Cracks by Caroline Green Read Free Book Online

see hundreds of tiny pinpoints of light. I look down at my
own hands instinctively.
    I’ve seen them. The lights on my skin.
    And that’s the horrible moment when I know for certain this isn’t just a bad dream.
    This is real.
    ‘What is this thing?’ I croak, closing my eyes for a second as another sicky wave hits my stomach
    ‘It’s a suspension pod,’ says Cavendish. ‘When you weren’t in your bed, it allowed you to move, to run, to stay fit, without becoming injured. You were locked
inside your own mind but your body was – is – healthy. This just kept you safe.’
    I stare into the pod numbly. Can this tiny space really have been my whole world for twelve years? I can’t take it in. It’s too much. I don’t want to be here. I want to be on
the sofa watching telly at home with a jumbo bag of crisps next to me on the sofa. I won’t complain about Des or Ryan or school or anything ever again. I just want things back how they
were.
    Is he saying none of that ever happened?
    A big babyish feeling rises up and I squeeze my burning eyes shut so I don’t start blubbing everywhere. Questions. Must ask questions. Got to pick it all to bits until it makes sense.
    ‘So how did I end up in that room?’ I say, turning back to face Cavendish and Beardy again. ‘Where I woke up?’
    They exchange glances. It feels like there is another, unspoken conversation going on here.
    ‘Your room door is usually kept closed for your own safety,’ says Cavendish in a tight voice. ‘But someone . . . left it open this morning. In error.’
    Images of the room in Riley Hall flash into my mind. The boy . . . he was just a twisted sort of a dream, then. But what about the others?
    ‘So how do you explain all the people I know?’ I say. I know I’m speaking too loudly now because Cavendish winces. Tough. ‘What about school? What about Mum and Des and
Pigface? I didn’t just make them up! I have a history! A family!’
    Cavendish clears his throat. ‘We don’t exactly know how your mind created the world it did. But the vivid details may have something to do with the procedure you underwent.’ He
pauses again. ‘Your original surgery involved transplantation of brain tissue from a donor.’
    ‘A donor?’ I say, stupidly.
    ‘Yes . . . You received brain tissue from a local boy who died on the day you came here.’ He pauses. ‘Memory is a complex thing and there is no scientific reason why memories
couldn’t be transplanted from one person to another but . . .’
    ‘What are you on about?’
    He shifts again. ‘The part of the brain we transplanted is known as the amygdala and among other things it helps control memory. And . . . the boy in question may also have had a mother,
stepfather and so on. I think you may have been reliving some of his memories.’
    I pause for just one second and then I’m shouting. ‘So why does that nurse look like my mum?’
    Cavendish’s looking at me like I’m a dangerous dog. ‘Do try to stay calm.’
    ‘Don’t tell me to be calm!’ I yell.
    Cavendish swallows again. He has a huge Adam’s apple that bobs up and down above his collar. ‘You’ve been living somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness,’ he
says. ‘Your brain has simply woven details from real life into your coma state.’
    No . . . It’s not fair. I want to curl into a ball or howl and cry and hit someone.
    None of it was real? Not Mum, or home, or Amil or school? Could they really be just someone else’s memories, all mashed together with stuff happening around me here in this room? I look
around at the plain white walls and the horrible pod in the corner, then at Cavendish, Beardy and the nurse. I think about the beeping sounds in my head and when Pigface couldn’t hit me that
time.
    ‘Sometimes it seemed like —’ I close my mouth, biting the words back.
    ‘Like what?’ says Cavendish quietly.
    I hesitate. ‘Like things weren’t real.’
    He nods. ‘I expect this was when