Tales of Aridia

Hawthorn

My memory was faded from that day. A blur remained in my mind but nothing important. All I knew was Jayden had carried me to Hawthorn Hospital, where the murder took place. But of course he did not know this, he was too absorbed in whatever he was doing to care.

A white beam shone into my eyes, awakening me. I looked up and was shocked by the lamp that had been moved over my face. A person, shadowed by the light from the lamp hovered over me. She moved the light and tapped my cheek gently. I squirmed, resisting her attempts to wake me up. My arm lay loosely to the side, but when I lifted up it was forced back down.

"Shh dear don't struggle, it's for your own good." The nurse said. Her chubby body perched over the bed and she glared coldly into my eyes. I lay unsettled, wanting to pull away. A brittle hand soaked in antibac reached and stroked from my forehead to my chin. "Beautiful thing," she murmured.

Her reluctance to leave made me even more unsettled. Looking down at my wrists I was bound with leather straps to the bed. It was so tight I could feel the blood pulse as it raced through my veins. The edges of the leather were rough and scratched my skin. "Ah, I see," the nurse said, eyeing the scratches on my wrist. "We don't want that to get infected," she said. She lashed her body around and scuttled off to the cupboard in the back of the room.

She emerged from the darkness with a bottle of antibacterial liquid. She undid the cap and leaped at me. Holding my arm down she poured the bottle over my wrist, the liquid burning into my skin. I screamed as she kept pouring, not stopping. Surely by now the wound would be clean. Her face had taken on a look of insanity as she became absorbed in the pain she was inflicting.

I went to kick her but my feet too were strapped down tightly. She saw me looking down at them. I looked in horror as she walked over to them too. The rest of the bottle was used on my feet, as she pinned my knees down. A drop of sweat rolled off my forehead, exhausted from enduring so much pain. It seemed to never end.

Eventually the nurse retreated, bored with her games. She waddled out of the door and I sank into darkness. I spat out the wood that had been lodged in between my teeth, taking in a gasp of air. Through the door no light was cast. There was no sound, no talking. You'd expect a hospital to be bustling with crowded rooms, but this one was desolate. Maybe the murder had scared people away. That couldn't be the case I thought.