One Night at Freddy's

She Will Live

Mike's POV

". . . fractured right arm . . . a couple of bruised ribs . . . a broken rib . . . small puncture in the left lung . . . several deep gashes in her limbs. We found some odd chips of metal that contained some wiring inside of each of her cuts, and we were able to remove all but the one in her neck, which is too close to a major artery in order to retrieve it. Her body should be able to heal around it," I repeated what the doctor, Dr. Cole I think, had said about Katrina's injuries in my head. I sat in a blue plastic chair and held my head in my hands with my elbows digging into my thighs. I groaned. 'Why didn't I make her walk home?' I thought, 'That would have only made her feet sore, and she wouldn't have to go through this.'

A lady stumbled into the waiting room. She wore a white wrinkled button down that had a large dark brown stain running down most of front. One side of her shirt was tucked into her black pants and the other side hung out over her hip. Her face was tinted pink and her mouth hung open. Her wispy red hair looked like it was once in a bun that wasn't touched after three days and nights.

"She's . . . Okay!" The woman hiccuped, "Heh, I knew I didn't have to worry about her!" Her words were slurred, almost beyond recognition.

The drunken woman stumbled further into the room, but her legs crossed in front of each other and she fell right on her face in front of me. I sighed and pulled her up, by the arm, to her unstable feet.

"Thanks," she hiccuped again and turned and plopped into the plastic chair next to mine with a smack.

"No problem," I replied and sat back down.

The woman reeked of whiskey. I was pretty sure the large stain on her shirt was half the contents of the bottle that she had produced out of her purse.

"Want some?" she asked shoving the bottle under my nose. I turned my head when the strong scent reached my nose.

"N-no, thanks," I covered my nose and I would have scooted to another seat, but I knew how offended-and angry-drunk people could get. I remembered what one of my best friends, Jeremy, had said to me when he was drunk and I told him didn't like how he smelled.

"Aww-" the woman paused and hiccuped, "Come now, you've got to try this stuff! I spent most of my daughter's money on this~," she sung.

I looked straight at her, disgusted, and said, "You'd take your own child's money and use it so you could buy liquor?!"

The woman pouted and whined, "Well . . . yeah, it's not like it's bad or anything. Right?"

"You're sick," I muttered and finally gave in to my urge to move across the room.

"Hey~! Wait up~!" the drunk got up and tried to run across the waiting room. Her feet tangled together again and she fell.

"Tch," I blew threw my teeth, threw a disgusted face at her and sat in an orange plastic chair, leaving the woman with a fierce blush as everyone in the waiting room was staring at her now.

Not long after I sat, I forgot about the irritating woman and Katrina, and I fell asleep.

•*•*•

"Hey," a voice said, "Hey!"

I blinked. 'Why am I not in my bed?' I asked myself. A female face was in front of me. She smiled. I reached up to rub my eyes. I rolled my neck to get rid of the crick in it.

"Wh-who are you?" I asked groggily. The woman sighed, leaned back, and moved into the seat next to mine.

"Well, at least you don't recognize me," she laughed, "That was a pretty bad second impression, huh, Mike."

I looked at her and tried to remember where I'd seen her messy, wispy, red hair. I remembered a drunken lady who stumbled and fell twice on her face in the middle of the hospital waiting room. I felt my face morph into disgust at the woman who disrespected her own children like that.

"What do you not recognize me? I'm Janet Carter," suddenly the her voice sounded so nasal and annoying to me.

"Hm," I grunted.

"Did I do something?" Janet asked, noticing the venom in my voice.

"You get all drunk and say that you take your daughter's money just to get drunk, then you sober up and you're all proper? No. Just. Just don't."

Janet pouted and I noticed she had put a pink sweater on over her stained shirt.

"So?" she asked.

"What?" I asked, surprised by how little she cares about something important.

She looked intently at me and narrowed her eyes, "Why are you even here?"

"I'm, um, here to see if Katrina's okay," I scratched my head.

"Okay," Janet said and looked forward, "She almost died you know."

I blanched, "Yeah."

"It's your fault."

I turned abruptly. "What? You're the one that sent her to my job in the first place. And you're old enough to know what happened there."

"You didn't warn her, and she went there, twice. I didn't even know where she was this time," Katrina's mother's voice trembled.

"I'm sick of you," I moved across the room, yet again.

"Katrina is able to take visitors again," a doctor dressed in green scrubs said, his gloved hands holding a clipboard piled with forms.

I launched out of my seat and headed to the door and into the bright, disinfected hallway. I worried Katrina would fall unconscious after seeing another one of us, like she did when she saw Alice. Just outside of the room she laid in, I stopped. Katrina's mother and Alice whisked by, neither gave the slightest glance to me. I sighed and leaned against the wall. 'She won't die,' I reassured myself, 'I won't have to live with this guilt forever.'

I pushed myself from the wall and entered the room, a small smile on my lips. 'She will live.'