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⠀The cowed body of Carol Peletier lay before Isiah as he trailed his eyes over her. His pupils raked over the purplish strokes that ran over her shoulders, peeking out from the faded fabrics of her frayed clothes. Something inside him didn't want to question why she was here? The last time he saw her was at the prison, and he remembered being explained to that she had murdered their own. He only wondered where she had been?
⠀He couldn't voice any of this, as his thoughts only ricocheted back and made his throat swell. Isiah felt he was having an allergic reaction to words ― so it was best to keep them at bay. To conserve the syllables.
⠀Isiah and Carol lay in a temporal anticipation, adorned in their own uniform ― rather than the one produced by this substantial, and formidable hospital. And they didn't converse over the raw deal that lay between them... and the outside. He hadn't heard an abundance over it, the way Dawn sauntered towards the room they were both in and commanded in a stiff, subdued voice to "get your clothes on". And they acquiesced.
⠀The young man had to assist Carol with getting her own on, due to the severity of her contusions. Then he briskly darted to his own room, and appareled his own afflicted skin.
⠀"What's taking so long," she enunciated. Carol rolled her eyes lightly, leaning back into the pillows. And it seemed just as she whispered those words, a person appeared just at the lip of the doorway. It was that doctor, the one Isiah remembered to be the one who told him about his condition. About his leg, and repeating the severity of his asthma, even though he knew that all off by heart.
⠀don't run... don't strain yourself.
⠀How could he not?
⠀Isiah also remembered his sister's words about their father ― don't strain yourself ― all we do is run. Words no more true than anything else nowadays.
⠀"Is it time?" Yet again, words failed to rush past his chapped lips ― except knocking in his voicebox like a watered drum.
⠀Dr. Edwards nodded to the duo, wheeling in a creaking wheelchair; the awful thing in the young man's head was, who was it for? So when he pushed it passed him, he sighed under his breath.
⠀Carol was helped by the doctor into her chair, and just then, another person appeared. Beth, with her tussled cast and stained yellow shirt that her brother recognised from before. She still had those stitches, etched into her cheekbones like ink words. Much like the tattoos Isiah had riddled his own skin with.
