The Heroes We Weren't

Chapter 11 - The One Who Knew

Hope.

Her name was Hope.

The little girl I had spoken to in the other world did not wake. We had adjusted the needle to her IV, adjusted her body to the mattress, and yet she did not wake. Even though I had (to Mister Johnson's disappointment) woken up last night, she was still wandering aimlessly in the land of the dreams.

As I had finally gotten away from the other nurse, I had pushed the door open to the room of the archives; pulling each drawer out, blindly sorting through the many folders - on the hunt for evidence, on the lookout for unwanted condolences.

For every drawer that I opened, the rusty metal cabinets gave out their small but revealing screeches; letting their true owners in on the impostor. My heart beat faster for each mistake; my neck ached from every turn I made - to gaze back at the still untouched door. I should have thought of a plan of what to say, were someone to find me with my hands on these folders; yet I was but a rat stealing cheese with no plan of how to avert the actual trap.

I had browsed through the many folders quickly, as if their content never mattered, allowing my fingers to dance over their edges - not wanting to spend another second away from Lizzy's records (or the lack of them, so I hoped).

But then I stopped at the unexpected, my index finger in between two folders, my gaze stuck at the name of someone I had just met.

Fisher, Hope (2005-03-15)
Chavez Hospital, Room 7

It wasn't right; Reading a stranger's files, it wasn't right. Yet learning about her condition would of only helped, were I to meet her again. If she was unable to leave the dream world, we would for certain come to cross ways soon and ignoring her once had been quite the challenge - so the thought of a second, third or even tenth time was unbearable.

I snuck another peek over my shoulder, I had to read into it, I had to find her again and help her. I slipped the folder open.

Dates unchanged, notes in lack of actual progress. Same checkup, same routines, yet no change to her sleeping character.

Despair was to hopelessness as Hope was to a coma.

Coma, her files read.

One month and one week to be exact.

For so long had the little girl been stuck in a world which I, every night, could not wait to escape. I had been hoping for a clear diagnosis but no matter how many pages I browsed through, there was none.

Cause unknown. Tests had been run, many of them and at one instance someone had doodled down hints such as 'Thebaine', 'Codeine' and 'Noscapine'. A language I knew nothing of, but assumed to be medication.

I sighed, placed the folder back into the drawer and continued my browsing. I would figure it out eventually - how to save her, how to wake her - but for the time being I had to focus on the sole reason I had come there.

I stopped, swallowed and gazed down at the folder of my now stolen hopes (of never having to find the records that I had come for).

Stephens, Lizette.

I caressed the label with my thumb, causing the paper to cut through my skin.

'My name is Lizette', she had said, that July morning at a bus stop in between our cities, 'I never really liked it though. Call me Lizzy.' Raindrops. The rain had since long flooded our shoes; the smoke from her cigarette had continuously caused me to cough - my breaths mixing with her giggles.

This was it. Truth or dare. Truth to be told, I didn't quite dare to open the folder, but I knew I had to. For her, to prove her alive, to find her again. I held my breath. One. Pages of earlier medical histories. Two. Earlier visits, none that mattered now. Three.