That light is shining a bit brighter than I would have imagined… I must be traveling up…
Mother… Mom… I…
I’m sorry…
I tried… I really did… but… They didn’t want me seeing you again…
It’s not fair, it’s really not…
But…
I love you.
My eyelids were slowly awakening, and my eyes were getting used to the room’s awkward lighting.
I was in a bed, as my hands were clutching tightly onto black and white sheets. To my left was a window with the drapes open towards the bed and I. The rest of it was covering the window. To my right was a wall, which was strewn with posters of many different animals with inspirational quotes.
Oh no…
Oh god, I’m in someone’s house. How did I get here? I need to get out there and find those dastardly hy––AHH!
My back. It felt like five thousand needles were pricking into it when I tried to move. And that was just me trying to sit up.
I was in so much pain that I couldn’t move.
“Great…” I muttered sadly to myself. I need to get to Beatrice and find out what she was really doing with these hybrids. Was she assembling an army of some sort? Why?
Just to capture me?
I felt only a small bit of pain while I picked up my arm, holding my hand so my eyes could see them. It looked fine, at least to a human’s standard. I twisted it around, flexing my fingers as well. I let it fall back onto the bed, it laying on the soft blanket.
Suddenly, voices.
Well, it was specifically one voice. It still made me panic. My eyes shot from side to side, but I couldn’t do anything about my circumstance if I couldn’t get up. I made sure my ears were down and looked towards the door, which was slowly opening.
“Yes, yes, Andy, I fed the plants earlier. I’m not letting work take over the house again. No, no, Mrs. Stevens’ hamsters went home yesterday. Boy, were they a rio-” The woman’s eyes widened as she peered in my direction and saw my open eyes.
The sandwich on the plate that she was holding fell to the ground, breaking the silence that stood between us.
“Yea, Andy? I’m going to have to call you back, OK? Talk to you soon, I love you.” She quickly hung up her phone and made my way to the bed.
“Oh… oh my goodness. You’re awake. Wow… what a miracle.” The woman hurried to the desk in the far corner of the room, opening a laptop and typing furiously into it. She then went to a drawer and pulled out a vial, pouring the contents into a small cup and pushing said cup into my hand.
“Here. Drink this,” she said calmly. My hand clamped the cup, but refused to move. I didn’t exactly trust this woman just yet.
“What? You don’t want to? It’s pain reliever, therefore safe to drink. Trust me, please.” She smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed. My throat emitted a tiny growl of disapproval, but I swallowed the strange liquid.
It tasted like ocean water, but soon after I felt a little bit better.
“See? What did I tell you?” I looked to the side, then back at her.
“Who… are you?” I managed to speak out to her. Although shocked by my voice, the woman let out a small giggle, leaning over and folding her hands together.
“Your savior is named Stacey. I like Stace better, though. I’m a vet… doctor… person. It’s complicated, but I’m able to help animals and sometimes humans too. My degree is for being a vet. My husband, Andy, is a doctor, so we share a lot of information between us. However, I remember a lot more of what he says rather than vice versa, therefore I claim myself a vet and a doctor.” She stood up and started fixing her hair.
“You’ve been in a coma for two days,” she said bluntly. I jumped a bit, causing me to yell in pain.
“Ah! I’m sorry, I didn’t want to scare you. I figured that that was something that you’d outta know,” she continued on.
“I usually journey into the park’s forest to look for lost or hurt animals, as that’s where most of them go to hide from humans. And as I was walking, I noticed you—lying there in the early morning. You weren’t breathing, but you still looked salvageable. So, I called Andy and we both hauled you to our apartment, which was not too far from the park. Andy had to leave for work after that, and I stayed home to see if you would wake up. Meanwhile, I still did my job of taking care and babysitting animals from home instead of going to the office. You didn’t wake up that day, or the day after, and this morning… I was shocked to see you alive. That’s why my sandwich is on the floor over there.” She spotted it and began to clean it up, throwing it in the trash soon after.
“From the looks of it, you’re in serious pain. You fell from high up and landed on your back. You’re lucky that you didn’t die, or at least have that part of your body be paralyzed.” I nodded my head in agreement. I WAS really lucky.
“Yes… t-thank you so much for doing this. I really, really appreciate it. I… I could have died from…” I winced, but not from the pain of my back.
I winced from the memories. Those lashing, somewhat emotionally painful memories.
“But… I need to get back out there… for personal reasons.” I thought for a second. “How long do you think it’ll take for my back to heal naturally?”
“Well, that’s the weird thing. I took a sample of your blood, and––”
“Wait, you did WHAT?!” I screamed, trying not to shift myself.
No… she can’t know… she can’t know… I’ve been hiding this for way too long…
“Let me finish. It’s customary that I take a blood sample from every patient that I work with. I had to do the same to you just to see if you were even alive or not—and I’m surprised that it didn’t even wake you up. Anyway, there’s something in your blood, but I can’t tell what. It doesn’t look to be harmful. In fact, it’s… helping you, in a way.”
I blinked, and smiled. I always saw the dog part of me less of an obstacle and more of an advancement. But now that I knew that for a fact made me feel good on the inside.
“Anyways, I would have to estimate that even with your rather enhanced genetics, it’s still going to take about three weeks to a month to heal.” Stace said, going back to her desk and typing in a few more things into her laptop.
“Along with some exercises and medicine, I also recommend that you eat something. It looks like you’ve been starving yourself. Do your parents not feed you?” She then turned her head towards me. “By the way, how old are you exactly?” She questioned me.
Yeesh. I haven’t heard this question in… well, ages. And since I had no one to celebrate my birthday with, the date quickly fell out of my memory. I stayed thinking about it for a few moments.
“If I had to guess… I’d say fifteen… sixteen maybe?” I murmured, still having the idea of age floating around in my head.
“Oh. Interesting.” She cleared her throat and stood up.
“Well, you may stay here as long as you’d like. This is the guest room, after all. I brought my laptop in here so that I could do something while I watched to see if you woke up. Are you alright for now?” Stace asked while packing up her computer. I looked down at my feet, which were pointing up, leaving tall indents in the blankets.
I turned my head to her and grinned at her in gratitude.
“I think I’ll be alright. Again, I really… really appreciate this. I can’t thank you enough.” I blinked, a small tear forming in my eye. Stace gave off a small smile, treading to the door and holding the door.
“Okay. Just yell my name and I’ll see what I can do.” She said before closing the door behind her. I sighed and let the tear fall, it crawling my face and down to my cheek.
If I thought that weeks upon weeks of being outside in the world was tough, then weeks upon weeks of not having the ability to move was going to suck even more.
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