The Doctor

Chapter 1

The moon was a perfect, shining pearl and it made the stars look gloomier than they really were; the dark forest was dense with all types of trees that were thick with leaves of all kinds of colors and it was an icy, cold night. Some leaves were flying in the air, many lay dead on the ground while some leaves were lucky to still be on tree branches. In the woods, a shivering, silhouetted figure was striding along and wandering almost aimlessly. Albina Ratownik naturally had white blond hair, violet eyes and ivory-colored skin. She was seventeen years old. In 1998, when Albina was five years old, she and her family had emigrated from Poland to the United States for a promise of a better life. There weren't any problems in her homeland: Communism had left her country almost two decades ago, there was not much poverty around, the food supply was adequate and the government had its ups and downs as usual. So why did they leave? Someone had told them that it would be better to live in the U.S.A. rather than in Poland.

Whether it was better in Poland or America, the girl would never find out. Albina could speak Polish like her family could but she was more fluent in English than in her mother tongue. By the age of ten, Albina could speak perfect English and by the age of twelve, she found herself thinking thoughts in this new language rather than in her native language. Albina had not completely ignored her inborn lingo; at home, she would translate letters and documents that her parents received from the mail and sometimes she would read Polish novels and watch Polish films, movies and documentaries.

Albina was your typical high school freshman with many friends and solely got A's and B's on her report cards however, no matter how many good grades she got, her parents would never be impressed with her. Teachers would be awestruck with her high scores whereas her parents would murmur "you should have gotten a better grade"; Everyone thought that she was intelligent while her parents belittled her and called her dull and dim-witted; Many people said that her drawings were masterworks while Mrs. and Mr. Ratownik would crumple them up and call them "nothing more than pieces of rubbish!". Mr. and Mrs. Ratownik however, would not physically mistreat their daughter for their fear of losing their reputation as "generous and kindhearted" individuals who help out ailing animals and run fundraisers for charities.

Even though Albina fantasized and dreamed of running away from home, she had no idea how she got into this forest; all she knew was that it was cold outside and she wanted to go somewhere warm. So many questions were popping up in Albina's mind. How long had she been walking through this place? What time was it? Was she alone? Did her parents know that she was missing? Did they even care? Even though Albina had no heart to go back home she had to return to the Ratowniks; she had nowhere else to go. But still, the girl had enough of those woeful arguments that ended in the shattering of glasses, cursing and sleepless nights. Those of quarrels of why she couldn't do anything right, how her "perfect" sister Adriana is a better daughter than Albina Ratownik is and of how it's all her fault that her parents had arguments between each other. All of that poppycock had shattered all of Albina's love for her family and left her to be a miserable soul. Let's face it; her family was "blameless", "considerate" and "never wrong"....they wish.

Adriana made it worse. Behind those sparkling, ocean blue eyes were fires of deceit and under that dyed platinum blonde hair was a mind producing cunning schemes. The witch of a sister had been lying to her parents that Albina was not doing the dishes or shredding some important documents and Adriana scattered shredded homework reports to "prove" it. She even lied to her sister's boyfriend that she was cheating on him by flirting with his friends and turned half of Albina's friends against her by spreading rumors about her daily use of Marlboro and Scotch brandy. The troublemaker would always lay back and smile at her sister's hellish moments of life; she even tantalized and taunted Albina after the deeds were accomplished. Life sucked but there was no other choice but to live with the monsters that haunted her every day.

Wait! Maybe she had a cell phone! Trembling, she reached into the pocket of her white skinny jeans and felt something cold, rectangular and metallic. Hope rushed into Albina like a flash flood until disappointment replaced it when she saw a message flash on the screen to inform her that the cell phone was out of battery. The phone's screen turned black with "buffering" symbol and then it turned off.

"Pięknie! Bardzo pięknie!" the teenager screamed. She flung the delicate cell phone at a thick tree until it smashed into two pieces and bits of glass from the screen flew at all directions. Fear accompanied rage and disappointment when Albina found out that her only way of communication with anyone was gone. No functioning cell phone. No power. No Internet. No sign of a living soul in the forest. Nothing. She was on her own. She rummaged through all her pockets to see if there was anything else she had, perhaps something more useful than a cell phone with a dead battery. After searching her pockets, all she found were a long strand of polyester string, a sky-blue scissor blade, a couple pebbles, a hairpin and a match. One match. Albina would have to choose a wise time to use it, meanwhile, now was the time to look for shelter.