Ink

Part 7

"I think she's waking up".

"Doesn't look like it to me".

"Pick her head up, she's more likely to wake up in that position  than just laying down like that".

The barman walked towards them with a glass of cold water, then splashed it into my face. My eyes immediately opened. I looked around, but couldn't make out any shapes, everything was so blurry and nothing made sense. I had no idea what had just happened, I just knew that the monster was away and that, somehow, I was alive.

"Hailey, what happened?", Georgie hugged me, but then I felt a a terrible urge to throw up, so I did it right there, in her arms. She didn't move for a second and then her face cringed.

"Whoa", someone commented and I could hear that he was trying to hold back laughter, which hurt me a bit.

I fell back to the chairs which they placed so I could lie down and started crying as terrible memories started jumping up in front of my eyes. The pain all over my body started emerging from places I never even knew I could feel pain from.

"Did you call an ambulance?"

"No, not again!", I screamed, not even talking to them. It was the whisper that I heard again, that made me start crying even harder.

"Haaaaaileeeey...", someone's breath was tickling my neck. Someone's death-like stinking breath.

"Georgie, help me!", I managed to say.

"Doctors are coming, honey, there, can't you hear the rolling of the gurney bed wheels",Geogrie said as she patted my hair. I turned towards her, my eyes looking at her beautiful face in disbelief.

"Can't you hear this?"

"What? The gurney bed wheels? Yeah, I hear them alright"

"No, not that. My name. Someone's calling my name", I said in a shaky voice.

"Guys, shut up for a second, will ya? I'm trying to hear something", she said as the crowd of people around me started murmuring.

Everyone went silent for a second and I could hear the wheezing sound, the creepy voice whispering my name. I curled up into a fetus position and looked at Georgie.

"Do you hear it now?", I whispered and she just shook her head.

"Nope. Nothing"

I felt somebody's cold hand press my stomach and I suddenly started throwing up again as the doctors placed me on the gurney bed.

"Has schizophrenia, this one?", a doctor asked as he looked at my terrified eyes. 

I shook my head. "No, no... It's not... I... It almost killed me...", I kept talking, but no one seemed to want to listen.

***

I woke up to the well-known smell of disinfected rooms the glow of the pure white walls, but this time someone was holding my hand. It was Georgie. I was so glad to see her... I needed somebody who I knew would believe me as wicked as my story may sound.

"How are you?", she asked me, rubbing my hand to make it warmer as I was ice-cold.

"Better. Although I've had some pretty weird dreams", I said, my voice sounding like the one I usually have in the morning, the cracky and tired one.

"So do you hear anyting now?"

I shook my head, but a sharp pain went through my scalp down to my neck, so my face flexed.

"If you're hungry, I can get you a sandwitch or something. Seems like you've thrown up pretty much everything you've eaten your whole life".

"Well, that's funny. You know, I don't remember the last proper meal I had. I've been making myself my fruit smoothies because I never actually felt hungry for the last few weeks... Ever since that  happened".

"That? What do you mean by that, the thing that happened at Berney's?"

"No... The thing that happened back in my flat. With Daniel".

"Oooohhh! You two are back together?!"

"Wrong again. There's so much I have to tell you..." So I did. I told her every single thing, starting with my mother's death and then all the way up until I remembered it, that is, all the way up until that monster hit me with a chair.

Her expression went from pity to disgust and shock. "Oh my god, Hailey... Seems like one of those horror movies we've been watching when we were young! Like, this would be the perfect horror story... If only it wasn't your life. And you weren't the one who had to pay"

"But that's what I'm struggling to understand. What do  I have to pay? Why is this happening? And, most importantly, how can I stop it?"

She shook her head and then squeezed the bridge of her nose with the index finger and thumb of her left hand.

"That's why I called you. I needed a place to stay, I just couldn't come back to my flat all alone, with that broken window and blood on the sofa which would always remind me of... of that eyeball in my lap".

"Daniel's eyeball", Georgie murmured, "He's still in here?"

"In the hospital? Yeah".

Georgie's face looked puzzled.

"Georgie? Can I...?"

"Can you what?"

"Well... Can I stay with you? At least while I collect enough money to buy or rent a place. Please?"

"Oh my god, Hailey, why is that even a question? It would be so awsome to finally get to live with each other! In fact, I'd love to have you as a permanent guest".

"I... I don't know if I can thank you enough for this, Georgie, it means so much to me".

"Nonsense. Relax, we're like sisters. Of course I'll be there when you need me, I mean, DUH! It's been like this ever since kindergarden. We need each other and that's how it's gonna stay".

My eyes watered a  bit and we hugged each other.

"Now how about I get us some yummy sandwitches? I don't know about you, but I'm  s t a r v i n g!"