Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sirens were blaring… they were getting louder and louder.

Lisa Simpson was lying on the hard pavement mostly on her right side, too weak to move.

Her head was throbbing horribly. It was as if her brain was trying to break out of her skull.

There was a terrible ringing in her ears. She had no idea if it was causing her excruciating headache, or if she had it to begin with, or both.

The pain, oh god the pain! She had never felt this kind of pain in her life!

Each breath stung in agony. It was like there was something poking at her lungs, threatening to puncture them if she breathed any deeper. She had no other choice but to breathe quickly, despite knowing very well that it wasn’t a good idea.

Lisa felt that she was lying in something warm. She tried with all of her might to  slowly crack her eyes open to decipher what it was. Hoping it wasn’t what she thought it would be.

Her vision was greeted with flashing red and blue lights, as well as the trickling orange light of fire behind her. Her only sources of light from this dark night.

Despite her blurry sight, she could see her left arm sprawled out in front of her. It too was lying in the warm substance. With little strength she had left, Lisa slowly and shakily lifted her arm off the ground.

Despite the struggle of keeping her arm up, she was able to see that her arm was covered in a red liquid.

Blood… her own blood. She was lying in a pool of her blood.

Lisa felt sick to her stomach. She hoped she wouldn’t throw up. Being in a mixture of blood and vomit would make her current situation much more worse and unpleasant.

To release the straining in her muscles, she allowed her arm to flop back down onto the bloody ground. Despite all of her pain, there was a certain part of her body that hurt the most.

There was an awful stinging pain on her left side. It was as if there was something stabbed or embedded into her. Lisa recalled something painfully piercing her flesh when.. it happened. However, she wasn’t sure what it exactly was.

Using her now very limited strength, Lisa moved her left arm towards her left side in hopes to figure out what was stabbed into her. After some moments, her elbow touched something hard and cold, the pain on her side slightly increasing for a brief moment. That must be it.

To her, it felt like some sort of metal. It dawned on her, a piece of rogue metal from that had struck her and pierced her flesh. Realizing this, she tried her best to not hyperventilate from her situation.

She was so focused on the piece of metal that she didn’t notice that there were now paramedics surrounding her. When she did, she was greeted with bright lights flashed into her eyes, blurry faces, and unintelligible voices.

Lisa’s touch receptors barely responded to the paramedics tending to her. She couldn’t tell what they were saying, but she could’ve sworn they sounded distressed. They must be in shock at her condition, so was she.

She still couldn’t understand what any of them were saying, it sounded like complete gibberish to her. She didn’t think she was going to decipher what any of them were saying. Until…

“ We have to pull it out.. ” said a muffled voice.

What? Did she hear that correctly? Were they going to remove the metal pierced into her side!? No, no, no, NO! It will only make the pain worse!! Don’t pull it out! Don’t-

SSSSHHHHIIINNNNGGG!!

Suddenly, she felt something sharp be removed from her left side. And the awful pain she was feeling increased tenfold. Feeling more blood gush out of the now open wound.

Lisa tried to scream. She wasn’t sure if she even did. The ringing was obnoxiously loud she could barely hear anything.

“She’s losing too much blood!” a muffled voice shouted over the ringing.

Oh god, the pain was unbearable. Her vision became blurry as she felt the medics tend to her wound to prevent it from continuing to bleed.

The ringing became even more intense as the blurry faces and bright lights became too much for her to bear. She began to feel exhausted and ready to pass out. Whether from her body unable to handle so much pain, or from the fact that she was losing so much blood, she couldn’t tell. Maybe it was both.

With what little feeling she still had, she felt herself being carried by paramedics to what she presumed to be an ambulance. She wasn’t sure, but it made the most sense. Her vision was getting much worse as unconsciousness crept closer and closer.

As consciousness began to fade, each of her five senses began to completely snuff out one by one…

Her feeling of touch was now completely gone. She felt completely numb, sort of like she was floating in a void.

The metallic taste of blood was no longer present in her mouth. She couldn’t taste anything. Same with her sense of smell. She could no longer smell the smoke of the fire nor the blood in her nose.

Her hearing became nothing but ringing, no longer able to hear anything else. It became so loud that she could no longer hear anything at all.

And with her sight, it began to dwindle as well, the world fading around her. Accepting defeat in the fight to stay conscious, Lisa Simpson slowly closed her eyes.

Letting darkness consume her as she faded into nothingness.

Chapter Text

Beep…

Beep…

Beep…

Lisa’s awareness began to surface when her sense of hearing returned. She heard the gentle beats of a heart monitor and the soft humming of what she assumed to be fluorescent lights.

Her sense of smell had resurfaced once she realized she was inhaling oxygen. The scent of hand sanitizer filled Lisa’s nostrils with each breath. From the aforementioned senses alone, she could tell she was in a hospital room.

As Lisa continued to float in purgatory, she felt a soft pressure occur on her back. As if she was lying on something. Most definitely a hospital bed.

