Sweet Viruses

Chapter 7

Mash

    There's a loud scream and a thud. Gabe and I jerk our head's up and look at each other before jumping up and taking off as fast as we can run. We turn corner after corner and make it to the front doors. I look by the ladder and there is Melody laying on the ground. It takes my breath away to see her so lifeless. My fear turns into anger and I want to find why this happened. I scale the ladder and start whipping my head back and forth to find who did this. I spot something out of the corner of my eye. There's a person running away in the back fields. I start screaming at him uncontrollably. I want to run after him until I can't run anymore and kill him. He escapes through a giant hole in the fence that had been cut. I keep screaming until my throat hurts. "I'll find you! You will never get away with this!", I yell at him from the edge of the building. I hear Gabe yelling at me from the other side so I hesitantly turn around and follow him. "MASH!", he screams at me. "We need to get Melody to the hospital now!" I run to the ladder and slide down quickly. He already has Melody in his arms by the time I get down. I run inside and reach on top of the door frame. There I find the emergency car keys and I bolt back outside. I get in the rusty little car and it takes a minute to start. "Cmon!", I yell at it as Gabe gently places Melody in the front seat beside me. As soon as he gets Melody in her seat he slams the door and opens the back one. "Wait what do you think you're doing?" I stop him. "I'm coming with you", he demands. "Someone has to stay here", I tell him. I almost say he can come as I  look at him with a stern expression. He looks so scared and concerned for Melody. He looks as though he's about to plead with me to come. I keep a hard face and he looks at Melody for a moment. He looks back at me with a new kind of desperation. "I'll make sure she's safe", I say to him. He reluctantly closes the door and hangs his head as I start to back out of the parking spot. I drive away as he runs to open the gate for us. His stands by the open gate and watches us as we leave him. I take off on the highway and briefly look in the mirror to see Gabe slowly shutting the gate and shuffling back to the main building.
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    My eyes start to close and I fight to keep them open. I slowly get lower and lower in my chair. I need to stay awake for Melody, but I haven't sleep in days. Just as my eyes close completely someone bursts through the doors at my right. I jerk awake and look to find a nurse with a clipboard. She walks up to me. I get eager as she approaches me. "Are you Mash or Gabe?", she asks me with a bored expression. "Yes!", I tell her excitedly. "Melody has been asking for you", she says as she turns around for me to follow her. I get up out of the rusty metal chair with shaky, tired legs. I walk through the big blue doors with her into a long hallway filled with sick or injured people. There's people lining the walls who all look very gloomy. It dark and musty in here. It breaks my heart to see children everywhere begging for their parents or asking where they are at. Others are severely injured and sleeping peacefully. Not many are lucky to even get a room. I had to pay a lot of money to get Melody a private room, it almost took everything that I have left. As we walk the nurse goes over what all is wrong with Melody. She broke her left arm and her right leg. She fractured her skull and broke some ribs. Her left wrist was broken along with a broken right ankle. The nurse said that she was extremely lucky that no surgery was required and other than her broken bones, she had some major bruises and cuts. "Her neck is severely bruised. Was she abused or choked in anyway?", she asks. We stop and she looks at me. "I don't know. I told you guys that she was thrown off by someone and we came out and brought her here!", I answer her angrily. She writes something down on the piece of paper on her clipboard. We continue into a small room where I see a bed with Melody. I run over to her and kneel down beside the bed as I grab her hand. She looks over at me and smiles with her lips all cracked from scrapes and one eye is completely swollen shut. A big bandage is wrapped around her head from the fracture. "How are you?", I ask with a shaky voice. It scares me to see her this way, but I put on my best fake smile. "Well a lot better now", she says quietly.
