagrin of Beth. Debra hadn’t bothered to take any interest in their well-being for nearly twenty years. Beth had taken Debra’s holiday as a blessing for both of them and was now dreading her return.

‘I’m extremely disappointed in you, Beth,’ Debra glared unforgivingly at her. ‘I can’t even leave you alone with Alex for two weeks without you turning your back on her!’

Here we go. Here comes the lecture. Beth thought dispassionately. Nothing she ever did was good enough for her mother. Well, I’m not going to let her get the better of me this time!

‘I never turned my back on her!’ was the comeback but Debra showed little interest in her daughter’s defence.

‘She is in hospital in a coma. It was your responsibility as an elder sister to look after her!’ she shot back.

‘It was an accident!’

Unfortunately, her protests fell on deaf ears. Debra retrieved her mobile phone and held it purposefully in her hand.

‘Be that as it may,’ she returned. ‘You leave me no choice but to inform the authorities. Maybe you’ll learn a bit more responsibility this way.’

Beth stared in horror as her mother started to dial the emergency number. How could a mother just hand her child over to the authorities without listening to her side of the story first? She was beginning to wonder if it was her mother’s insistence and stubbornness that caused her father to drive her away from the family in the first instance all those years ago.

A loud series of knocking jotted her back to reality. It appeared to be with more intensity than the first knock though Beth couldn’t be sure since she hadn’t really been taking much notice. Debra disappeared as quickly as she had materialised and Beth gave a sigh of relief. She had been imagining the whole thing ...

Beth was surprised by the visitor who stood at the door as she opened it. Not only did she not expect to see him at her own residence but he presented himself quite differently to his work demeanour – not that Beth cared too much at this stage. The fact that Hank had effectively fired her the day before did little to welcome him into her adobe.

Beth was slightly taken back by his short sleeved attire and even more so by the prominent tattoos that were etched into his arms which, from what Beth could ascertain in her brief yet distracted interest in the artwork, included a symbolic snake around a sword on one and a flaming fire surrounding animated musical notes on the other. For as long as Beth could recall, Hank had always worn long sleeves at work.

She returned her attention to the man himself, eyeing him with more curiosity than suspicion.

‘What are you doing here?’

Hank lowered his head in embarrassment, appearing to have been in some conflict about coming here in the first place.

‘Er ... can I come in?’ he asked.

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Beth replied, guardedly.

Given her present state of mind, she wasn’t entirely keen on letting anyone into the apartment, let alone her former boss. There was a slight pause as Hank gauged what to say next.

‘Look, if this is about yesterday,’ he began but Beth interrupted him.

‘Is it?’

Hank appraised her slightly, realising that this visit was going to be trickier than he had originally anticipated.

‘I know it wasn’t the best outcome for you but-’ he tried again but Beth wasn’t in the mood for apologises. She had more important things to worry about.

‘Best outcome? You fired me, Hank. You didn’t even ask for an explanation,’ she retorted, unkindly.

‘Wait a sec, the company fired you, not me,’ Hank couldn’t help but protest. ‘I was under pressure from the boss!’

Did she really think he was that callus to just fire her without hearing her side of the story? Evidently, Beth thought so.

‘And I’m supposed to feel sorry for you? My sister has been in a coma in hospital for the last two days,’ she returned with an icy glare. ‘Yeah. That’s why I missed the meeting with the creditors. Look, what exactly do you want?’

Hank was a little taken back by her sudden coldness but was desperate to make it up to her somehow. If he had known about her sister, he would’ve fought for her employment on her behalf. It was too late now. What was done was done.

‘I’m really sorry about your sister and I want to make it up to you,’ he informed her but she wasn’t taking bait.

‘Oh, yeah?’

Hank took a deep breath. It was now or never.

‘I want you to come into business with me.’

Beth was becoming more suspicious by the minute. She didn’t really care for Hank’s ventures – especially now that her employment had been terminated by him. Something fishy was going on.

‘Why would I want to do that?’ she challenged him.

‘Believe it or not, I actually felt awful when you left the building yesterday. I handed in my resignation today.’

‘Well, that was a stupid thing to do.’

‘Are you kidding? They were more interested in money than saving lives,’ he told her, then tried to appeal to her sensitivity. ‘Beth, we can do it – just the two of us. We’ll show them.’

Beth appraised him once more. She didn’t have time to deal with any of this right now. While she was inwardly appreciated that Hank was at least making some effort to help her get back on her feet, she had other priorities in life to take care of, least of which included trying to find somewhere else to live.

‘It takes several months to get a business up and running,’ she reminded him but he was undeterred.

‘I can wait that long.’

‘Well, bully for you,’ she snorted, clearly fed up with the intrusion. ‘I can’t. I’m being evicted tomorrow. Go find someone else to play with.’

With that, she slammed the door in his face. Leaning back against the door, she tried desperately to maintain her calm. The ferocious beast within had almost threatened to expose itself and the last thing she wanted was to be seen or heard screaming in fury at Hank in front of her neighbours.

On the other side of the door, Hank stared in complete bewilderment. Yes, he understood the stress she was under but he had expected more grace and professionalism from the colleague he had grown to admire. He took a deep breath and composed himself.

‘You’ll come round,’ he muttered to no one in particular.

He stood there for a few more seconds, wondering whether or not to continue his mission then thought better of it. She wasn’t entirely in the mood to listen to him right now and was more likely to bite his head off again. Given time, she’ll see that he was doing this for the best. With that, he turned on his heels and walked off.


It was getting hot and sticky. Alex had no idea how long she had been stumbling around the exposed paddocks for but it felt like an eternity. She was starting to get a headache and surmised that if she couldn’t find any shade soon, she’d eventually succumb to heatstroke and briefly wondered what would happen to her body in the real world if that happened.

