My Precious Nightmare

Chapter 47: There Are Always More Tests

They brought her a TV to watch on a trolley along with an old, but carefully tended, Nintendo 64 with a dozen or so games. She also got a box of horror and mystery novels when she told them the kind of books she liked to read. The food wasn't spectacular, but it tasted all right, and the small nurse with the clean, short brown hair would come by often to ask if she wanted a snack. Lea was given iron pills and medication to help with their digestion in order to build her blood back up, and she even got a quilt and her favorite stuffed bunny from home along with a letter from her mother and grandpa conveying their general worry and hopes that she'd get better.

But they weren't allowed to visit. 'Too dangerous,' said her clean-cut nurse. Yet her only explanation as to why Lea hadn't been released yet was 'the doctor still has some tests he wants to run.'

Eventually the rumored doctor came to take a look at her himself. He tapped her teeth, asked her questions about her diet, shone lights in her eyes, and even, at one point, gave her a quick cut with his scalpel. At Lea's reproachful look, he just said something in his reedy voice about testing her healing process, though that didn't ease the pain when he strapped her arm beneath some sort of microscope and made her sleep like that for the rest of the night.

Lea began to miss the numbness she had grown used to as fear set in. It got difficult to eat, to sleep, and her hands didn't seem to ever stop shaking. She often lingered in the daydream of Sky sitting beside her. As four days became five, she even imagined her grandpa and mother sitting there, telling her to be grateful that she was being taken care of and safe.

Just as she imagined that, though, her mother and grandpa were replaced by Husani, frumpy and lax as he had been in his apartment. He gave her that soft smile that softened the sharp lines of his face.

"I can't let you leave," he echoed from another time. "But I swear I mean you no harm, and I won't let any harm come to you. I just need your help."

Out of all her imaginary visitors, Husani was the only one nearby, even if only a floor or so beneath her.

That thought sent her back into the spirals of anxieties that came when she saw him taken down below. Was he still alive? What kind of 'tests' had they made him live through? To what end did they intend for him?

And then she'd see him sitting on the toilet seat across from her bed, leaning on his knees, that soft smile on his face again. She could even begin to believe that she could smell the lemon and sage scent of him.

"I'm sorry," the image whispered. "I'm so, so sorry. Let me fix what I've done."

Her cell door opened with a clang. She jumped and blinked the images away. Another person accompanied her doctor today, someone just as lean, but younger, with an air like complimentary peppermints on a pile of unpaid receipts.

"Lea Sokolov," he said in a voice so clear it made her reedy doctor sound like a wheeze. "My name is Elijah and I just wanted to drop by and visit our most famous patient. How are you feeling?"

Lea said nothing, afraid she might say something rude.

But he just smiled and nodded, as though he understood, then reached out to pat her hand, which had been resting beside her on the bed. "You're almost ready to go, Lea, I just have a few more questions I'd like to ask before we take you downstairs for some CT scans and whatnot. First off, is there anything we can get you for being such a good girl?"

Lea bristled. This again? Why did so many people talk to her like she was eight? She was sixteen, for crying out loud!

"A shower might be nice," she said instead. "With some shampoo and conditioner."