Chapter Three

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The doors to the hospital slid open and Mark walked in with Anna following. Anna's father looked around and his eyes fell on the receptionist desk. People in the lobby were staring at the bloody girl, but Marks focus was to get Anna to a doctor.

As the two sprinted over to the desk, the receptionist's eyes went wide and she stood up.

"Help, get her to a doctor, right now!" Anna's father told the receptionist, and the lady dialled the phone at the desk. She hung up after a few seconds of talking, and beckoned the family to follow her.

They skidded down the hallways, passing rooms of people in hospital beds, hooked up to machines, and the occasional patient standing at the window. The lady receptionist's high heeled shoes clopped hard against the tile floor and her open receptionist jacket flew behind her. Anna walked quickly, looking up to the ceiling at the fluorescent, white ceiling lights going by as they made their way through the hospital. Mark's hand was safely wrapped around Anna's; he wasn't letting go until they reached the bed.

One by one, the receptionist, Anna's father and injured Anna walked through the doorway of the empty room. Mark lifted his daughter and put her on the bed and told her to lie down. She did as her father told her, and the receptionist peeked her head out to the hallway and called for the nurse who happened to be walking along at the right time. As soon as the nurse walked in and noticed the girl with all her cuts, and her worried father, she immediately went to the side of the bed and hooked Anna up to a machine that told how fast her heart was beating.

The nurse asked, "What happened to her? Did someone do this to her?"

"I don't know," Anna's father replied, "I was in my room when I heard her scream and I ran out. In the living room I found her sitting on the floor, and she looked like she had just witnessed someone explode right in front of her, and it looked like it too. There was blood everywhere."

Hearing that from her fathers mouth brought back the feelings Anna had had when she was attacked by an otherworldly creature, and she stared to cry and shake like she had when Mark found her. The nurse bent down beside the bed and said, "Honey, did somebody do this to you? What happened at home?"

"The... Cati..." Anna tried to speak but she failed as her body shut down, and her eyes closed. She fainted. Mark ran to the side of the bed, kneeled down and grasped his daughters hand, "Anna!"

"It's alright," the nurse reassured him, "It's better if she rests, from the looks of her, she seems like she's been brought to hell and back."

Mark stood slowly and backed away from his daughter in the hospital bed, a sight like this one is no sight any father wants to see. He looked at the nurse and read the name tag pasted to her coat that said, "Nurse Rachel."

"What did she tell you?" Rachel asked.

Mark looked down at his feet and back to the nurse, he took a breath and smelled the sanitizer in the hospital air. "She told me it was the Caticorn, whatever that is. She had bloody cuts all over her face when I found her in the living room, I told her I wasn't fooling around, but I realized she wasn't fooling around either, she was as scared as I was. She told me the Caticorn is the one everybody is afraid of... She has bad dreams some nights, really bad ones. She'd scream something that doesn't make any sense, like something to do with rainbows, and I'd run into her room and find her on the floor, crying. She's been acting so strange this past couple months, and it's beginning to worry me."

"Okay, we need to get some investigators in here, they'll figure out what's going on, I'm just a nurse, but I'll get some men to check your house and ask you some questions." Rachel decided.

"If that's what has to be done, and if it means I'll know what really happened, then so be it." Mark replied.

Rachel reached her hand out and placed it on Marks shoulder, "She's going to be okay." Mark managed to put a small smile on his face to tell the nurse he understood.

"I'll need you to complete some informational paperwork, I can give it to the investigators so they know who you are, and can work with what they know and what they'll find." Rachel told Anna's father, and they both walked out of the room, Mark following behind the nurse. Before Anna was out of sight of her father's eyes, he took one last glance at her lying in the bed, motionless but quietly breathing, and left the room towards the lobby once more.

Rachel and Mark walked into a small room off the lobby behind the receptionist desk. In the room, was a table, two chairs, filing cabinets up against one wall of the room, a water dispenser, and a cup holding random pencils and pens. Mark took a seat at one end of the little table, and Rachel placed a form in front of him. He grabbed a pen from the mug, and looked the paper over as he completed each section. The questions were basic info, who Mark was, who the patient was, where they lived, who they lived with, where Mark works and the patient's personality. Rachel stood up against a wall not covered by cabinets and waited patiently for Anna's father to finish the double-sided form paper, and sipped some water from a cup she got from the water dispenser.

Mark filed the last question and slid the form across the table to the nurse. He popped the pen he was using back into the mug with the other pens and pencils. Rachel took the form and opened the door of the small room. She lead Mark out of the slightly cramped space and into the lobby again. There were people sitting and standing around, waiting to get checked, or waiting for visiting hours to start. Mark sat down at an empty chair and looked around the lobby. Rachel was talking to the receptionist and the receptionist picked up the phone and dialled a number. "The investigators, probably." Mark thought to himself.

Rachel came over and sat down beside Mark. She didn't have her nurses jacket on anymore, just normal clothes. At this moment, Mark suddenly took in how beautiful Rachel was. She had dark red hair and a bright smile, and was wearing a purple sweater, that matched her green eyes. Her sleeves were pulled up just above her elbows, and a ring on her index finger shined of gold. She looked about the same age as Mark, and her freckles were light orange.

"I'm on my break, and I thought you would like some company." Rachel said, smiling.

"Thank you," Mark replied, and for the first time in a while, he smiled back.

You've reached the end of published parts.

⏰ Last updated: Mar 13, 2015 ⏰

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