Stained White

Chapter 1: Confusion

Dedicated to Ada for continuing to read all my stories!

A shuffling noise stirred her from her sleep. It was back. She snapped her eyes open. Massive amounts of white assaulted her eyes, no dark shadow chasing her to be seen. She squeezed them back shut and turned her head into the pillow.

“She’s waking!” A voice called from above.

She opened her mouth to say. Well I am now, but no sound emerged. She allowed her eyelids to crack open allowing more colours than just white to enter. A figure came into view; a large chubby face creeping closer.

Two eyes, small nose between a pair of bulging cheeks on a flat face with lips squeezed together so tight they were almost white.

With a gasp of shock, her instincts kicked in. Human! I have to escape. She struggled against the blanket imprisoning her, she needed to spin, put her paws underneath, tuck tail and run.

The chubby orderly placed a clammy white hand on her as she struggled and shoved her back. “We’re not going to hurt you,” she said in her raspy wheezy voice.

Ha! She’s human. They cannot be trusted. She struggled harder but the orderly held her down with little effort. She had no chance against that amount of flesh.

A fuzzy haired man appeared beside the orderly. “Calm down, you were in a bus accident.” His white teeth flashed as he spoke.

Her eyes widened. “Oh hell no, I’m not staying here. Not with those square teeth!” She moved to snarl and bite but then paused. Something was wrong. She was wrong. She pulled a leg out from underneath the blanket. No, she was mistaken. It was an arm with a hand on the end.

She stopped struggling as she wiggled her fingers with a frown.

“Miss, do you understand me?”

She looked to the man in a woollen top. He stared back at her with his light green eyes. She scrunched her nose up ready to lift her lip and growl at him. How dare he stare at me! Her thoughts flitted back to her main problem. She was human! What is going on?

“Miss, what’s your name?”

A name? The chubby women’s fingers moved from their position on her shoulder. Did I have a name? Yes, I should have. Everyone has a name. Where did mine go?

“Are you okay?” The doctor said.

She shook her head and lifted both of her hands, stretching out her fingers and examining the lines upon her palms as if she had never seen them before. She turned them around to show the watching humans. “Where are my paws?”

After listening to her rambling about being a dog, running from the darkness that put her in this hospital the woollen jumper wearing doctor still wasn’t convinced and eyed her with concern.

She raised her lip. The humans were too stupid to believe her.

“How can you speak to us then? If you are a wild dog, how do you know how to use your new body?”

She was unable to answer him. Instead she looked down at her young women’s figure dressed in a hospital gown.

“I presume you would be on all fours chasing your tail.”

Her eyes snapped back to him. “I am an African Wild Dog, not some domestic roll over on your back pussy dog that chases their tail!”

The doctor bit his bottom lip. She crossed her arms over her chest and didn’t bother trying to hide the smug smile she felt creeping across her lips. I win that round!

“The mind is a funny thing, it can play tricks. You went through a terrible ordeal. The bus you were travelling on rolled. Many died. You’re one of the survivors. A bump to your head must have caused your memory loss. What memory you think you have is a nightmare. A scenic your mind has constructed to protect itself.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure, you know it all Mr Woolly.”

“My name is Dr Plant.”

She gave him her best blank stare and blinked once. “Okay ‘Dr’ Woolly.”

He sighed. “The fact that you are using all these terms, you know what a domesticated dog is and my jumper is woollen tells me you have your life experiences intact. And they are human. You’re not a dog.”

The conversation with Dr Woolly echoed around her head as she walked around the hospital room. On two legs! The overweight orderly watched her with narrowed eyes but trusted her enough to allow her to walk into the small bathroom she found in the corner of the room. Inside she found a small shower with chrome railings running around the walls and a small sink. She took a deep breath. It was so small, suffocating in the small space came to mind as she stepped in to escape the chunky orderly’s watchful gaze.

Movement caught her eye. A mirror. She gasped at her reflection. Even she had to admit it was strange for a human.

Straight black shoulder length hair with gold highlights framed her face. She leaned in closer, examining her small dark eyes and her own small nose on a flat face then bared her rectangle teeth. Was Woolly right? Was it a nightmare I imagined? It seemed so real.

She ran her finger over her skin. It was what set her apart from all the other humans she had spotted in the white building. Blotchy skin. Not the red sweaty skin that the orderly wore. Hers was black brown with splashes of white.

What am I? She thought searching her knowledge for an answer. A mixture of different cultures? She ran her index finger over the white stain on her forearm.

I’m stained white.