The Doctor

Chapter 7

That night when Albina fell asleep, a nightmare came to her. It was a dream that would haunt her for the rest of her life and never fade away. Nothing on Earth would be able to heal her from it – not even therapy. Sometimes, the mind can be healed of such nightmares but some are incurable. The dream had no clear interpretation or meaning which magnified its haunting nature...

...The sky was navy blue and there were shining stars; but instead of a moon, in it's place was planet Earth – it was ten times the size of the moon! Monstrous, snow-capped, vegetated, chocolate-brown mountains stood under the Earth and they showed their lofty power while standing proudly, in front of Albina. Albina tried to walk toward the mountains until she realized that shining, metal chains were cuffed on her wrists and the five-yard-long chains were attached to a SUV-sized boulder. The meadow in front of her was not made out of grass, but of black and white tiles arranged in a zig-zag pattern. The chains were long enough to let her see what was behind the boulder; there was another meadow, but it was made out of dying, brown grass. On the sun-dried meadow were countless, drooping, strangled, trampled flowers; but there were some strangled, trampled flowers that survived and stood tall. There were also some flowers that had been cut off their stems and were covered in fresh blood. It was supposed to be cold at this time of the night but this environment seemed to have no temperatures – it wasn't cold, nor was it hot, nor was it warm.

Suddenly, from behind the boulder, Dr. Smok appeared and stood there silently with his arms crossed behind his back. His now-gray hair was dancing in the night breeze and his skin was as white as paper. His white suit was still stained with blood and pus but he didn't seem to care. Despite his glasses, left cheek, left jawbone, neck and chest being covered in frost, he wasn't showing any sigh of suffering from frostbite. Behind, his back he was holing bleeding flowers in one hand and a knife with fresh and dry blood stains in the other.

"Time goes by quickly doesn't it?" questioned Smok in accented, hoarse voice "Because there won't be much time for you to escape your fate. You will try to escape but you won't have much wit, hope or strength left. I loathe you enough to destroy you and erase the memory of you. Who will remember you? You deserve this."

At first, Albina thought that Smok was talking to her but then he dropped the flowers and ran toward the mountains. The girl did not know why but she knew that Smok was going to start something bad. Albina struggled against the chains but they wouldn't break – they were made of steel! Of course. Smok was running the speed of an Olympic athlete and when he reached the mountains, he climbed as if he had many years of experience. Meanwhile, the chained teen was close to the boulder and digging the ground with her bare hands; but unfortunately, with every clump of dirt she dug out, the chains were getting pulled back into the boulder by an inch. The doctor had already finished a quarter of a journey to the top of the mountain but suddenly, a rock that he was holding on to, broke away, causing the man to slip.

He held on to another rock with one hand but then it also broke away, causing him to fall but as he fell, he stabbed a knife into the mountain and started climbing again. Half of the chains were pulled into the boulder but Albina kept digging into the dirt. There in the hole, she saw it – a stone the size of a basketball! Albina tried to pick it up from the hole, but the chains were holding her wrists back. She looked up at the mountains – Smok was less than halfway up the mountain! Albina sat on the ground, put both of her legs in the hole and reached for the stone with both feet. In one try, she extracted the stone from the hole, tossed it on the ground, and picked it up. The stone was heavy so she threw it at the boulder and it split in half! Smok's progress has rapidly succeeded, he slipped again, saved himself again and started climbing again. Despite all the mounting, slipping and falling, he did not seem to be exhausted at all. Albina picked up the split rock, put part of her chain against the boulder and started hitting the chains. After what seemed to be five minutes, the chain finally broke, leaving the cuff still locked in the girl's wrist. Rapidly, she started hitting the other chain with much harder force than the last one.