Phases Eight

Phase 17 It

I am back... I need you no more... Leave my body...

A set of incoherent mumbles kept repeating in Amelia's head. She could neither adhere to it nor ignore it. She wanted to wake up so badly but she was held captive in sleep. Her limbs ached severely. It was a sharp sting from her right forearm that gave her a pull from the pit of unconsciousness.

She found herself in a place she was partially familiar with. It was obviously a hospital . One could blindly identify a hospital with its smell. But Amelia found the place eerily familiar.

She looked around the room which was illuminated by blood-red, warm early morning sun light. The interior design was quite similar to that of the VIP wards in her own hospital. She knew well that she wasn't at Brooklyn. The back of her throat tasted bitter as the truth started to sink in.

She was in Manhattan. She was so close to her doom.

With mighty effort, Amelia leaned both her hands on the bed sides and tried to raise her body. Another sting from her right arm, she helplessly slumped back to the bed. It was then she saw the bandage which was wrapped around from her knuckles to her elbow. Even the minutest of movements in that arm made her wince in pain.

Engrossed by curiosity, she slowly undid the knots of her bandage and unwrapped it. As the bandage became thinner and thinner, her wounds became vulnerable to bleeding and infection. Like hot wax being ripped from skin while waxing, she pulled the sheets of cotton that caressed her cuts with antiseptic.

She gasped as soon as she saw the message conveyed by the wounds. Though the cuts were made at a safe distance from her wrist, the idea of passing messages using flesh was savage. None of her alters appreciated the idea of self-harming. The words I AM BACK  were highlighted dark red over her pale skin.

Her chest tightened with lack of air. She forgot to breathe in the surprise caused by the cuts. It was so unusual. To her knowledge, all of her alters were right handed, but this action had been done using her left hand!

She would wager that it wasn't Leo or Nick or Barbara or Iris. Though she slightly doubted Charlie, her last alter, the thought immediately faded as Charlie was a ten year old who was frightened to do such blood-curdling tasks.

She ran a hand through her messed up brunette hair. Her hand stopped in the middle of her head, not only because her hair was knotted, but a creepy idea crawled out of her mind and squeezed her insides.

Is there a possibility of these cuts being the work of a new alter? The seventh one?

Amelia wildly shook her head sideways, "No. It couldn't. It couldn't be"

Without an alert, tears strode down her cheeks uninterruptedly. Accidentally a drop of tear fell over her cut and seeped into it. Amelia tugged at her lower lip as the pain from her arm increased minute by minute. The door creaked open and a nurse stepped inside yawning.

Her face became pale at the sight of Amelia with her bandage removed. She was tired from looking after her mistress wide awake round the clock. A few minutes before she left for a coffee break hoping that Amelia wouldn't wake up in the mean time. The nurse was agitated, for she might as well be fired by the hospital for her carelessness. Amelia lifted her tear-stricken face and glanced at the nurse which made the insides of the nurse melt. She didn't care about being fired anymore, for all mattered was the injured patient who needed her assistance.

Immediately the nurse grabbed a bottle of distilled water and started cleaning the cuts. She never uttered a word, as not alone she but all the staffs of the Hamilton group knew how much of a ill tempered person was Amelia Hamilton.