My right arm throbbed with pain as I laid back on my gurney in the circular room that I first woke up in. Nurse Hanna had called it 'The Waiting Room'. There weren't any windows facing the outside world, so I wasn't sure if it was still morning or the day had already passed. It wasn't until Nurse Hanna brought me an apple and a cup of milk that I realized how hungry I was. I took the apple from her and bit down, swallowed, took another big bite, and grinned with satisfaction. Attacking the cup of milk, I gulped down the last bit of the creamy white liquid and wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my shirt.
Nurse Hanna began to pick up the empty cup, then wrote something on her form. "Bien entonces. Well then Samael, I will leave you right now. Try to take a nap, will you?"
I nodded, glad to see the nurse smile and leave. I needed a private moment to think about the thoughts that swerved in my head like a tornado, and about the girl too. She looked angry and annoyed when she saw me back in the testing room. A bang on the door cut in on my thoughts. I pretended to be soundly asleep to keep the nurses at bay.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a new nurse with a long face, small eyes, and a serious expression going around the gurneys while pushing one herself. The nurse studied me intently as she passed by with gritted teeth, and adjusted the direction of the bed to make the gurney slide into the vacant space where Grandpa Philips had laid---- right next to me. I rolled onto my left side, trying to see who laid on the gurney, desperately hoping that Grandpa Philips was back. Nervousness and curiosity boiled up inside me. Shoulders tensing, I found myself staring with my mouth hanging wide open at the patient beside me. It was the girl. The girl!
She had to know more about this place than I did. I waited impatiently for the nurse to leave and sighed with relief when she finally did after filling out different medical forms. I decided to take my chance, get some answers, and talk to this strange girl, even if it meant a lot more death stares.
The minute the steel doors shut, I sat up straight and turned my attention to her , "Pist, hey there, I'm Samael. What's your name?"
Her eyes rolled, even under her shut eyelids. She wasn't asleep at all, just pretending to be.
"Hey, I know you could hear me." I tried again, but I knew there wasn't much hope that she would answer me this time.
I was right. The girl ignored me again, she turned around on her gurney, determined to let her back face me. I rubbed my brows, this wasn't going as successful as I thought.
Throwing my hands in the air and grunting loudly, I proclaimed, "Uh! Why can't you answer me? I just want to know what's going on with this place. Could you just help me? "
I frantically looked around, half expecting all the patients to wake up to see what was going on, half expecting the nurses to rush inside. I waited and waited with my heart pounding loud enough to explode, but neither happened.
"You know, no one will hear you." A voice rang behind me, and I turned to see who was talking.
The girl was sitting with her back leaning against the wall while hugging her knees to her chest. Her eyes turned dreary in the sea of blackness. The girl glanced at the other patients who never seemed to wake up under any circumstances. "They are on the verge of death." She stopped, her voice tightened and dropped to a whisper. "Soon, we will join them too."
I stared in horror, inhaling sharply as I slowly digested the news. "What do you mean, on the verge?"
The girl watched me for a while, as if deciding whether I was worthy of her knowledge, and piped up. "Your friend." She flung a finger around the room. "He's not coming back.
"Grandpa Philips! You don't think he is d-dead?"
The girl merely nodded. "If he isn't dead now, he will be soon." She opened her mouth like she was about to confess something, but went back to staring at the walls again.
I had always thought the rest of the patients were only asleep, nothing could have prepared me for this lecture, this frightening truth. My lip quivered, and I didn't even bother to ask the girl how she had known. I could feel the blood drain from my face. This was the first time since I arrived that I realized my life was in severe danger, like being trapped in a cage, and I didn't have the key to unlock the bolt.
"Do you know any way out?" With no windows to break, no obvious route back to my old life, I panicked.
The girl shook her head. " If I had a way to escape, do you really think I would choose to stay here another one second? It's just the same routine: breakfast, different tests, rest, then lunch, rest for another hour or so, dinner, shower and finally bedtime."
"So, you don't know anything else about this place?" I couldn't believe it.
"Why would I tell you even if I did?" She turned her back on me again.
"If everyone is dead, like you say, I'm the only one you have left."
"I'm the only one I have left. Got it?"
She must have been here a lot longer than I thought to be this worried about me offering to help.
