Butterfly meets the dragonfly

Chapter 4

Lauren's POV

Monday, 9:02AM

Lauren arrived at the hospital with the cops around nine o’clock. The place was big and horrifying through Lauren’s eyes. She’s always been afraid of hospitals, and it only increased through the years. Once she swore to herself that she would never step inside a hospital ever again, it was when her grandma died, two years ago, but the universe wanted to prove her wrong.

The green-eyed brunette stepped outside the police car when Silvia, the police officer who asked her questions about Camila, opened the door for her.

She walked alongside with the woman while she spoke through some kind of phone, giving and getting information. The brunette couldn’t pay much attention to what the woman was saying since she couldn’t think about how she was mad for being there, and shaking just from being close to this environment. She couldn’t even count how many times she closed her eyes and wished this all away. That she would wake up and this would only be a bad dream.

“Lauren, please take a seat next to the reception” Silvia’s calming voice instructed Lauren.

“Okay” the girl nodded and walked in the direction of a brown sofa in front of the hospital’s reception.

The hall of the reception was big and well illuminated. If you kept your eyes focused somewhere for a long time it could make your vision hurt, Lauren tried it herself.
It was well decorated too, very simple with a few plants and chairs here and there.
All the walls and the floor were white, the windows and doors all made of glass.
Signs of ‘silence’ and a coffee machine were things Lauren captured with her eyes too. This hospital was a lot different from the last one she had been, not less terrifying though. Although she hated hospitals she knew it wasn’t the place itself that made her hate and fear it, it was the things related to it, the reasons you had to visit one, that’s what makes her skin crawls and her stomach sick.

Lauren jumped when she felt a buzz between her jeans and belly, which was exactly where she had hidden Camila’s phone. She straightened herself on the couch and thought it was about time to contact somebody that might actually know Camila.   Calmly she got up from the couch and walked where Silvia was talking with a nurse. “Excuse me. Silvia, I need to use the bathroom…”

Silvia stroke Lauren’s arm, then gave a look to the nurse, asking silently where the bathroom was. The woman understood immediately and guided Lauren.

“Come, it’s this way” a small blonde girl, about 5’4, said while walking through a corridor in the opposite side of the reception.

About four doors away from the reception’s hall, Lauren visualized the bathroom. The woman pointed to a rectangular white door with a sign written ‘girls’, and a doll with her index finger above her lips indicating ‘silence’ right underneath it. Enough ‘silence’ signs for at least the rest of my life, she thought.

The brunette walked through the door, and was finally left alone. She thought she would break down at the minute she got alone, but her eyes refused to cooperate so she just took Camila’s phone in her hands and started to work on the ‘finding anyone who knows Camila better than me to handle this situation better than me’ operation.

Lauren took a look at the phone in her hands, the screen was cracked. She thought if it was like this before it met with the sidewalk of the parking lot’s exit, or Camila was one of those lucky people who never cracked their device. Until now, of course.