    We sit and talk for a while. I try to make her laugh as much as I can. Her smile is always so sweet, even in these times, it seems to light up the room. We laugh until a nurse comes in and interrupts us. "Okay you two, sorry, but you need to get some sleep", she says to us. Melody obeys and scoots down in the bed so she's laying down. I get up and close the curtains so it's dark in the tiny room. The nurse runs through a few procedures to check on Melody. I watch closely to make sure that she doesn't hurt her. After going through everything she tells us that she'll recover in a few days. Melody seems to get excited when she talks about leaving the hospital. The nurse leaves and Melody yawns as she closes her eyes. I busy myself by straightening the room or making it more inviting for Melody as she falls asleep. After a while I stop and sit down in the little leather chair beside the bed. It wobbles as I get comfy. I sit still so it doesn't squeak as much and everything goes quiet. It's very peaceful in here, except for the gloomy feeling of despair in the air. If you listened hard enough then you could hear the people outside the door, crying or begging for help. Every once in awhile you could hear people begging the doctors that passed to save their loved ones. They cried and pleaded until you just couldn't handle to listen anymore. It breaks my heart to hear them begging for the doctors to help them. You can especially hear the desperation in the voices of the people trying to save their loved ones. I can't sit there anymore in the dark so I get up to find some good food. As soon as I step out the door a little girl no older than five grabs my ankle. I look down at her and see a giant gash in her head and a bandage around what is left of her leg. Her black hair is all matted and in tangles and her pale skin is covered in bruises and dirt. "Do you know where my mommy is?", she asks me with tears in her eyes. I look around to see if I can find a woman who looks like her. I lean down close to the little girl, not able to walk away. As I get closer I can see her face clearer. She has big brown eyes that looked like she had been crying for a while. She is very skinny and pale. I can see there isn't much light left in her. "I don't see her here, but do you wanna go look?", I ask her. I can't help but feel pity for those big brown eyes that have so much pain in them. She nods her head slowly and I gently put my arms around her. "Ready?" I ask. She nods her head again and pulls me close. I pick her up as gently as I can, avoiding her leg. She gasps from the pain, but clutches my shirt tighter. Once we both adjust to each other I head down the hallway. She spins her head rapidly to try and find her long lost mother. After a while of walking I ask her name. "Ava", she whispers. "Ava, huh? Well that's a pretty name!", I tell her and she blushes and gives a small smile. "What's your name?", she looks into my eyes and asks curiously. "My name is Mash. Pretty funny name huh?", I ask her. She giggles, "I like your name". We laugh for a moment before Ava is struck with fear. Her eyes lock on something and her jaw drops. I look in that direction and I see a woman who looks exactly like Ava lying on a stretcher. She is even pailer and is covered in more wounds than Ava is. "Is that your mommy?", I ask her quietly, knowing the answer. She goes quiet like before and nods her head slowly. I walk her over to her mother and crouch down beside her cot. Ava reaches her little hands out and places them carefully on her mother's cheeks. "Mommy", she says to her quietly. There's no response. Little Ava gives her mother a gentle push. "Mommy wake up", she says. "Mommy please wake up", she whispers to her as she leans closer to her lifeless mother. She lays her head down on her mom's chest and starts to cry. "Mommy please", she begins to beg in a hushed tone. Her cry turns into a full out meltdown. She wails until she can't breathe. I don't know what to do other than hold the little girl so she can share one last moment with her mother. I start to get flashbacks of when my mother died. I didn't have anything or anyone to cling to. I simply curled up on her grave and let a piece of me die with her. What else is a six year old supposed to do? I become determined to not let this little girl be all alone like I was. She wasn't going to die, even if that means that I have to. She is mine now, I'll make sure she's okay. I pick Ava up off the body and she curls up in my arms. She continues to weep as I slowly walk away from that scene. I hold her firmly in my hands. I'm not going to let anyone touch the little precious ball that I'm holding. I looked down and she seemed more delicate than before. All I can think to do is walk so I keep on walking.
