Leuthold Preparatory | ✓

Chapter Twenty-Seven:

The Child of 5438 North Abbot Street

"Are you really going to not answer me?" Hannil asked from the hallway. 

The door was too thin to keep out his voice and yet too thick for Noah to tell where Hannil was when he wasn't speaking--which wasn't often. He hadn't stopped calling to him since Noah shut the door. As the minutes ticked on, Hannil was louder and Noah was more frustrated by his voice.

In attempts to avoid hearing him, Noah found his way into the bathroom and had gotten into the tub. He tried to pull the curtain around the tub but it was sheer and the patient in the bed continued to burn him, it wouldn't do him any good to draw it so he let it be. His eyes did little than stare at the patient despite how he wanted not to, he was thankful the curtain around the patient was there. The body pulled him; he wanted to escape the room but Hannil was in the hallway, the window was too dangerous, Mi Na still remained outside. Noah would almost gladly go to her if he didn't have to see the body again. He didn't like the way it pulled him, as if it were truly the sun and he was the planets, unable to do anything but fall into its orbit. 

"Baby, come on!" Hannil called, "Please open the door!" 

Hannil's voice filled in the empty spaces between Noah's thoughts and breaths. He couldn't respond, his vision was shaky, he felt sick, his heart was in his ears and it sounded like a drumbeat. It was far away yet it reverberated, the heart monitor's soft beeping echoed with each thump. 

"We don't have time for this!" Hannil continued. 

His confusion and frustration outweighed his want to be quiet; he had to get away from the patient in the bed. Mi Na was impossible, but Hannil wasn't. The edge of the tub felt fuzzy to his hand when he used it to get out. He had to stumble back through the doorway, the body pulled harder the closer he got. He managed to reach the room's door and had to put his hands against its face to keep himself upright. 

"Time for what?" He gasped, "What am I even supposed to say in this kind of joke?!" 

"This isn't a joke."

"It doesn't make any sense!" Noah exclaimed, "The plane went down and what? I just collapsed? What the hell are you trying to sell to me on?!" 

Hannil was quiet for a long minute and it made Noah wonder if he had left. He had heard Hannil's voice coming and going by the door but his pacing footsteps were never heard. 

"Noah, do you know what year it is?" His voice was calmer, closer to the door. 

"It's 2018," Noah said as he closed his eyes, "Yet another reason I can't be in that bed! I was born in 1999! Not...'85." He glanced back at the bed, wondering how old the patient was at all. 

"I know," Hannil replied so quickly it nearly cut Noah off. "Do you know what year I was born in?" 

"Ninety-eight?" Noah gambled. 

"Twenty-sixteen," he replied. 

Noah stared at the door for a long moment; it was warm against his hand. The surface was smooth yet his hands still buzzed, his vision went in and out of focus with each breath he took. His head was alive yet it was slow; Hannil's words didn't make sense and Noah was too tired to make sense of it. 

"Aren't you a little mature for a two-year-old?" Noah asked. 

Hannil chuckled breathily, "Stop being funny." 

"I'm stupid but not that stupid. And I'm not trying to be funny," Noah said quietly as he rested his forehead against the door. 

"Baby--"