Chapter Twenty-Two - Damages

8.2K 154 4
                                    

Hey everyone who's gotten this far, thanks for reading, just hit 1000 fans!  Hope you're still enjoying the story!

----

There was a familiar smell to the air, a hospital.  Not just any hospital though.  It was the hospital, the one she originally ended up in.  Her entire body felt stiff, yet at the same time comfortable.  She was latched to a familiar bed in a room that once felt too big.  Her eyes opened.  She tried to move but felt an odd crinkling sensation on her back.  She still had bandages on from the earlier attack.  Then she realized, she didn’t remember fleeing to this hospital—how did she end up here? 

She looked around, the room was dark—the same shades stapled up to the windows.  The large blinds on the window overlooking the hall was also snapped shut.  She considered that she couldn’t have been out for too long, her wounds tend to heal fairly fast and she was still hurting.  If she was out for more than a few days there wouldn’t be any need for the bandages.  She pulled one of her arms out from under the covers and cringed when she saw fresh white wrapping over the entire left arm, areas in the center already stained with blood that had leaked through.  She definitely wasn’t out for long.

She slowly folded the light blanket further down her body with her single bandaged hand trying her best not to make any sudden movements to spark up any hidden pain.  She never even considered moving the other arm, it felt as if it was no longer attached.  Time passed slowly as she struggled with her single, fragile hand.  Once she managed to pull the covers a decent way down she used her hand to pull herself further up the bed to lean against the wall above her head. She admired the damage on her leg from the gunshot, it would heal quickly.  She could already move it slightly with little remaining pain.  That bandage was small.

She waited.  Thirty minutes passed, forty, fifty, an hour, she noticed no one came—unlike her last stay in this room she was completely ignored.  Impatient and in need of assistance she jumped for the door.  On the exit she slammed hard into the heavy door and tried her best to balance herself on her single good leg with  her bandaged arm on the doorknob.  A sharp quick pain went up her arm as she touched the handle—she put too much pressure on her injury.  She carefully balanced her weight on her leg and waited for the pain to subside.

She twisted the handle and opened the door.  Her head popped out and she looked in either direction.  Several doctors and nurses scurried through the halls, most ignoring her head until one of them finally paused and looked up from a file.  “Hey, that room is contaminated, you shouldn’t be in there.” His soft brown eyes looked down into hers.  Lilly threw her eyes down on the floor and her hair dangled over her face.  She wobbled a little further out and  peaked around, caution tape was strapped over the door and a piece of paper was taped in the center,  she read the first line, ‘Dangerous, unknown chemical leak within…’  it then continued in more technical speak about what occurred in the room. 

Ignoring the doctor she shut the door behind her and jumped back for the bed.  This time she landed in a seated position on the bed.  She glanced down over her beat up body.  The bandage covering most of one arm, the grey hand on the other—wait! Grey hand?  Finally she realized she still had another arm.  Yet she could feel nothing from the entire limb.

She tried to move her fingers on that hand but nothing budged, her hand looked like the hand of a ghoul, grey and slimy—as if it has been drained of all of its blood.  She then looked further up her arm.  The entire thing from wrist to shoulder was covered with the same wrap as her other arm.  She didn’t remember anything happening to this arm.  She picked at the top of the wrapping with her right hand until she managed to peel it loose.  She started unwrapping from the shoulder down.

The Human XenocideWhere stories live. Discover now