"Is she ready for transfer to IC?"
"Anytime."
The voices start drifting away. A fuzziness is enveloping her senses, leaving everything soft and muted.
The pain is gone from her body now, and the bright lights around her seem to be dimming. The figures in the white haze on the perimeter are now disappearing, one by one, as though filing out of a room. And now she feels like she's floating, with things moving past her.
Then, finally, one lone voice is talking to her, is really talking to her, in a private and unmistakable way. And as she drifts back into the gulf of anesthesia, she listens to words that do not make a lot of sense.
"The Fountain. Through all the ages, we've been looking in the wrong place. It's within us. Together, Alexa, we have this chance."
She listens as the voice begins to drift away. Yet she feels a genuine sense of closeness to it. She realizes she no longer has control of her destiny. But still she wants to be where she is.
Now the sea is coming back, flowing around her, and she tries to remember where she is and why, but all she is aware of is the sea rising, until she is engulfed.