Jim awoke in a nightmare. 

It was obnoxiously dark. You know the kind, where your eyes never truly adjust? The silence was the only thing to truly permeate his senses, and in the dark, in the silence he was alone. 

He was definitely lying down, but quickly changed that. Unsure of where he was, he would rather not get taken off guard while on his back. He felt around in the dark for several minutes, deciding he must be in a forest of some sort because he could feel the long tree branches combing at his arms, sometimes entangling him. How did he get here?

His mind seemed foggy, almost like he was drugged, but he wasn’t...or he couldn’t remember being. He was still in the dark, but his skin felt hot to the touch, more like a bad sunburn. His body ached with every step. 

“Did I get beat up,” he thought out loud. 

Jim tripped suddenly over a tree root, and he groaned as something stabbed his arm, probably a stick. Then all hell broke loose. 

Something was attacking him. 

Bats? Birds? He didn’t know, but he could hear their great wings flapping around him. There must be hundreds. He tried to run, but he still couldn’t see. Everything seemed to be reaching out for him, trying to trip him up. He cried out as a winged creature hit him in the face, causing him to fall against a tree. 

Then, before his very eyes, two very tall, very strong looking beings stepped out of the looming night. They were easily ten feet in height and glowed bright blue, their eyes shining a reflective yellow. 

Jim yelled in surprise which only angered the creatures. They advanced on him, teeth bared, snarling some unknown language. Jim turned and ran as fast as he could through the darkness, feeling his way amongst the trees. 

He didn’t know how long he had run, yelling at the creatures to stay away, but eventually he hit a wall of some sort, probably a cave, and could go no further. They continued to snarl at him, but thankfully kept their distance for now. 

Then again, from the darkness, stepped another creature. Much smaller than the other two, she looked most likely female. She glowed bright red, and her eyes burned into him like hot coals. His heart skipped a beat. The other two addressed her in their demonic tongue. Maybe she was their leader? 

The two that had been chasing him slowly advanced again, and for a second Jim knew he would have to fight. He pushed himself further back into the cave wall, and something flew out from behind. The winged creatures were back. 

“Don’t TOUCH ME,” Jim yelled, and then, “GET BACK,” looking frantically around for anything else that might jump out. 

He couldn’t remember ever feeling terror on this level before. He looked down for something to defend himself with, but saw only the stick that had pierced his arm earlier. He yanked it out forcefully, and for just a moment as he watched the blood trickle down his arm, none of this felt real. 

But almost immediately, the girl had stepped around the other two and the nightmare had become all too real again. She growled so loudly and so fiercely that Jim felt the hair rise on his arms and neck. She grabbed at him with her long unearthly fingers and Jim instinctively pushed her back as hard as he could. He had to get away. 

Wrong move. 

It was all blurred after that. The two ginormous creatures rushed him, and in the scuffle, he lost track of their leader. They knocked him down, and dragged him away, off through the woods, and down to a clearing where they tied him flat to something unseen.  

“No,” he yelled, “Let me go!”

They didn’t care, though. He thrashed wildly against the restraints, but they were tight, so tight that he felt he could barely breathe. 

One of the beasts held him down while the other stabbed at his arms. With what, he couldn’t tell. Jim’s heart was pounding so fast that he became suddenly dizzy and very, very tired. 

“I have to stay awake,” he thought. “If I pass out, they’ll kill me.”

It was no use though. Sleep overwhelmed him. The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was the ominous glow of his attackers in the ever present darkness. 

XXX

Jim was startled from his fitful dreaming with a  rattling gasp. He looked frantically around the room, half searching for something terrifying to pop out at him, when a voice at his side made him jump. 

“Hey. Hey, you’re okay,” it said soothingly. 

Jim looked once more around the room before noticing who had spoken. When he finally saw Pam, he stared into her eyes without speaking, unsure of whether he was still dreaming, suspicious to trust anything at the moment. 

“Pam,” he asked, after several long moments. His voice sounded raspy and dry. 

“Thank God,” Pam sighed with relief, and smiled slightly down at him. “Do you know where you’re at?”

Jim looked around again. His mind was still foggy, but he was slowly beginning to piece reality together.

“Hospital,” he grunted. 

He tried to sit up so that he could see her better, but pain cut through this side, and he winced, grabbing it tenderly. 

