Aislin Asleep- A Sleeping Beauty Retelling

Prologue

Prologue

Olivia peered down at her baby, the sounds of laughter and talking surrounding her. With a satisfied sigh, she left the cradle to enjoy her baby shower. It seemed like her and her husband’s apartment had stretched to accustom so many guests. People from all around came to celebrate Olivia and her ten month old baby, Aislin. Olivia had spent hours decorating the apartment with pink and yellow balloons, making cakes and cookies and drinks, and picking out an outfit. Meanwhile, Richard, her husband, had played with baby Aislin on the floor. Olivia had chided him for not helping her, as she was standing on the tallest chair on the house and still couldn’t reach the ceiling due to her height- or lack thereof. Richard then rushed to help him- he loved Olivia more than anything but she could be ferocious when angry.

Olivia joined her husband and his friends, finally relaxing for the first time in months. Aislin was definitely a handful, and that combined with the head-in-the-clouds tendency of her husband, she hardly got a moment of spare time. All of the guests were in deep conversation, when suddenly there was a knock on the door. The guests ignored it, thinking it was just another guest, but Olivia glanced worriedly at Richard. Everyone who had been invited came.

“Excuse me,” Olivia said to her friends, smiling. Her and Richard walked to the door slowly, not sure of who was behind it. It was Dr. Aris, the doctor Olivia had stopped going to for pregnancy and baby check-ups because Aislin couldn’t stop crying around her.

“Dr. Aris!” Richard stuttered. “What a- a pleasant surprise!”

Dr. Aris smiled coldly. “Is that so, Richard?”

Olivia gulped nervously.

“Why wasn’t I invited?” Aris boomed, and the apartment fell silent.

Richard glanced at Olivia nervously. “Wh-what are you talking about, Aris? Of course we inv- invited you…”

It was clear that Aris wasn’t buying it. She glared at Olivia and Richard. “I have a gift!” she suddenly announced. “It’s for the baby.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Olivia exclaimed nervously. “Here, I’ll just put it on the present table-”

“No.” Aris said coldly. “I will give it her myself.

Aris pushed through the startled crowd to Aislin’s cradle. Aislin, recognizing her, burst into tears.

“Stupid child,” Aris muttered. She took a syringe out of her pocket, and everyone gasped. Olivia, who had been standing behind Aris nervously, screamed and tried to knock the syringe out of Aris’s hand. But it was too late. Aris had already injected whatever had been in that wretched syringe into Aislin’s fragile arm. Aislin kept on wailing as if nothing had happened. The guests, in shock, stood still as Aris pushed her way through them. Olivia, who had been watching with her mouth wide open, pushed after Aris, screaming, “Stop right there, you-” The door slammed in her face. Olivia opened it, to try and catch Aris, but she was gone.

Soon after, Olivia and Richard took Aislin to the hospital. Their eyes were red, and Aislin was cradled against Olivia’s chest. So far nothing had happened to Aislin, but that didn’t stop Olivia from bursting into tears every other second. Olivia had called the doctor they had switched to, Dr. Edmonds, but she was too teary to say anything besides “Help,”, so Dr. Edmonds decided that they should come to the hospital. The second Dr. Edmonds opened the door, Richard and Olivia burst into tears. Dr. Edmonds watched, open mouthed, as the two most stable people he had ever known broke down right in front of him.

“Olivia, Richard... perhaps you want to come in and explain to me the problem.” Olivia, her face covered with tears and her eyes red, passed the baby cradle to him and looked away. Dr. Edmonds looked down into the baby’s cradle, expecting to see the bloody remains of a baby, but a perfectly healthy- looking girl with big green eyes looked up at him curiously.

“Olivia, Richard, come in and explain to me what is wrong with your baby!”  After telling the whole story to Dr. Edmonds twice, he motioned for them to stop. “Alright, but she looks perfectly healthy to me. I did a check-up a week ago, are you sure that you want me to do another one?” Olivia and Richard nodded.

A minute later, Dr. Edmonds was tired and impatient. He was sure that Aris had been trying to scare Olivia and Richard, and there was nothing in that silly syringe after all. Thirty minutes after that, all test were still coming up negative. As Richard and Olivia watched, wide-eyed, he checked young Aislin as she looked up at him with her curious eyes. Finally, he threw his hands up in the air in disgust. “There is nothing wrong with her, Olivia! She’s a perfectly normal baby! Aris just wanted to scare you, probably.”

“Just find out what whatever was in that shot is doing in Aislin’s body. Please.” Richard begged.

Dr. Edmonds sighed. “Oh, alright!”

Blood test, body scans, temperatures, data… nothing. There were two options, it could have gone straight to the brain, or there could have been nothing in there at all.

Dr. Edmonds decided to scan the brain. He was no neurologist, but if something was wrong up there, he would know, because he had done a brain scan last week.

After putting the results in the computer, Dr. Edmonds realized something was amiss. Aislin’s hypocretin levels were much lower than they had been a week before, and the chemical makeup seemed to have been altered.

“What..?” Dr. Edmonds whispered, staring at the results on the computer. Dr. Edmonds clicked to zoom in. “Oh my…”

-     -     -

“What?!” Olivia shrieked. “She gave Aislin a new kind of narcolepsy?! How is that even possible?!”

“So here’s the deal. According to what I found, Aris managed to change the chemical makeup and amount of hypocretin in Aislin’s brain. Normally, reduced amount of hypocretin would mean normal narcolepsy. I’m not sure exactly what Aris did, but according to my prediction, she won’t have narcolepsy, but if she’s punctured by a sharp object, she’ll, well...” Dr. Edmonds finished weakly.  Olivia fainted, and Richard nearly did. “How sharp?” He managed to say.  

“Only sharp enough to puncture the skin.” Dr. Edmonds replied.                                                               “So, like Sleeping Beauty?” Richard said, and laughed weakly.                     

“Well, yes.” Said Doctor Edmonds very seriously. “Except that there will be no way to awaken her.”

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A/N:

Hey guys! Thanks so much for reading. I've already finished the book, so I'm just editing. The rest of the book is probably already up- depending on my future self... (Mysterious) Thank you so much for reading- I hope you like the rest of the book! I probably won't have an author's note every paragraph though.. but message me if you like!

Just Keep Swimming,

Nat xx