Red Star

After the Fire Part 2

The next time she wakes up is a much easier experience for everyone. Her eyes flutter open, she looks around furtively and then sighs deeply as she remembers.

"How is your shoulder?" One nurse asks cautiously, and Rosalynn notices a purpling bruise that she must have inflicted upon the nurse, just under her left eye. Her shoulder is newly bandaged by the looks of it, and it feels like someone has shot her and she has reopened the wound. Which is exactly what happened.

She doesn't answer.

"Can you talk? Or is your throat sore from all the...." The other nurse trails off (one with a spectacular scratch extending from her ear to her chin), and Rosalynn narrows her eyes at her.

From all the screaming? From all the shouting?...Yeah my throat is all but burning, thank you for asking, but that's beside the point. I could talk, I just don't want to. Not with you. Not with anyone here. I want to go home.

Oh. That's right. I can't. Whoops.

She remembers the screaming voices in her head at this point and winces. Assuming that she's highly dosed up medication to stop them, she oddly realises that she mildly misses the voices. Somehow, the reminded her that she was alive, and yet made her want to pull out her own heart all at once.

Frank walks in now, accompanied with another nurse sporting a bite on her neck. Rosalynn had felt nothing, no sign of remorse at all, looking at the nurses with their respective injuries, however the sight of Frank with his raised, scabbed scratches running down his face causes a tsunami wave of guilt to rush over her.

"Miss Waters, it's good to see that you're awake. Your wound on your shoulder has been re-stitched and re-bandaged, and we've also given you some medication to help with your...mind." He smiles slightly and it's extremely reassuring for her. Not. She feels like a patient. And even though that's what she is, she can't help but hate it.

All of the staff here seem wary of her, and she can't really blame them, but she feels as if she's an attraction at a zoo, where the advertisements would blare out 'CRAZZZZY WOMAN, TURNED INSANE BY THE GHOSTS OF HER PASSSST! GET YOUR TICKETS NOW! SHE'S A TICKING TIME BOMB, SHE COULD JUST BLOW -KA- BOOOM- AT ANY SECOND!'

Remembering suddenly, her head turns towards where the bedside table is. Two cards. Douglas and Brandon. One was clearly missing and she suddenly feels very sick. 

Someone from Red Star came and brought the card, and someone from Red Star had come to take it away again.

Which meant that, after everything she'd done and been through, there are still more out there.

Red Star are still out there.

Fuck.

Killing Ralph obviously wasn't enough for them. Now they've come for her too.

"Miss Waters? Are you-"

And she promptly throws up all over the bedside table, her bed, herself and the nurse who came over initially to clean the bedside table.

During the following week, she didn't say a word.

She communicated to the doctors and nurses through screams and attacks. They had to change her medication four times in the second day because nothing could stop the voices permanently. The longest amount of time they stayed away was around four hours, but she would have to wait two more hours after that to have her next dosage. They're still trying to find a better one.

Frank desperately tried to get her to talk. He would ask all sorts of questions to coax her into speaking, without avail.

"What's your favourite television show, Miss Waters?"