“What happened,” he asked her groggily. 

Pam explained to him everything that had happened since the ambulance and all that the doctor had told her. When she told him how crazed he had acted and that he had pushed her, he was mortified. He thought about the terrible dream and made a mental note to tell her later when he had more energy. His eyes traveled from her furrowed brow, down her arms to her swollen wrist. He reached for it gently as it already had the beginnings of a bruise and felt intense guilt creep into his chest. Finding he couldn’t look into her eyes, he decided to lay his head back on the pillow. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered through tightly shut eyes. 

“Jim, your temperature was over 104. You weren’t you,” she assured him. “I know you’d never do this on purpose. 

But guilt persisted all the same. 

She was watching him closely, biting her lip the way she always did when she worried. He shifted his gaze from her swollen wrist to her shaking hands. 

“Have you even eaten today,” he asked. Then, as if the flood gates had been opened, a million other questions suddenly plagued him. “What about Cece? Is she okay? Does she have enough milk?”

“Hey,” she interrupted, squeezing his hand. “Everything’s fine. I promise. Just rest right now,” she soothed. 

It was just like his wife to spend all day with him in the hospital and forget to take care of herself. 

Jim sighed and settled back against his pillows. Wincing again, he discreetly held his side as pain rippled across it. 

She must’ve noticed, though, because she asked, “Does it hurt really bad,” with a grimace. 

He stared into her eyes for a moment. She looked so worried and so exhausted. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth, so he shrugged and gave her a tight lipped smile. 

She squinted her eyes just barely, like she always did we she knew he was lying. He’d been caught. 

As she laced their fingers together, Jim lifted her hand to his lips. He knew Pam and he knew what she needed, tangible comfort. She needed to feel that he was going to be alright. 

“I’m okay,” he whispered into the back of her soft hand. 

He hoped she’d take it as a promise. 

XXX

Jim woke to another bout of searing pain. But instead of being confined to his stomach or his side, this time, it came in waves across his entire body. Deep within him a scary question surfaced. 

Am I dying?

He waited for only a moment before calling Pam’s name. She was curled up in a chair across the room, seeming to have finally dozed off, and he didn’t want to wake her unnecessarily. But the pain felt like electricity running through him. 

“Pam...Pam...,” he called softly. 

She shifted slightly in her chair, but continued to sleep. Jim’s body was shaking uncontrollably. Something was terribly wrong. He had to get her attention, someone’s attention. 

“Pam,” he called a little louder, and this time he woke her. 

She looked around the dim room in a stupor, groggily searching for the voice. The clock under the TV read 3am, and he knew she must be tired. But as soon as he thought his body had settled, he was hit again. And again, he thought, “Am I dying?”

“Pam,” he called one more time. 

That did it. She had definitely noticed him this time. Jim took the last few seconds before she saw him to try to compose himself, but to no avail. 

“Jim,” he heard her say quietly, as she stood from her curled up position and slowly made her way towards his bed.

He was trembling on the hospital bed, in a pool of his own sweat. The waves of boiling blood that had been flooding his body suddenly no longer receded. There was no longer a break in the blinding pain. He felt the same terror from earlier rise in him again. When Pam reached his bed, he didn’t look up at her. He didn’t want her to see how afraid he was. 

“Jim, what’s going on? Are you okay,” he heard.

He felt her grab his wrist. He had to tell her the truth. He didn’t know how much longer he could contain the pain. He shook his head jerkily and swallowed hard. 

“S-Something’s wrong,” he stuttered. Something’s-.”

He clenched his jaw and shut his eyes tightly, groaning softly. Talking was too hard. He couldn’t force the words out anymore. He felt Pam’s gentle hand on his forehead. His skin burned against hers. 

“Your fever’s back,” she whispered nervously. 

Jim meant to respond, but was overwhelmed by sudden and intense nausea. He wasn’t going to be able to stop it. He tried to sit up, desperately pushing himself up on shaking arms. 

“Jim,” Pam interjected, but he interrupted her. 

“M’gonna be sick,” he warned hastily, trying to push her away. 

Pam barely had enough time to step back before he was vomiting harshly over the railing of the bed. When Jim pried his eyes open, what he saw made his heart clench in his chest. In the dark it looked like...blood?

