Joss floated ever so slightly above the hospital bed. Her ears were still ringing loudly, and her eyes had been bandaged after the crash. She could see out of the bottom slips of them, and got a sense that the TV was on. The ringing had a distinct sound. She could feel the scratchy paper-like quality of the blanket on her, and she knew exactly where she was - a hospital. Dammit, she thought. Joss was never a fan of hospitals, sensed largely from her mysterious origin that is both mysterious and complex, full of mysteries and wonders - so much mystery.
She had memories of being tied up to beds and all she wanted to do was get out of this place. She figured to get out of this place she would probably have to figure out first exactly where she was. Was she captured by some horrific space alien? No, she wasn’t captured by a space alien. She felt around the bed and the ringing in her ears began to go down. This was a human hospital – it felt human; it felt practical, boring.
“Oh gosh, you’re up; that’s wonderful.”
As best Joss could see through her gauze, there was some mysterious grey shape.
“Hi, my name is Zoyna. So nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too Zoyna. Where am I?” said Joss.
“Oh, you’re in a hospital.”
“Thank you Zoyna. So, a bigger picture question. What city am I in? Also is this earth?” said Joss.
“Oh, ah, Bismarck, and yes,” said Zoyna.
“Okay, okay, okay. I’m on earth. It’s good to know. Very good to know this.”
“Are you a space alien?” said Zoyna.
“How did you figure that out?” said Joss.
“Well, you just said ‘good I’m on earth’. So you know, humans don’t really question that, so I’m figuring you’re a space alien.”
“Zoyna?” This was disturbing to the Tomorrow Girl Joss. It was disconcerting, upsetting, and just plain odd.
“Zoyna, are you telling me you’ve never met an alien before?”
“No.”
“You’ve never heard of any?”
“No, I wouldn’t say so. There’s some crazy people, mostly my relatives, who believe in aliens. So I guess I do too now. So you know. But, ah, you’re saying. Okay. I’m actually freaking out just a tiny bit that you confirmed that, because, um, you crashed from space a couple thousand miles, created a crater, and you’re flying right now. So there’s aliens – good to know, good to know.”
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Joss of course was freaking out in her own way, but with the morphine and simply just trying to figure out where she was at the moment, her whole facial place area didn’t really show it.
“Are superheroes not a thing here? said Joss.
“No.”
Tomorrow Man stood there as Joss still gently floated in the air.
“I know that feeling. It’s the pain of 1000 planets dying, but titanic forces have the knowledge that your entire way of life simply flattened in one moment. This new world must have been a horrifying, terrifying place full of death and distraction of evil villainy. Is this what you were brought here to do in this siren song of destiny, pulling you into a new world from that sadness that would kill millions? Joss, no, not just Tomorrow Girl - Joss, who knew what she must do, was sent to protect this world.” said Tomorrow Man. Then in a puff he was gone.
Joss of course was still super high on morphine, and none of this rich complexity in her life really showed on her face, and all she was able to manage to say was a slurred ‘okay’.
She then fell asleep again.
After that Joss was pretty much in and out of it for the next few days. For any normal human being Joss’s injuries would constitute years of physical therapy and the person might not ever be able to walk again. But for a super human being like Joss, she was up in two to three days. Although she was not exactly lucid for any amount of time, she and Zoyna did talk once or twice more, she assumed.
One of the conversations went a lot like this:
“So, uh.” Silence. Silence. And then the pain made Joss pass out again.
The other one went a lot like this:
“Do you know what I love? Pudding,” said Zoyna.
“I like that too,” said Joss.
And then they sat in silence more and more.
Zoyna was not a person who was that great with confronting this unknown quality. She was not sure of what her place in the universe was right now.
Joss’s thought was on one thing and one thing only for the three days she was in the hospital. “Where shall I start?”
Don’t get her wrong. She was still devastated and horrified by the fact that she had lost all her friends, her hopes, her dreams, and her entire universe, but Joss was smiling as hard as she could to think about the fun new possibilities that her life afforded her, not the bleak sadness that was coming. Boy, she was in a lot of pain, but on that third magical day she was mostly healed up and ready to go.
Zoyna was coming to the hospital for another long awkward hour’s of silence when she saw Joss being walked out, limping slightly, but ready.
“So, you’re healed?” Zoyna said.
“Yep.”
“Okay, nice knowing you,” said Zoyna.
“Okay, it was nice knowing you,” Joss said, as she started to crouch down, ready to fly off.
Just before she could, Zoyna quickly asked, “Where are you going to stay?”
The question stumped Joss. She did not know.
“I hadn’t worked that out yet. I assumed that there would be a superhero I could just stay with …... it’s ridiculous what I thought,” said Joss.
“What do you think?” said Zoyna.
“I thought I could stay at The Lost City of Atlantis.”
“Oh. Oh, that’s not a thing here,” said Zoyna.
“I know. It just occurred to me as you said that,” said Joss.
“Do you wanna stay at my place?” Said Zoyna.
“Oh, oh, oh god, why did I just say that,” Zoyna thought, and Joss did not think.
“Okay,” Joss said as she gently floated away.