"I just want to know what's going on."
"No you don't."
"Why are you here?" I was getting so frustrated with her.
"You really are stupid." Her eyes softened for a moment.
"Help me fix it, then."
"I guess it's time for us to take a walk." She paused and allowed a smile to stretch across her face.
Finally! I pushed my feet into the floor.
"Not now, stupid," she said. "Tonight, after everyone else goes to bed."
Before the laughter came, its anticipation flipped my expression. "Some exploring?" I teased. "I doubt the nurses will let you do that without their permission."
Then, brightness erupted from her glowing smile. "Well, Mr. Stupid, I do the exploring when the nurses aren't looking..."
"How does the nightwatch work for them?" I asked.
"About two or three nurses, I guess. It really depends how many non-dead patients there still are. The rest of the nurses will stay in VIP headquarters, probably eating cakes and partying."
I stroked my chin and mimicked a puzzled face. "Um, that explains why Nurse Tatte looks so much like a cousin of a hippopotamus."
The side of the girl's mouth curled upwards.
"By the way, what does the VIP headquarters symbolize? Very important person?" I put forward the question..
The girl opened her mouth, but shut it before any words came out. She started again. "Very important patient?" She made the statement sound more like a question.
"You don't sound so sure."
"My guess sounds more realistic than yours." She imitated a queen tone and a stare that said as if you could prove me wrong. I had to admit that her hypothesis did seem more plausible.
At that moment, the door slammed open. Five nurses including a pasty Nurse Hanna and red-faced Nurse Tatte rushed inside. I looked at the girl beside me and raised one of my eyebrows, indicating what was going on, but she just shrugged in return. Nurse Tatte had her arms crossed against her chest, and I needed no convincing that one of her bare hands alone could break my neck with no effort at all as easily as snapping a fire match in half. Sweat triggered down my forehand, as I watched the nurses' eyes shoot back and forth between the girl and me.
At last Nurse Tatte cried out, "Ya rats, get out! Get out! Hanna, take these two scoundrels, good-for-nothing to the Dining Hall! NOW!"
Nurse Hanna's legs shook like a leaf as she quickly bowed to her commander. Her voice broke out like a cry of a lamb before it was slaughtered, "Samael Scollan, Alvinne Lee, get yourself moving! ¡Dios mío! Come on," Nurse Hanna winced before whispering, "You rats."
I dithered, unwilling to climb out of my gurney, which had seemed so safe and cosy compared to the icy-cold floor. However, I knew I had to move and my bare feet shivered when they landed on the ground. I put on my shoes in such a hurry that I didn't even worry about the shoelaces and then scampered across the room in the direction of Nurse Hanna, who had already been holding the door for me. Nurse Tatte's menacing stare appeared to be boring a hole in my back even after I exited the door. Once again, I took in the unpleasant odour of the pitched black hallway.
My footsteps reverberated against the hollow floor as I tread on the heels of Nurse Hanna in profound quietness. Hands tucked inside my pockets, I felt the knife rattle and clatter as I walked. I curled my fist on the handle of it, and cast around, hunting for any evidence of being tracked so I could strike if necessary.
None of us talked during our walk to the Dining Hall, so surprise took me in when Alvinne broke the silence.
"What happened back in the Waiting Room?" The girl asked no one in particular at all. The question lingered in the thin air above us.
Nurse Hanna stopped midway. Fixing her gaze on us, she shrugged the question off by shaking her head and continued walking as if nothing happened. Irritation seethed inside me, I wanted to put my faith in Nurse Hanna. Just the same, I couldn't bring myself to do it. The explanation was simple— she was one of them. Nurse Hanna might have appeared to be a kind and trustworthy person. It had me wondering at that moment if it was just so she could kill me easier later on, and I wouldn't have known. That was enough thinking, I tried to smooth out all the information in my head that still made me feel like vomiting.
I concentrated and thought, "I am in a hospital, and I am dying…"
No, I turned my head from side to side, and started over again. "My name is Samael Scollan. I am sixteen years old. I don't know why I am in a hospital that wants people dead, but I am going to survive this bunch of goose ladies." That was better, I decided.
I hurried to catch up to Nurse Hanna and Alvinne who continued walking in front of me.
