The Adventures of Soap Boy

Part 6: Healing

I awoke in a bed inside of some kind of doctor's office. Looking around, the individual rooms were divided only by curtains, indicating that this facility was rushed together. I'd read about this in one of the manuals. Looking in further detail, I was able to see that people were rushing around outside my room. Not so rushed as to indicate a sudden influx of patients, I hoped.

That's when I saw it. Looking down from the area past my feet, my eyes met my arm. There lied the horror. There was a needle stuck straight into my arm. Why did it have to be a needle?

I screamed, and a nurse came quickly. She was very young for a nurse. Presumably the same age as me. She was wearing a blue junior volunteer uniform with a hat bearing a red cross, and looked to be about my height and typical weight.

She saw me clutching my arm and trying to keep from crying, and started checking that nothing was wrong. After a moment, her panic started faded to confusion. My panic, on the other hand, remained panic. She told me to wait a minute, and left to get the doctor.

It felt like an eternity waiting for his arrival, but I knew it was only a minute, as the little nurse had said. When he arrived, I was taken aback. It was my family physician, Dr Vasquez. He had escaped the bombings after all. He saw me, and his expression changed immediately. He turned to the nurse, and spoke.

"Get that IV out of his arm. I know him. He's an extreme trypanophobe." The young nurse's confusion left her, and she got to work getting that thing away from me. Meanwhile, my old doctor greeted me.

"Hello Fla-"

"Don't say it!" I suddenly cut him off. He was taken aback, but obliged my request nonetheless. After a short pause, I continued.

"I was kidnapped by the army and held in a cell. Some people have powers that attack people by knowing their name. I'm Soap Boy now, and you should get a new name too." I explained. He still seemed confused, but I liked him and wanted to protect him from people like whoever it was that Aspis met.

He seemed to ponder my words for a moment before he latched onto the least important among them.

"Soap boy?" He asked. In response, I just silently motioned for his hand and placed a bit of soap in his palm.

"I make soap from my body." I explained briefly. I had actually gotten quite used to explaining my freak biology to people by that point.

His eyes widened upon seeing genuine magic. Like me, he looked at it, smelled it, and even tasted the soap before he would believe it. He turned to wash his hands in the basin next to my bed. As he did so, he pointed to the other side of me.

"The needle's gone, you know."

I turned my head, and saw the girl holding up the IV next to her face and smiling.

"Oh" I responded. Somehow, Dr Vasquez was always able to take my mind off of the pain. It was half of the reason I liked him so much.

"See. I keep telling you that needles aren't so bad." He said, in the same way he did every time. I shook my head, also like always, and replied.

"Nope. Needles suck, and will always suck." It was nice. Having a normal conversation with someone I knew. Too nice. I felt tears starting to well up, and had to stop myself. Of course, the good doctor noticed.

"You've been through a lot, Haven't you F- Soap?" He had to stop himself from saying my name, which cut into his nurturing tone a little, but he continued.

"I don't know everything that happened, but it must have been terrible. Don't worry. It's all over now. You're safe." He said. Realizing where the conversation was going, he waved off the girl, and the little nurse rushed out of the room. Leaving the two of us alone. It was getting harder to keep myself from crying. He pushed on.