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    I look up from my mushy soup over to Ava, who is gulping down every bit she can. It must have been days since she last ate, possibly months since her last decent meal. I watch her eat quickly until she stops and looks up at me. "You have a soup mustache", I say as I lean over and wipe the soup off her lip. She laughs and continues eating. Once her bowl is empty she looks up at me. "Why are you here?", she asks curiously. "I brought a girl named Melody", I tell her. "What's Melody like?", she asks me. "Well, she's nice, like you are. She has lots of friends and she loves music", I answer her. "What does she look like?", she continues to ask. "She's got blonde hair and she's really tall", I say trying not to laugh. I remember the many days when we teased Melody for how tall she is. "She sounds pretty. Do you think she's pretty?", Ava asks. "Well", I start to blush unsure of how to answer, "Yeah, she's pretty", I saw quietly. Ava giggles, "Why is your face red?". I laugh too, feeling it get even more red. "Well are you about ready to go back to the room?", I ask her while standing up from the long steel bench. She nods her head so I lean across the table and pick her up. I still came down here to buy food for melody so I go out into the hallway where a mini market is set up. There are tables lining the walls with people who are selling all sorts of things. I walk up to the table selling the more expensive foods that tend to taste better. Not many people are here so it doesn't take long to pick out a good apple and a fresh roll. Ava helped me pick out the apple that Melody would want. I started to travel back to the room when something caught my eye. Sitting on the table filled with various clothes was one of those things moms put on and carry kids in. I don't quite know how it works but I walk up to the stand and pick it up. It seems strong enough to carry Ava. "How much?", I ask the lady sitting there, guarding her precious stack of fabrics.
    I proudly walk around with the sling on my back carrying the frail little girl. We make it back to the room and I quietly open the door in case Melody is still asleep. Instead of a quiet room with Melody peacefully dozing in the corner, I walk in to find her barely standing in the middle of the room, all the tubes still attached to her arms. Her shaky legs crumble as soon as she sees us and I hastily jump to her and gently catch her just as her head is about to hit the counter. She screams from the pain all over. "What in the world Mel?!", I yell at her as I pick her back up. I place her back in the bed as I continue fuming, "Were you trying to kill yourself? If I wasn't here, your head would've hit that counter and-and!", I stumble over my words. "I know!", she hoarsely yells back. "I just can't stand this place anymore! All those people out there, I can hear them dying and I'm sitting here alone just waiting!", after she gets done yelling at me, she turns her bruised face away from mine and starts crying. Hearing her softens my mood and I sit on the bed beside her. I put my hand on her cold small one. "I know, and I'm sorry I yelled at you. It's just, you could've died and that'd be about the twentieth time I thought I've lost you", I say gently to her. I move my hand from on top of hers to her chin. I pull her face up to look at me. I can't help but smile at the girl who's face is scratched, scarred, and puffy and red from crying that I see. I gently wipe away the tears from her cheeks. She gives a small smile as I feel a small movement from behind me. I suddenly remember Ava was behind me. "You were right, she's really pretty", says the small voice. I start to blush a little as Melody's grin turns to a big silly smile. "Who's this?", she asks me. "This is Ava. She's going to be staying with us for a while if that's okay", I say as I turn my head to look at Ava who is smiling. Suddenly the door opens and very concerned looking nurse flies in. She looks at us and relief floods her face. "There you are Avalyn!", she exclaims. She holds out her hands as if to take Ava into her own arms. "It's time to go honey" she says sweetly. "Where?", I asked concerned. The nurse looks at me with a grave face. "Avalyn has a condition. She needs surgery, immediately",  the nurse says gently to me. Then she starts to pick her up out of the sling on my back. "Wait a minute", I say, not willing to let her go, "You can't do it". I turn to face the nurse, shielding Ava, "With this equipment? It'll only hurt her". The nurse thinks for a moment then looks at me. "Avalyn needs this. Who are you anyways? What authority do you have over her", she asks me. I frantically think of all the things I could say. I'm too young to be her father and saying I'm just a friend wouldn't work. "I'm her brother", I say confidently. We look enough alike, right? She thinks for a moment on this then continues. "Then you will be the first to know when she's out", she says as she picks up Ava and walks out of the room quickly. I stand up to stop her from leaving, but it's too late and Melody pulls on my arm. I plop back down on the bed defeated.