Gradually feeling like she was being spent of energy, she was also starting to get sweaty which was odd because while the sun was glaring fiercely down at her and she could barely register any form of humidity. Looking up at the clear blue sky, she gave a prolonged groan, half hoping she could just wither away die right there and then. She was almost ready to give up all hope when she just managed to make out something white up ahead.

On closer examination, she realised it was actually a white flag, flapping in the wind – even though there was no wind to speak off. Was the white flag a sign of surrender? Had her subconscious finally given up playing games with her and will she wake up in the intensive care unit?

With renewed hope and energy, she made an unsteady bee-line towards the flag. Due to her disorientation from the sun, she tripped over a fallen branch but thankfully, it wasn’t enough to deter her from her mission. She had to find out the meaning behind the white flag and whether it was her ticket out.

By the time she reached the flag, she was panting with dehydration. She had started to feel physically sick and she tried to shake off the dizzy spell that was threatening to overwhelm her. What she did notice was that the flag, had some numbers sewn on it – 37.9.

Frowning in confusion, she wiped the sweat off her brow. Was that telling what the temperature out here was? It certainly felt like it. The previously clear sight she had enjoyed had blurred somewhat causing her to blink slightly.

What’s happening to me? She thought in desperation just as a distant thumping of a heartbeat could be heard echoing through the air.

Panting heavily, she looked around and noticed a card table in the distance with a large bottle of water on it. Her throat was now so parched that she didn’t think twice about how far away the table was. All she wanted
was to have something to drink before she died of dehydration. With a last ditch effort, she stumbled unsteadily towards the bottle of water in hope of quenching her enormous thirst.


Meanwhile, back in the nurses’ station in the intensive are unit, Claudia had received a new report on her screen.

‘Oh boy ...’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Alex’s urine test results came back,’ Claudia informed him. ‘She’s pregnant.’

‘Does her sister know?’

‘I don’t think so or she would have said something.’ Gareth frowned slightly. There was something about Beth he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

‘I’m not sure I trust her,’ he told her. ‘There’s something about her that doesn’t quite add up. Every time she comes in, she acts all nervous.’

‘Well, what do you expect? Her sister’s lying in a coma.’

‘Okay, next time she comes in, watch her for a couple of minutes,’ Gareth urged. ‘It’s like she’s hiding something from us.’

At this point, an alarm by Alex’s beside went off and Claudia excused herself for a few moments. It took her at least five minutes of assessment before she returned with a concerned look on her face.

‘Alex’s tachycardic again and her temp’s 41 five,’ she told her partner. ‘Her BP’s through the roof so I’ve given her some extra fluid.’

‘I wonder what’s causing it,’ Gareth was concerned.’ We can’t seem to stabilize her.’

Claudia just sighed. That was the challenges they often faced when nursing. Nothing was ever straight- forward.

‘No matter what we do, she seems to take a few steps back and we’re right back where we started. Maybe we need to send for another blood test.‘

‘The ambos said she was in respiratory arrest when they got to her,’ Gareth pondered. ‘But her sister said she hadn’t eaten anything out of the ordinary.’

‘Something doesn’t make sense. ‘

‘Well, James should be here soon so we’ll know for sure,’ Gareth told her.


Beth hurried down toward the car park in an attempt to get away from the hospital grounds as quickly as possible. Despite her best attempts, the last few days had really taken its toll on her. The best part of the morning had been spent sitting vigil by Alex’s bedside. If her current disposition wasn’t already fragile enough, the nursing staff had recently noticed that the younger woman was starting to spike an abnormally high temperature which was attracting some concern. The attempts to return her temperature to normal had failed and the staff had been forced to call on a doctor to assess her.

Adding on to that, Murray’s arrival at the hospital that morning had rattled her more than she cared to admit. While his actual presence wasn’t any real concern, he had tried to show his passion towards her in public which she was less than receptive to. It had almost felt like it had been an admission of guilt on her part and she had rather not indulge in such a public display. Thankfully, he had been more than understanding and agreed to keep it to a more private setting.
As she reached her car, she noticed a familiar figure walking down the street with an uniformed police office. She had recognised the woman as an old friend of Alex’s from the photo that had previously resided on the kitchen benchtop in the apartment, now laying in the box of personal belongings in Murray’s living room.

Presently, Detective Sergeant Samantha Johns looked up at her and stopped in her tracks. Something about the woman looked vaguely familiar. Upon closer examination, she realised she was the main suspect in their investigation into Alex’s mysterious collapse. She caught the attention of the officer she had been walking with and, after a brief discussion, they both strolled casually up to Beth.

‘Excuse me, Ms Beth Hasting?’ Samantha called out, in an attempt to ascertain she had the right person.

‘Yes?’ Beth tried desperately to hide any form of anxiety that was slowly creeping out.

To show any form of apprehension in front of the two law-enforcement officers would signal an admission of guilt which would prove disastrous for her.

‘We’d like you to come with us to the station please,’ the uniformed officer continued. His voice suggested no room for negotiation.

Before Beth knew what was happening, both Samantha and the officer had pinned Beth to the side of her car as the detective took out a pair of handcuffs. She glared at Beth in determination.

‘Ms Hastings, you’re under arrest,’ she announced and began handcuffing her.

Beth blinked. Time finally unfroze. Beth looked around and watched as both Samantha and the officer continued down the street, oblivious to her staring. She was going mad. She was sure of it. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to let something slip with terrible consequences for everyone involved.

Trembling like a leaf, she opened the door of her car and climbed in. As she settled into the driver’s seat, her mind struggled to organise the recent events as they had presented themselves and she slowly began to hyperventilate. Her world was falling apart around her. With no fight left in her body, she burst into tears.