Legacy's Ghost

Episode 26: Hospital Revelations

It's the head-to-toe throbbing that wakes me.

Like I've fallen asleep in Cook's walk-in freezer and now my body's stuck to the floor, on the brink of hyperthermia.

My muscles hurt like I've climbed the highest treeouse in the colony five times with a bag full of rocks on my back.

My mouth tastes of rotten meat, and the scent of cooked steak still lingers mixed with antiseptic.

I fist my fingers to see if they work. They curl around smooth sheets.

Light makes my eyelids glow, which means it's either daylight or I'm in a lit room.

Beeping sounds to my right near my head, and mumbled voices are in the distance.

I crack on eye open, lifting it enough to see under my eyelashes without alerting anyone I'm awake.

I'm in a hospital room. But not like the clinic at the monastery where they have two beds and no privacy. I open my eyes wider. I have a private room. It's empty aside from me.

Fully awake now, I try to push up slightly, but my muscles are too weak, like they've somehow used up all their energy. I drop back onto my bed and shift my head to get a better view of everything around me.

There's a tube filled with liquid attached to my arm, draining from a bag hanging from a metal hook by my head. A couple of wires are attached to my heart and ribs. Those wires lead to the beeping machine next to the hook.

I lift my hand and my eyes bulge.

Where my skin used to be white with zero pigment, it now has blue lightning-like bolts forking up my arms, down my hands, to the tips of my fingers. I yank the hospital gown to the side, exposing my stomach. More cobalt blue lightning covers my ribs and stomach and legs like jagged veins inked onto a zombie corps' body.

My heart hammers in my chest, and my hands shake. What happened to me?

I notice the fist-size scar on my ribs, and lean closer, squinting to examine it further. It's a deep purplish-black, with fresh tissue puckered over the place where the gaping hole had been in the cavern.

There's no stitch-marks from an operation. It doesn't look like they grafted new skin to cover the hole. It's like new skin grew over the hole and hasn't finished growing yet.

I run the tip of my blue-lightning veined finger over the top of the scarred tissue. It feels as if every nerve ending on the purplish scar is amplified fifty times more than the rest of my skin.

I check my leg, my hip and my shoulder. Similar scars. No bandages.

How long have I been in the hospital healing?

The hospital door creaks when it opens and I yank down my gown, pull up my blankets to my chin, and look up.

A nurse with blond hair streaked with gray, and wearing pale blue scrubs, walks in and pauses when she sees me. Her eyes widen and her breath stilts. "Oh. You're up."

She forces a smile and continues to the computer attached to the wall. "I'm going to take your vitals then I'll have the doctor come in and talk to you."

I nod, letting my eyes track her movements. Is she here to hurt me like Rigel and the others? Or is she here to help me like the Ghost and Edmond?

"Where is the Ghost?" I ask her when she checks my blood pressure. Her brows furrow and she presses a button, making the cuff around my arm squeeze me painfully.

She writes down some numbers and glances at me before she returns to the tap-tap-tapping of her keyboard. "Huh? Oh. The Ghost. He dropped you off, was treated for his burns, and then left this morning."

"How long have I been here?"

Her fingers pause. "Uh. . . two days, I think." She points to the front door and scurries toward the exit. "I'm going to call the doctor and have him talk to you."

Then she turns the knob and practically runs out the door.

I silently add her to the the 'scared of me' category. And I wait for the doctor to arrive and tell me what is going on.