Mindless

chapter 2

Second Chapter

  When I woke up in the hospital it was the glorious coming to you see in movies. No I didn’t just rub my eyes and notice my friends sitting around. The florescent light hit my eyes like laser beams. Just as I shock the orbs away from my vision all the pain I had felt the night before came back to me. It had been more numbed down but it wasn’t gone. I didn’t even have time to focus on where the source of the hurting was coming from before I started to get overly dizzy. The light spots came back strong and my Equal Librium was completely thrown off. Nausea hit me lit a truck. I dragged my already fragile body out of the bed only to discover my right leg; the one that had been shot wasn’t going to support keeping me on my feet. Still determined not to throw up on the floor I started to drag myself to the washroom.

 Within the whole struggle I managed to rip out my I.V needles.  I don’t really remember how I got to the toilet after falling out of the bed. I had somehow pulled my bandages on my left arm off my shoulder. As I let all the nauseous feeling out of my stomach, my throat burned like fire. I must have been there hacking up my feeling for a whole six minutes before my organs were too tired to even feel sick. Exhausted I slumped my back against the wall. My breathing was shattered and my eyes were wide searching for dizziness orbs.  It felt like a decade before the nurse found me. She was young, maybe twenty three or something. But she was short too.

  I expect her to scream or panic. But all she did was roll her eyes and cross her arms. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” She asked. Before I could respond she turned on her heels. Her mustard blond curls bounced on her shoulders as she vanished from the door frame. Only a minute later she came back with to male nurses. The female nurse pointed over to me when they all were standing in the doorframe again.  Both the male nurses nodded before pushing past the lady. Even though they both were tough looking and muscular, they lifted me as if I was baby bird fallen from its nest.

 Limply I hung from the men’s arms as they walked back towards my bed. Carefully the replaced me in my tilted upright bed.  The pillows that were supporting my back felt like cardboard boxes. They were much more comfortable then the wall had been though. I became completely oblivious to my surrounding as the nurse started to play with the I.V needles again. They were still working on me when I blacked out again.

 The next time I woke up, I was much more coordinated.  Attempting to lift my left arm to rub my sore eyes I noticed my wrists were strapped down to the bed. “Seriously?” I muttered under my breath, rolling my eyes in the back of head. Tilting my head back slowly I realized how stiff my neck muscles were. I just let myself assume that the rest of my muscles that weren’t ripped apart were just a stiff.  Being I was tied down I couldn’t see if that theory was true. I hated how they felt the need to tie me down. I had run away from people who thought I was crazy, only to run into more. The florescent light on the ceiling was beaming like the sun attracting the one and only fly that existed in the room.  I wasn’t in a private room but there wasn’t another patient in my room. The green curtain that separated the room was swaying back and forth as the air conditioning blew through the vent below it.

  My eyes were glazing over as I stared at the ceiling. “Oh you’re awake again.” The mustard blond nurse’s voice broke my trance. My neck snapped upright so I could see her. She was right in front of my bed holding the little erasable white board that hung from the foot of the bed.  “How do you feel?” She asked as she changed the date at the top of the board.

 “Sore and my wounds are burning.” I explained as I watched place the lid back on top of the pen.

 “Are you in the mood to get out of bed and lay dying on the floor again?” She asked as she glided over to my I.V bags. 

 “No.” I answered quietly. She quickly changed the bags to fresh ones. Then she started to undo the straps around my wrists and ankles. My jaw dropped. Was she going against the hospital rules to free me? And if she was why would she do that?

 “Don’t worry.” She hummed as my left wrist fell free. “We have to do this to some of the patients that come out of the surgery suite.”

 “The surgery suite?” I question wonder why I had been in there in the first place.

 “Did you think we left that bullet in your leg?” She questioned but continued her statement before I could answer. “You woke up well you were still partly under the anesthesia and we were afraid you’d rip out your needles again before I completely wore off.” I let out a heavy sigh of relief. At least they didn’t think I was insane.  “If you need anything else, my name’s Carmen.” She said before leaving the room. 

  I saw Carmen a few more times that day to routinely check up on me. But other than that no one else came in the room. The name they had written on the white board was the same one I had given the innkeeper at the super 8.  Clair Paige was the name. Along with the name was the date July 12th. I had been out for a day since the attack. But by the looks of it no one had informed the press that I was wake yet. It wasn’t until after a nurse until after a nurse named Jody had brought me my evening meal that anything interesting happened. 

 I was pushing around a soggy pile of green peas I heard little footsteps come in through my door.  Just assuming that it was a nurse I didn’t lift my eyes right away. But the footsteps only came half way into the room before stopping. I waited for a few second for the sound to keep moving but it never did. Reluctantly I lifted my eyes toward the area were the noised had disappeared. Instead of a nurse there was a little who looked to be no older than eight years old. She was playing with the end of long dusty black hair that was tied in a loose braid that hung over her shoulder.  Something about her was oddly familiar. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

 “Are you lost little girl?” I asked as she glanced around the room. She shook her head, her icy blue gaze wandering around the room. She skipped over to my bed side her wedged shoes tapping against the plastic floor.

 “I came to see you.” She sang once she was only an inch away from me.

 “You must think I’m someone else.” I stated watched the girl swing back and forth on her feet.

 “No, I was looking for you.” She giggled. “You Miss. Florence aren’t you?” Her smiled had faded as if she was scared she had been mistaken.  But when she hummed my last name I felt my blood freeze.

 “How did you know my name?” I murmured as my eyes widened.  The little girl let a sinister grin cross her face.

 “Good, it is you.” She stated and went back to happily rocking on her heels. Slowly she reached out and took a hold of my left arm. “He found you.” She whispered as she traced my forearm with her fingers.

 “Who found me?”  I asked yanking my bandages out of her stout little hands.

 “I was told he might find you.” The little girl whimpered ignoring my input.  “He did and now you’re here.”

 “Who are you talking about?” I growled, wondering how in the world this little girl knew about my attacker.

 “I just came to see if you were ok.” She purred as she skipped to the door. But as she came to be only a foot away from it she stopped. Her shadow growing as the light from the hallway hit her. “You have two choices now Jenna.” She stated her voice sounding less like a little girl and more like a robots. “You can accept the demons around you.” She turned she head away from me and slowly started to walk again. “Or you can go back to your foster home.”  Then she vanished, leaving no evidence she even existed. Gone without a trace. My peas were more than just soggy when I finished contemplating the little girl’s visit.  Everything she had said had been a puzzle in itself. Every word twisted with a deeper meaning I couldn’t come to grasp.  She had given me choices that were impossible to make. A choice I had been pondering over for some time. Now it seemed she had made it more of a life or death decision. Only I didn’t know which life was and which death was. 

 I sat in the room focus on the girl’s word for the rest of the night. But it wasn’t until after I closed my eyes that I realized that maybe, just maybe. She wasn’t a little girl at all.