Violet

Chapter 17: Spiders

The ride to the hospital was more alarming than the accident itself; with each knock that the ambulance made, for each bump that we hit on the road, my nervousness rose. I moaned as the medical caretakers inside attached things to me. "Where does it hurt, Violet?" she asked, shining a little flashlight in my eye. I couldn't talk yet, though I heard another medical caretaker say that my parents said it was my stomach. "We're nearly there, Violet. Just relax. Everything's going to be fine," the medical caretaker said, gazing at me. I could barely keep my eyes open. The pain was just too much.

Doctor Sean entered the ward. In any other clothes, he would appear too young for the job, in board shorts and an old T-shirt, he could be a surf-bum. At the end of my bed, he paused to check the chart. A wide grin spread across his face as he greeted me like an older brother might. I thought, can he please give me painkillers or something? There's no time for smiling!

He sat the chart down and called two nurses for assistance. One lifted my shirt up gently and all three stared at my stitches. "The father and mother said they were unaware of this," Doctor Sean said. "Let's check it out." They numbed the area around my stomach, and after that, Doctor Sean grabbed a scalpel. He was about to cut into my skin, but suddenly, he stopped and removed his mask.

"What the-" I faintly heard him say. He needed to draw the light nearer to look at my stomach. I wanted to look, too, but I couldn't. Be that as it was, I could see something in the reflection of the lamp. I felt something tickle my stomach, and one of the attendants turned away. I wanted to ask what was going on, but I was still in a lot of pain, so I just groaned. The specialist took a look at me and attempted to give me his best grin, however, he failed. I knew something wasn't right.

"There's two more coming!" one nurse shouted. I felt something tickle me some more. They had numbed me, so I didn't understand how I was able to feel anything there. I looked at the reflection of the lamp once more and could see something crawling out of the stitches. It was pretty big, too.

"Doctor Sean, that is not ordinary," a medical caretaker whispered. Doctor Sean shushed her. By then, I felt increasingly uncomfortable and did my best to sit up to get a look. It took all my energy to see my stomach and when I saw what they saw... I practically passed out on the spot.

Two big spiders crawled around my stomach and baby spiders struggled to get through my stitches. Some came out easy, others did not. Another big one danced its way through the stitches and I could see one of the nurse's faces turn green. I couldn't hold my head up much longer so I let it fall back to the hospital bed. I began to cry and my anxiety hit the roof from there. The doctors saw my chest moving up and down too fast and reacted.

One nurse sat me up and told me to stay calm but I couldn't. My body trembled and I couldn't stop myself. I began coughing and as I did, hundreds of baby spiders flew out of my mouth and onto the nurse, making her drop me back on the bed. I couldn't process everything at once and my body kept shaking. Doctor Sean finally gave me a shot and held me in place, telling me to relax. How could I relax when baby spiders were crawling all over my face and all over him? My body started to shake less and I slowly began to close my eyes.

***

I was released from the hospital three days later after I had been told my pylorus had been removed from my stomach. They said it would not affect me greatly but they do have to investigate further. The police got involved in it, too. Everyone wanted to know what had happened to me.

My mother and father argued a lot about it at home and even blamed me sometimes. They asked me over and over if I had been sneaking out at night, getting into trouble. I would get mad that they would even assume so like that. My father really thought I was sneaking out and told me once I got better, he was going to limit my outside time. As if I left the house often.

I stayed in bed most of the time, wondering how this could possibly happen to me. Every time I coughed, I was afraid because I thought a spider would come out, even though the doctors said they were all gone. The thought made me shiver. Spiders. How could that have happened? Every time I thought about it, I began to cry. Something bad was happening and I wasn't the one causing it.