"...Hnnn...." I uttered a small sound as I feel my consciousness arising from a deep sleep.
'What happened?' I thought. I tried opening my eyes but my eyelids feel strangely heavy. It took some time but I managed to do so albeit with difficulty.
A pure white ceiling immediately came into view as my eyes slowly opened itself. 'Where am I? What am I doing here?', ignoring such thoughts, I tried moving my body.
My body feels sluggish and drained of energy. Just making small movements is no easy feat. I wonder what I did to be in such a state.
Then, I realized something. My still fleeting consciousness immediately became jolted awake as I came into the realization of the events that transpired before I lost consciousness.
That's right, I lost consciousness. Remembering the details of the reason why I passed out, I found the situation very weird.
I recalled hearing a very shrill and high-pitched sound that doesn't go away even if I cover my ears. Considering the reason and the place where I collapsed, I'm probably at the hospital lying on a bed.
I then felt a dull pain from within my ears. It hurts a fair bit, throbbing from time to time. There's also some faint ringing sound resounding within my ears reminiscent of the sound from within my memories. Whether that is the sound from earlier or my mind just playing it back, I don't know.
I tried bringing my body up but my body is strangely bereft of energy. 'Is it sleep paralysis? How long did I sleep?' such thoughts passed through my conscious mind. Putting all my doubts aside for a moment, I need to check the condition of my ears first.
I tried touching my ears. What I felt instead of it is a gauze wrapped around my head to cover both my ears. I remember feeling blood gushing out of my ears back then so it's probably to prevent bleeding. I became a bit afraid, what if I became deaf?
Just then, I saw the door opening in the corner of my eye so I paid attention to my visitor.
I didn't hear the creaking of the door nor the sound of footsteps. I heard no sound at all, further fueling up my fear.
The one who entered is a woman in her early twenties garbed in white garments. At first glance, she looks like a nurse. She's probably here to check on the patient, which is to say, me.
"--, ------ -----!" The nurse said something but I didn't hear a thing. If I can guess, she probably exclaimed that I'm awake judging by her expression.
Not knowing how to respond, I just tilted my head to the side to indicate that I didn't get it. I also tried speaking and found out that my throat is a bit parched.
"Sorry, I can't hear." I stated... or at least what I think I did. I can only faintly hear my voice, or to be precise, I can only feel vibrations on my cranium coming from my vocal cords. It is a relief to find out that I can still speak properly.
The nurse showed an understanding expression. Perhaps seeing that my throat is parched, she first went and grabbed me something to drink. I gladly drank it and expressed gratitude.
While I'm drinking, she pressed a button on the intercom inside the room and spoke of something. Probably to report that the patient woke up.
After having my fill of water, she then grabbed a pen from somewhere and wrote something on a small notebook she carried around.
'How are you feeling? Does it hurt?' it reads.
Because telling 'I'm okay' is somewhat of a lie, I'll honestly state what I felt... Even if I can't hear my own voice.
"My body feels strangely weak. There's still some dull pain inside my ear and I can hear some ringing sound but I can't tell if it's just my brain playing tricks with me..." I explained what I felt honestly.
There's one more thing. I looked down and uttered "...And, uh, I'm afraid I went deaf..."
Throughout my speech, I still haven't heard my own voice. I'm truly afraid of that outcome, and I felt awful inside.
Humans relied mostly on their five senses throughout their lives. Even someone that is born blind or deaf is no exception. If a sense that you rely on most of the time is lost, you'll struggle now that that sense is gone.
Take for example a blind person. No sight, only relying on his other senses, mostly the sense of touch and hearing, to see the world as a replacement of their eyes. If those even those senses went away, how will they know about their surroundings?
Deep inside they'll feel empty, spending time inside a pitch-black prison. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to feel. No different than being dead itself.
In response to my statement of fear, her face showed a reaction, albeit slight but I caught it. So it's true?
I resigned myself on that fate. There's nothing I can do to it. It's not like I can bring my lost sense back. Even modern medical technology isn't advanced enough to cure completely damaged senses.
If there's one thing I'm dissatisfied about, is that it just left so suddenly. I don't have any idea what exactly happened back then.
"What exactly happened to me?" I asked.
She spent a bit of time writing in her notebook. Soon she faced me and showed what she wrote.
'Even we aren't exactly sure what happened. Those who saw you said that you just suddenly collapsed clutching your ears. Then when they approached you, they saw blood gushing out of your ears as you passed out.' It said.
What...?
"Didn't they hear anything?" I questioned in doubt.
The sound back then was so loud that practically everyone should've heard it. I think it should've also reached inside the hospital. It doesn't make sense that only I heard that.
'Hear what?' she wrote down.
My mind is riddled in doubts. It can't possibly be only me who heard that?
"Isn't there anyone like me? Is there a case of someone hearing something strange all of a sudden? Did you not hear anything?" I tried asking again. Although I can't hear my voice, I can tell that it's spoken in an uneasy tone.
I waited for a moment for the nurse's reply to my question. She brought forward the note.
'What are you saying? I didn't hear anything. No one reported that they heard something strange.' it reads.
My mind raced extremely fast. Disregarding the awareness I have on the surrounding, I thought over what happened.
It couldn't possibly be that only I heard that. It's too loud for that to happen. It's not like there's some device inside my ear that can induce that loud of a sound. If it really is that, who would put it without me knowing?
That's a bit unlikely. Let's think this through again. The human hearing range is from 0dB to 180dB(Decibels), or 20Hz(Hertz) to 20KHz(Kilohertz). 85dB or higher is considered harmful and considering what happened, it most likely exceeded 100dB. That's probably why my ear suffered and now I lost hearing.
Considering that everybody didn't hear it, did I hear something exceeding the human hearing range? Although this would explain why other people didn't hear that sound, it doesn't explain why I am capable of hearing it. I'm also a normal human so I can't hear anything below or higher than the supposed human hearing range. I'm a human, not a bat.
Then what is it...?
Just then, I felt a nudge on my shoulder as I break free of my trance. I saw the nurse with a worried expression. It seems that my silence worried her.
"I'm okay. I'm just thinking about something." I explained.
While I'm talking to the nurse, I saw a glimpse of the door opening in the corner of my sight. A man dressed in white garbs entered the room. From his appearance, he's likely a doctor.
He asked the nurse first about something and they got into a conversation. I can't hear anything so I can't understand it but I can guess based on context. The nurse is probably telling my situation after I woke up.
The conversation went on for a while till it ended. The doctor faced me and said something. The nurse hurriedly wrote and showed it to me.
"We will be diagnosing the detailed condition of your ear in a moment." it says.
I felt that there's still some hope left. While you can't recover the auditory sense if the nerves serving as sound receptors are completely damaged, even if only a few are fine then I can get a cochlear implant that can send artificial signals for my brain to convert into meaningful sound. I'm not too keen about the cost but it'll probably cost a lot.
"Go on." I said.
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Thanks for the chapter
Hmm, I haven't been writing that much and to be honest, I keep on scrappIng everything till it flows fine..... And just lately, lost the data of that. Poor me
Maybe later I'll get back to writing