Underland Chronicles: 1 - The Border's Edge (A Gregor the Overlander FanFic)

Chapter 24

Pandora sprinted down the corridor to catch up with the medics who were carrying Howard to the nearest vacant room. She dodged scrambling nurses and doctors who were shouting orders, eyes set on the back of Howard's head.

A large figure blocked her way, one that she couldn't dodge. She begrudgingly averted her gaze to see who it was. "You cannot follow them," the burly guard said.

"Yes, I can," Pandora said firmly. "I have to. I promised Howard I'd be with him."

"Howard is in no position to have company," he retorted. Howard was entering into a room several yards down the hall. Pandora tried to push her way around the guard. "You cannot go in there!"

"Yes I can!" Pandora said, starting to become hysterical. "Stop! Let me through!"

"I have strict orders from the surgeon. I cannot let you pass." Pandora had managed to shoulder her way past him, but he held on firmly to her wrist.

"Let me go! I have to see Howard!" She pulled desperately away from the guard, reaching her outstretched fingers towards the room that Howard was put in. "I promised him!" Doctors and nurses started to notice the scene she as making. "Let go!" Tears started pouring down her face, and she let them fall. "Howard!"

As she screamed, she could feel a horribly familiar tingling sensation rising and falling down her back. It didn't matter if the guard had her wrist or not, because the next thing Pandora knew, she was lying on the floor. Two nurses were holding her on her side, trying to pin her arms and legs down.

She tried to throw them off her, starting up her hysterical screams once more. "Howard! Let me go! I have to see him!" They didn't listen to her; in fact, they weren't even looking at her face. Her arms and legs were back under her control but were still violently shaking. She banged the floor with her fists and her heels, now lying on her back.

She felt like two different people in the same body. One was trying desperately to get to Howard, and the other was trying desperately to write down information. Words flew by in her brain with no outlet, and they were tearing her in two. The more she tried to ignore them, the more persistent they attacked. She felt helpless and crazy; surely she was going insane. She started banging her head against the stone floor, trying to stop the relentless stream of information, screaming "Howard! Please! Let me up! Let me see him!"

More nurses came to help pin her down, and her words turned into primal shrieks. She shook her head between a nurse's hands, now unable to bang it against the floor. She felt the weight of the burly guard on top of her legs and a needle prick in her arm. All she kept thinking about was Howard, and writing words down, and being with Howard, and prophecies...

Pandora tried to turn over in her sleep, attempting to scoot to a side of the pillow that was cooler, but couldn't. In her still half-asleep mind, she couldn't figure out why her arm wouldn't follow her to the other side of the bed.

When she opened her eyes, she found her wrists tied to the sides of the bed. Instead of freaking out, she took a minute to consider the circumstances rationally. She remembered how she had acted before she had blacked out – like a two year-old having a temper tantrum – and figured the Underlanders only tied her arms down for her own good.

"Excuse me," she called to try to get a nurse to enter the room. "Is someone out there? Will you please come in here?"

Pandora was just about to call out again when someone entered. "I understand why I'm strapped down," Pandora said calmly. "Is there any chance that I could have my wrists untied?" She felt ashamed of her outburst and wanted the Underlanders to be aware that she knew it was the wrong way to act.