Her last two senses took quite longer to resurface than she had expected. In fact, her sense of taste hadn’t seemed to return. It was as if she hadn’t eaten anything for sometime and all of the taste residue on her tongue had since faded. Well, it was better than having to taste her own blood.

With only her sight remaining, Lisa tried with all of her might to open her eyes. To her surprise however, her eyes suddenly snapped wide open, there was no struggle with opening them. She felt no heaviness nor fatigue within her eyelids, something she assumed she’d have due to her being passed out for quite some time.

Lisa blinked a few times to allow her eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness that invaded the darkness she had lived in. Once her sense of sight was accustomed to this new environment, she instinctively sat up and rubbed her eyes. Beginning to recollect what had happened.

Dear god, she could still remember the excruciating pain she felt when that metal impaled her. She was stupid, she knew what happened was going to occur sooner or later. It was inevitable. She was just too careless and got too close, caught in the crossfire. She wouldn’t have experienced the worst pain she ever felt in her life and be in this predicament if she just-

Wait a minute…

Lisa suddenly stopped what she was doing. Something was off… very off.

She couldn’t feel any pain whatsoever, not even a dull ache. How was she sitting up so easily? Why didn’t she feel like she was covered in bandages or anything? Why didn’t she feel at least a hint of exhaustion?

Lisa moved her hands from her face and looked down at her arms. They looked completely fine, they were not bandaged up, nor were they connected to anything. No casts, no IVs, nothing.

Lisa furrowed her brow. She looked down at herself and saw that she wasn’t wearing a hospital gown. Rather, she was wearing the exact same clothing she wore when it happened. As with her arms, Lisa’s clothing was completely in tact. No tears, scratches or cuts. Hell, the left side of her abdomen, where she was struck by the metal, wasn’t even bandaged up!

Slowly and hesitantly, Lisa reached her right arm over to her left abdomen to touch it. She squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating at least a stitched up wound and its horrific pain. But it never came.

Lisa opened her eyes and looked down to where her right hand was settled. All that the hand had received was the feeling of her shirt over smooth unharmed skin. What the hell?

Lisa retracted her hand and looked up to scan her surroundings. She was a little surprised. Not at the fact that she was in a hospital room. Rather, it was that it was completely empty. There was no one else in the room besides herself. Where was everybody?

This mixture of confusion and curiosity caused an itch to form within the back of her mind. It was a desire to get up and look around. Lisa looked down to see her legs lying out in front of her on the bed. She then turned to her right and saw the edge of the bed, next to it was the hospital floor.

Guess it was time to scratch the itch.

She looked at the linoleum tile floor a few moments longer and then back at her legs. If she was able to get up and move her arms so easily, surely her legs should work just fine too. Right?

Lisa began to test her hypothesis by slowly moving her legs away from the bed. Yep, just as she suspected. The lower limbs of her body had moved with ease and started to slip off of the mattress.

The familiar (yet strangely foreign) feeling of pressure entered the soles of her feet the moment her shoes planted onto the floor. A second later, Lisa was standing up completely. This was weird.

Lisa looked around and got a good view of the hospital room in front of her. Yeah, it was just like every other hospital room she had been too before. She had seen her father in these kinds of rooms countless times.

Lisa came to the conclusion that she must be lucid dreaming, where she is aware that this is a dream. Though, it made her wonder, why end up here? Why would this dream even start with her waking up?

The girl decided to turn around to see where she had awakened from. She wanted to figure out why this lucid dream was in a hos-

Lisa screamed.

Lying on the hospital bed.. was herself.

The girl quickly looked down at herself and back at the sight before her. How was she right here while also lying on a hospital bed!? She began to touch her own face, run her hands through her hair, and pat herself across the body. Her touch receptors responded to the contact. She quickly rubbed her eyes, hoping it was just some sort of illusion.

It wasn’t. When Lisa removed her hands from her eyes, she was horrified to see that the sight before her didn’t go away.

The feeling of panic had risen within her chest. She was too freaked out to notice that there was no rapid heartbeat within her rib cage that would have accompanied this sentiment.

Lisa pinched herself, she felt the feeling of the pinch, but not the pain that was normally expected from it. She started to slap her face repeatedly. Hoping to wake up, begging that this was nothing but a dream. That the accident was nothing but a bad dream!

It was no use. The accident really did happen, there was no denying that. As with the slaps, Lisa felt her hands make contact with her face, but not the pain that accompanied it. She sighed and let her arms go limp against her sides. She could feel, but she couldn’t feel pain. As if the pain receptors within her nervous system had completely shut off.

Unsure of what else to do, Lisa slowly and cautiously approached her bandaged up comatose body. As she got closer, she was able to see her injuries in greater detail.

Her body was nearly covered head to toe with bandages. Including the left side of her abdomen where the metal impaled her. The body was connected to several tubes and medical gear. One of which was a blood IV. It made sense that she was given a blood transfusion. Lisa remembered the muffled panicked voice of a paramedic saying she was losing a lot of the essential liquid.

