The Jewels; Mother of Pearl (#ABA2017)

Chapter Six

Lola could hear before she could see, she could hear a steady beeping, but it seemed to quicken and quicken. Lola opened her eyes, her entire body jerking as she did so, and the familiar chord in Lola's arm pulled against the heart monitor and it fell over with a loud crash.

As if on cue a nurse rushed in and picked the heart monitor up. "You need to be careful, okay?" she said as she looked at Lola's water bag.

Lola remembered the blue nurse uniform the nurses wore a few years ago the first time Lola was put into the hospital because she collapsed. "Why am I here?" Lola asked as she looked around the familiar hospital room, she wouldn't have been surprised if it was the exact same patient room she was in last time.

"You gave your teachers at school quite a scare," she informed as she adjusted the heart monitor settings, "you rushed out of the staff room, assaulted a student and went to the bathrooms to dowse your arm."

Lola looked at her bad arm; it had a different bandage on it now. Lola was expecting it too still be burning her in pain and her leg thumping in pain also.

"Why am I back at the hospital?" Lola asked.

"The gash on your arm and leg became infected, and since it was given by a magical Angel its effects were more dramatic," the nurse explained, "there seems to have been a large amount of pressure given to your arm though that made it swell up."

'Jasmine,' Lola thought as she looked at her finger tips, they were going blue, "It's a bit tight," she informed.

The nurse smiled as she walked to the other side of the bed and sat on the end, she started undoing the bandage as the familiar Dr Jones walked into the room. He gave her a smile, but she didn't return it as she looked at her arm, what once was spilling out purple puss was now blocked over by dried up purple. "Has my blood turned purple?" Lola asked aimlessly as she looked at her leg, it seemed to have been bleeding for longer because she could see purple rising to the bandages.

Dr Jones smiled, "not as far as we can tell, no. It's just a bad side effect of Angels, all purple fluids are just finding their way out of your system, it'll take a while but it'll wear off soon enough," he explained.

"But I wasn't attacked by an Angel directly, this is from my falling to the ground and running into a lamp pole," Lola explained.

Dr Jones smiled as he shook his head, "An Angels blood got into your blood stream through the gash in your arm..." Lola remembered how the Angel had a dripping nose, "They are literally made of magic, that blood seeped into your wounds and made them... over-intense... but at the same time, it also saved you."

"How?" Lola asked.

"When an Angel curses you, it's unbreakable unless it wears off, the Angel put a timer on it or you consume their blood," he explained, "that blood that seeped into your wound seemed to have reversed the sap effect. Magic seemed to make everything ten times worse or better."

She looked at Dr Jones when he avoided her question, "why didn't you change your bandages?" he asked.

Lola looked at him, "it...it just slipped my mind," she informed.

Dr Jones didn't seem convinced, "Lola, as soon as your gashes got infected they would've been in searing pain constantly, it's unlikely you wouldn't have noticed it."

Lola watched as the nurse tied the bandage to her arm, gave a warming smile and walked out of the room.

"Lola, we are trying to do everything we can to help you, but you need to also take care of yourself. There have been many people who has survived being attacked by an Angel, and each one of them have died. We don't want you to be one of those people," he explained.