Upside Down

(34) Coincidence

Chapter 34

One Second : Good :: The Next : Bad

[Kriss]

"Please, just set your arm right there and this will only hurt for a moment." The nice doctor said with a crooked smile and deep calming voice. Normally doctors made Kriss feel uncomfortable like a ichy scratchy sweater that you desperately wanted to peel off. And you'd think one with wacked up teeth would be even creepier than normal but something about this man made her relaxed. His voice was very low and melodic with a slight ... british kind of accent to it. He said he was finished or something? What did that mean?

Kriss didn't truely understand but she liked it none the less. It was like Emerson, she didn't know why he was nice but it was better not to question it and just go along with it until it was gone.

"Ah, see, didn't hurt a bit did it?"

"Hm?" Kriss looked up and realized the doctor was done. He had done something with the pointy thing in his hand but she didn't care. She used to get those all the time but the strange thing was that when Dr. Jensen put that one pointy thing in it didn't seem to have anything in it and now it was full of red stuff. Blood?

How strange, she thought. Usually when 'she' came and saw Kriss and did that thing with the pointy stick it felt like syrup was ejected into her and made her feel slow and light headed with blurred vision.

"You seem very used to it, huh Kriss? Did you get a lot of blood taken when younger? Been around a lot of doctors, eh?" The doctor asked and Kriss tore her eyes off the bandage around her arm to the tall man at the counter.

"I don't know. I don't think so, the only doctors I know are Dr. Trodden and you," She answered, curious about what he was doing.

"Really?" He turned towards her with his brows furrowed. Had she said something wrong? "Then ... well your arm looks like it has had plenty of needles in it before and you seem real use to needles."

"Needles? Oh yeah, those things," Kriss shrugged, swinging her legs from over the counter top like a little girl. "'She' usually gave me stuff from those. It was gross and made me feel weird but she said it would help me get better ... It didn't though. She lied."

"Kriss, I'm afraid I don't understand." The doctor scratched his head trying to make sense of what the young girl was trying to say. "Please, explain to me who 'she' is and what she had done if you don't mind."

Kriss lifted her head once more and the doctor nearly fell over in shock from that desolate look in the young girl's eyes as if she was re-living the worst levels of hell over and over again in her mind like endless looping tapes behind her eyes.

"She gave it to everyone," Kriss shrugged as she turned her head back to her swinging feet. "saying it would help but after a while it would just get worse and worse until I couldn't even recognize them anymore. They all had succumbed to her poison."

WIth a worried expression about her sanity, Dr. Jensen pulled up a chair and sat by Kriss. "When you say they ... 'got worse until you didn't recognize them' what do you mean?"

"The new people," Kriss shrugged, looking down at the converse on her feet with untied shoelaces. "They came in and seemed normal, really nice actually but 'she' said they ... they had monsters too and she was trying to help them fix their problems. But they never were fixed and ended up mean. Even the worst one," Kriss shivered and drawed up her legs from hanging over the counter top to where she was clutching them aganist her chest. "Beast. That's what 'she' calls him, the Beast. And I remember when he first came in, years and years ago. He was much smaller than me but really nice. But he was too loud and got in fights with 'her' a lot. Then slowly he became more and more mean and he grew bigger and bigger until he couldn't even fit his room. They had to get a new, enormous one with thick concrete walls but even through those you could still hear his screams, his howls."

Dr. Jensen looked at the girl in shock remembering that not twenty minutes ago the girl had been giggling and laughing and smiling around the two boys. She had seemed so happy and bubbly like his sister's daughter who was one of the most adorable girls he had ever seen and he protected with his life. Who would have thought that all these dark memories haunted this young beautiful soul?

Thinking back, Dr. Jensen got really worried.

This could not be a coinicidence.