Then, I felt a blazing jab sending a signal into my brain, I froze on the spot for a second, trying to comprehend what was going on. Rubbing my head, I tried to convince myself that it was because of the tiredness caused from too much thinking.
A few paces ahead of me, I could hear the girl whisper, "Oh no, not again!"
Everything turned completely silent. The sound of our footsteps decreased to a stop. Only the pounding inside my chest was audible. Looking forward, I saw Alvinne and Nurse Hanna frozen in their walking position, their mouths hanging open, and their eyes turning as cold as stone statues.
I patted Alvinne's shoulder, which had surprisingly turned as hard as marble. Gasping, I stared Nurse Hanna straight in the eyes, it was the first time I had realized how sad they looked.
My voice trembled, "Um, guys? What are you doing, this is not the right time to play a game." Panicking, I felt a flood of comfort when a tinge of their muscles relaxed. The minute before they unfroze entirely seemed like an endless hour.
Nurse Hanna, who appeared to have already grown accustomed to this paralysing, just evened the wrinkles on her dress. Alvinne, on the other hand, let out an uncontrollable shriek and sharply inhaled.
"Good grief, you scared me! What was going on? " The tension gathering between us made me think they weren't joking around and pretending to be frozen after all.
Nurse Hanna and Alvinne exchanged looks. Seriousness hung on their face, as if they didn't know what to do with this situation.
"You mean, you weren't frozen?" Alvinne asked, seemingly shocked..
Shaking my head, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "No, blimey! Why? Should I have been?"
"Do you think he has deflection?"Alvinne looked at Nurse Hanna who eyeballed her sharply.
I stared at her with incredulity, she must have lost her mind, I thought. "Do you know what you are talking about? Deflection? Come on, do I look like a magical superhero to you?" I gestured towards my tattered patient gown with a look of disgust on my face.
Alvinne closed her eyes for a second and let her waist-length black hair fall into her face.
"Look." Her eyes glinted in the gloomy passage. "I think you might have a gift for deflection."
Nurse Hana said nothing, Alvinne nodded with a purse of her lips.
"This doesn't make any sense. Deflection from what?" I asked.
Flinching, Nurse Hanna, who had remained silent for all this time piped in. "Si. Yes, you are right, mi querido. Do you feel the wave of signal sent into your head, Samael?"
I nodded. "But I didn't freeze and turn into a statue like you did."
"Así es, Samael. That's the reason why we think your magic power is deflection, since that signal was the power of mind control sent by, um, a doctor. And only people like you, who have the power of deflection can reject being turned into a zombie and do what the mind controller tells you to do." Nurse Hanna finished off the clarification with a huge beam.
"So, that's how the doctor tells the nurse and the patients to do something?" Things were getting weirder and weirder the longer I stayed at this hospital, and the less sure I was of who Samael Scollan, a not so fortunate and ordinary boy was.
"Well, si. The doctor sends the message to the person he wants to mind control, but the rest of the people who don't have the power of deflection in that area will have felt the influence too. Like you probably guessed, people like me will turn frozen like a statue until the doctor finishes. That's why mind control power is usually called, la magia mortal, the deadly magic. Y, sin embargo, there is the possibility of only one person in a billion that has the power of deflection." said Nurse Hanna.
I gulped and knitted my brows together before saying, "And why are you helping me?"
"You really are stupid," Alvinne piped in. "I thought anyone with a right mind could figure that out alright! Every patient here has their own superpower, that's why we are here."
"You're magic?" I couldn't believe it.
"Duh, I am an aglist. I have the ability to remember everything I read or hear," Alvinne explained.
"So, I still don't get it. Why are we here?"
"The doctor," Nurse Hanna said. "He's collecting your powers."
"For what?"
"All I know is that you can't survive it," she continued.
"The doctor's killing us?"
Alvinne shouted, "Finally, he gets it!"
Nurse Hanna laughed. "Not all nurses want patients dead, I give you that."
Smiling, I could feel the weight in my body finally being lifted up.
"Ahora," Nurse Hanna's expressions tightened again. "Let's get you two to the Dining Hall, shall we? We don't want Nurse Tatte to find us talking in the middle of a hallway." Just like that, Alvinne and I scurried in the direction of a yellow room lit by candlelights, feeling more confused than ever.