“I already told you this. I don’t know,” the Doctor snarls venomously in my defence.
“She had a fit, that’s all.” Lies. It’s all a lie. I snatch pieces of a conversation and scratch them in to my memory, in case of future need. It seems crazy just to think about the consequences of an argument in this asylum but I’ve been lying in this bed drooling for the past five days. Here? The medical ward. I’ve been put in to an induced coma, it seems. Apparently the tests have come back abnormal, and I was put through a thorough examination to decide whether I’m unstable or it’s complimentary.
“She’s come back with negative results Samarius!” Another man in a lab coat harshly whispers back to Solomon, or should I say, Samarius, now?
“She’s unstable!” He questions back with a sudden outburst of rage. The two men fickle about for a few more minutes before I catch another few words;
“We can’t trust her,” Samarius whispers. “But we can’t release her. It already cost us to put her in!” He begins to shout, as he runs a hand through his ebony hair. I make an effort to sit up and the two men rush to my side. The stranger sits on the seat by my right side as Samarius left.
“My name is Caspar, and I’ll be your medical assistant for your stay at A-“
“I just want to know when I’ll get out,” I frown, propping up on my elbows to sit properly. I fall quickly and realize that I’m not as strong as I thought. The side effects of the drug must still be wearing off.
“Soon,” he pauses, ready to continue, but I interject again.
“When?”
“In a few moons,” he laughs, while taking out a small panel of glass. It lights up after he draws many symbols on it. After moving through many pages he lands on a small array of documents. He taps one and it immediately zooms in. Results. The glass displays an arrangement of graphs and charts, diagrams and finally an X-Ray of a brain. My brain. I try and read the small print sitting underneath the large picture but struggle. I scan the page to see if there is anything I can read. I come across one sentence:
END RESULT: NEGATIVE. PATIENT UNSTABLE: PROCEDURE APPROVED.
My face contorts in horror and I try to free the restraints on my arms legs and chest. The air rushes heavily out of my chest as I begin to panic. What procedure? Surely not the … No. Samarius paces over calmly and softly pushes my head down back to the pillow. I lay in shock.
“We’re not giving you a lobotomy, Jane,” he reassures me, smiling slightly, as if amused by the whole thing. I settle and my body almost sighs in relief. The restraints were made of steel. My fiery red hair lays on my face with the utmost comfort, and I try to move it off my jerking my head to the side. I can’t see it’s so thick.
“Feisty one, isn’t she?” Samarius laughs. Caspar chuckles in return, and I see him slip his glass panel in to his coat through the many strands of hair that lay over my eyes. My face falls. It must be worse than I expected.
“What are you going to do to me then?” I ask them curiously, trying to get at least some hint that leads me to what I’m doing next. I try desperately not to show any emotion, knowing how they’re enigmatic behaviour affects me. It drives me nuts. I’m craving that control.
“We’re going to take you back to your dorm. Then, you’ll continue the same examination process your peers will,” he states. I blink at him. What? I thought I was unstable? A beep goes off to my right.
“I’ll explain to you later, we don’t have much time,” Then rushes off, leaving me alone with Caspar. I fixate my eyes on his. He stumbles back, and he too rushes from the room. I hesitate before loudly exhaling. My eyebrows rise as now a woman dressed also in an inconspicuous white coat enters the room mere seconds later. She begins to adjust something on next to my head, and the next thing I know she’s yanking a small tube out of my arm. I wince in pain and she releases the steel grips surrounding me. They slide back with a mechanical force, leaving me free for the first time since I’ve been here. I look at my arm, a small prick oozing with blood from where the lady extracted the tube. She spins and begins to take the covers off of my bed. I help her but she swats my hands away with a grin.
“You’re too weak for that, darling,” she says softly before folding the sheets and placing them gently on the chair that was previously occupied by Samarius’ friend. I briskly look her up and down, and judging by her flat coat she has nothing in it to harm me. I decide to trust her for the mean time.
“How long will I really be in here?” I ask her. She ponders for the moment before answering.
“Three months,” she says in a low tone. I just manage to hear her. My mouth opens but I quickly shut it – careful not to raise suspicion. She places her hand on my back and lightly pushes me towards the wall. A door opens when we reach it. I nod at her, signalling for her to let me be.
A guard pops up at my side and escorts me to my room hastily.
...........................................................................................................................................
“Samarius,” I holler. The life has been sucked out of me from this drug.
“Platinum,” he mumbles. ”You have platinum in you.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“Well, it is now.” He finishes, looking up from another one of the glass panels Caspar was holding earlier. I feel my jaw tense.
“Where? Where do I have platinum in me? Can you extract it?” I pant, feeling over my limbs for any hard spots where the platinum could possibly be. His hand reaches out to stop me. It provides a little warmth for me, almost comforting.
“Have you ever broken a bone, Jane?” He questions, his expression serious.
“No.”
“Chipped a tooth?”
“No.” I say again, trying to grasp what exactly his thoughts are.
“Have you any scars, Jane? No?”
For the third time, I reply with a no. He sighs, releasing his grip on my forearm. His eyes move to mine and linger for a minute. I can almost touch the pity projecting from them, and this worries me.
“We don’t know how, or why, or who did this, but you definitely weren’t born with it. This is the reason your test results were abnormal. Jane, your skin is platinum.” Samarius stands abruptly and walks to the door, but pauses.
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Somewhere safe,” he adds. Without warning, the door slides open once again and Samarius slips out of it. I sit on my bed. Regardless of being honest with me previously, Samarius has every reason to lie. I shake my head before climbing in to bed. This is probably just a cruel game.
YOU ARE READING
A/04 - The Beginning
Teen Fiction- Is there really any control, if even our thoughts are being monitored? Jane, among others, is stolen and tested by a team of scientists to study human behaviour for those who aren't of the race themselves. A story of those who survived the apocaly...