Pam was staring so transfixed at the floor that she didn’t notice Jim doubling over again until he was already gagging, spilling his stomach onto the sheets. This time there was no questioning. It was blood...

Jim fell back against the pillows, clutching his stomach and groaning in pain. 

“I’m gonna go get someone,” he barely heard Pam say, and she quickly left the room. 

Two nurses came back with her, and, after what seemed an eternity, she was again by Jim’s side. 

He had lost all control. Eyes blinded, mind numbed, all he could focus on was the fire inside his body. He couldn’t help but writhe in the bed, despite whether his wife was watching or not. Beads of sweat kept dripping down his forehead and stinging his eyes. His mind seemed to be threatening to float in and out of consciousness again, but every time he thought sweet sleep would take him, he would wake abruptly, coming to only to vomit into a bucket provided by one of the nurses. His stomach was long since empty, but each dry heave was excruciating. 

“I’ve got you,” Pam whispered into his ear after a particularly painful spasm. 

He could no longer restrain the terrifying question any longer. 

“Am I dying,” Jim gasped between heaves, real fear dripping from his voice. 

Pam stared bravely back at him, but the color draining from her, gave her away in the end. 

“Of course not,” she assured him. “You’re just very sick, Jim. They’ll have everything straightened out any minute now. I promise,” she said, voice wavering slightly. 

Jim looked to the nurses for confirmation, but found none. They were hooking up tubes and inserting new IVs as quickly as possible. 

The pain was now so intense that it took Jim’s breath away. He was forced to now gasp for air, the sensation of drowning becoming all too real. He felt around desperately for Pam’s hand, begging her silently to fix it, fix him. Thankfully a doctor was soon standing beside them. 

“I’m just going to press on your stomach, okay Mr. Halpert,” Jim heard. 

Jim neither acknowledged nor cared what the doctor was doing to him. All he could focus on was his pounding heart, his next breath, Pam’s hand in his. 

But when the doctor pressed firmly on Jim’s stomach he couldn’t help but cry out audibly in pain. Pam squeezed his hand comfortingly, but Jim pulled his away from her and wrapped it around his side. He didn’t want to hurt her again. He curled his knees up into him, praying for relief as he tossed about on his side, but none came. Maybe if he pushed his face into the pillow hard enough he could suffocate the pain out of himself. 

“Alright,” the doctor said matter of factly, “We need to move to the operating room. Right now.”

The doctor said more words after that, mostly instructions to the nurses, but Jim didn’t hear. His brain echoed the words “operation” and “emergency” for several long seconds, causing his heart to pound harder under the stress. They were supposed to have until the morning. He didn’t want to have to go like this. He wasn’t ready. 

He had barely had time to even think these thoughts before they were already moving him, pushing him through the darkness, the only raucous in a silent hallway. Pam walked beside them, looking more afraid than ever. What would she do if he died? 

He fought unconsciousness with everything he had left which, albeit, wasn’t very much. 

Would she be okay?

His head was swimming. Sleep was so close...no. He had to stay awake. If he passed out, it would kill him. 

Did she know he loved her?

Eventually they came to the final door through which Pam could not follow. They stopped momentarily to allow Pam to say goodbye, but Jim seized his opportunity and grabbed her hand. 

“You know where everything important is at,” he questioned first. 

Pam stared at him like he wasn’t speaking English, and for all he knew, he wasn’t. 

“All the important papers,” he tried again. “In case something happens.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Jim. Don’t say th-.”

“Look at me,” he interrupted, and her eyes burned like hot coals into him. His heart skipped a beat. He was out of time, out of energy, out of air. He had seconds to tell her everything he’d always thought he’d have years to say. With his last bit of energy, he continued in a choked voice, “You will always be the greatest thing I’ve ever-,” but pain cut him off. He gripped the sheets on the bed, crying out again through gritted teeth. 

“Take him,” he heard Pam say. “Just take him.”

He felt her hand slip from his as they pushed him through the double doors and away from his best friend. He felt the wheels roll down the hallway farther and farther from his wife. He heard the slamming of the doors that, for the first time since they’d met, put true distance between himself and his first love.

He was alone. 

Finally, Jim allowed himself to slip into the unknown, knowing in his heart that she loved him too, but hoping against hope that he would soon be awake to hear it once more.