Lisa also noticed an endotracheal tube that was attached to her mouth. Definitely for breathing. A moment later, she was right next to the hospital bed where her physical form lay.

When Lisa was right next to herself, she held her hands out to try and touch her comatose body.. and her hands went straight through..

The girl yelped and jolted back as if she touched a hot surface. What the hell was that!? She just phased through like a ghost!

What was going on? Was this real? Was this some messed up lucid dream? Was this even a dream!?

Lisa had the brief horrible thought that she was dead. That she was some sort of ghost or spirit that was staring at her own corpse. But that thought was shut down almost immediately.

The beeping of the heart monitor alone proved that she wasn’t dead. It wasn’t flatlining. And if that weren’t enough, she was connected to a ventilator to help her breathe. Hospitals wouldn’t do that to a corpse! So yes, Lisa was indeed alive. Alive, but not well.

Lisa concluded that she must be going through some sort of out-of-body experience. Most definitely the result of the trauma she had received from the accident. She had heard of many cases of out-of-body experiences before. But none of them were anything like this! It made her wonder if she was truly separated from her physical body or if this was just some messed up trick of the brain.

Lisa’s thoughts were distracted by something catching her eye. Lisa noticed a clipboard on the side of her bed and slowly approached it. There were papers with writing on them.

As she read through it, she realized that the writing contained her information, including a list of the injuries she had sustained from the accident..

Lisa’s eyes widened in horror as she read the list of everything that had happened to her…

First degree burns (left arm)..

Dislocated shoulder (right)..

Internal bleeding..

Fractured skull..

Broken ribs..

Punctured lung..

Puncture wound (left abdomen)..

Lisa had to stop reading and looked away. She felt sick. Hell, if she were actually conscious, she’d probably throw up.

Lisa couldn’t stay in this room anymore. Seeing her battered up, unconscious body was too distressing for her to see. She also wanted to find her family, they must definitely be very worried about her.

Speaking of her family, why weren’t they here? Did they not care about her enough to visit her- No, that’s ridiculous. She must have recently gotten out of surgery and the doctors didn’t want her family to see her just yet. Yes, that made the most sense. Why was her mind assuming the worst?

Lisa shook her head from the doubt and made it to the door in just a few strides.

She reached for the doorknob but stopped herself before she could grab it. Would she even be able to open it? Did she even need to? She was able to phase through her physical body, a door shouldn’t be any different.

Holding an unneeded breath, Lisa moved her arm slowly towards the door.. and her arm phased right through. Her mouth slightly opened in awe as she saw her hand go straight through the wooden barrier. It was something right out of a movie!

Lisa’s mind did not stay fixated on her “missing” forearm for long. She needed to get out of this room. Lisa braced herself for what was next and proceeded to cross the threshold.

Next thing Lisa knew, she was in a hallway, the hallway of a hospital. Lisa was able to recognize that she was in the ICU, or the Intensive Care Unit. She had been in the ICU several times in the past when her father got into more extreme situations. But she was never here for herself. The place looked empty.

“..Hello?..” she called out.

It was the first word she spoke out loud ever since she “woke up”. It felt strange to speak, it was like she had never spoken before. It was bizarre to feel her throat rumble and her tongue press into her teeth as the single word rolled out of her mouth. Lisa shook the thought away.

Wait, the word she spoke didn’t even sound like it echoed. Given the size of this hallway, Lisa’s voice should have echoed at least a bit, right?

Suddenly, the approaching, echoing sound of heels clacking on the floor caught Lisa’s ears. The girl snapped her head in the opposite direction of the hallway and saw a nurse walking towards her. A tiny splash a relief hit Lisa, she wasn’t completely alone.

Hating this feeling of loneliness, Lisa wanted to attempt to communicate with this nurse.

A part of her doubted that the nurse would even be able to see or hear her, given everything else that she had witnessed. But, it wouldn’t hurt to try.

“Umm…. Excuse me?…” Lisa called out as she walked towards the approaching woman, ignoring the strange rumbling feeling within her larynx as she spoke. A tiny twinge of hope swelled in her chest, hoping she could finally talk to someone.

However, much to her chagrin, the nurse made no response, as if she didn’t even see or hear her. Instead, the nurse walked right through Lisa and continued down the hallway.

The small amount of hope in Lisa’s chest immediately shattered. She knew it was a long shot, but physically confirming that she was completely invisible to the world around her made things worse. Well.. it was better than there being absolutely no one else in this world.

Lisa looked behind her to where the nurse continued to walk down the hallway. The nurse turned and opened to door to one of the many hospital rooms. Whether if it was Lisa’s room or someone else’s, the girl was not sure. Either way, she did not want to go back in there.

Lisa turned back to where she was facing the other side of the hallway, where the nurse came from. Her family must be that way. If not, well, then she will continue searching.

And so, the non-corporeal girl started to walk down the hallway that seemed to never end. Hoping to find her family.

And perhaps a way out of this lonely nightmare.