The Pharmacy (UNEDITED)

Chapter Twenty

 

It was a dry, gloomy summer morning of the first Tuesday of June, after that P-Room incident. I had my arms wrapped my, now skinny, legs and watched the people of Munich walk and flutter by with their heads warm and free of worries, cares, anything. My eyes glazed as I remembered the view in Amsterdam. Red-headed girls flying past on their bicycles, men in suits rushingly glancing at their wrists, my father trying to straighten his awful ties while mother cursed at what she managed to read in the newspaper whilst cooking breakfast.
  
   "Who's next?" She would mutter to herself. "Europe is a cursed continent."

   "Now, I told you we should move to America but you clung to Holland."
 
   Then, she would shake her head, and father would bid us farewell as he left with his crooked tie.

   They sent me here to study. They doubted that anyone would realize that I wasn't one of them. I was supposed to learn medicine. Now, I avoid my godparents daily, skip meals, and go down to the basement where I find torture victims being used as test rats for rich people treatments. I had no one I loved here anymore.

   Except Fabian.

   My stomach would twist and knot when I thought of him, how I just left him there without a word. I never had the guts to tell him that I just couldn't bear to visit him anymore, that I couldn't stand to feel a connection and at the same knowing that there was a chance that he could die in front of my own eyes. The thought made a lump jump from my heart and up my throat, choking the tears out of my eyes. I didn't even know if he loved me back, or if he was just trying to be nice to me. I don't think I even cared. I just felt like garbage.

   I had to visit.

   My legs felt numb by the time I got to the manor. I didn't want to sit in a taxi this time. The drivers were all aggravating. The gates were open, which was odd, but I walked through anyway, hoping that the Neumann family hadn't moved away in my absence. Overgrown grass in the lawn crawled on me, creating a horrible sensation on my legs and hands that nearly drove me insane as I trudged through the humid soil. Finally, I reached the door. With three knocks, I heard someone's voice from inside.

   "Miriam, get the door!"

   The voice was rough, raspy, deep. Worn.

   Delicate footsteps became louder as they neared the door, and Miriam opened it. Her eyes lit up as if someone had lit a candle behind them.

   "Oh, miss, hello!" She beamed, "It's nice to see you again! Master Fabian is upstairs."

   She cleared the way, and I greeted her back as I skipped upstairs, in a rush to get to Fabian's room. I silently prayed that he was still okay. I memorized the path. Upstairs, upstairs, down the creepy hall. Enter the sunlit bedroom.

   The golden light spilled from beneath his door. He was awake, yes! I was hesitant to twist the knob, I could feel the muscles in my fingers getting tense and stuck, a bizarre tingling sensation rushing through my legs and my chest, like, a dreaded excitement. If that makes sense.

   With a single breath to cool my lungs, I knocked on the door. ... no response? I knocked more. I waited for a couple more minutes. Still, no repose, but I could hear a couple of distant voices from behind the thick door. Was his window open? Is he losing his sense of hearing? I swallowed, trying to wait for just a bit longer. When that didn't work, I quietly opened the door myself, surprised it wasn't locked.

   "Hello," I said in a quiet voice. I hadn't opened the door far enough to see the bed or anything.

   "Who's there?" He replied. His voice was a bit tired, but I reckoned it might've been a side effect of some medicine. "D—Monica, is that you?"

   I felt my heart flutter a bit, "Yes, it's me, may I come in?"

   "U-um, yes, you may," he quietly stuttered. I couldn't help but allow a soft smile to crawl up my face before I allowed myself in.

   I gently pushed the door over, but what I saw was not what I expected. Fabian was curled up against the pillow at the end of his bed with his blanket folded beneath his feet. His eyes were lined with ashy grey circles. It was as if his irises were just as grey.

   The really weird thing wasn't that, although I did have questions about it. What genuinely surprised me was that Fabian wasn't alone. Someone was seated on a chair, right by his bed. Someone I hoped I wasn't recognizing correctly.

   "Monica," Fabian perked up, "I hadn't expected you, why didn't you call?"

   "I came here on my... own... accord..." I tried my best to focus on Fabian, to try not to glance at the golden-haired man beside him.

   "Who's this, Fabian?" The man quietly asked as he eyed me from head to toe. Trying to look natural was difficult to do with my throat shut from stress.

   "Oh, sorry, uncle," Fabian muttered, equally as quietly. He turned back to me with a soft expression, but there hadn't been a smile on his face.

   "Uncle, this is a friend of mine, Monica... something, I forget her last name. Monica, this is my Uncle, Johannes Steiner."

   The world suddenly shrank against me. My windpipe went shut. At that moment, I wished that the floor would suddenly crack open beneath me, and swallow me up. I finally understood why he looked so familiar. The golden hair, the sharp noise, the glaring, piercingly blue eyes. He looked different without the uniform, almost scarier.

   "It's nice to meet you," he smiled in a way so plastic that it was unsettling.

   "It's nice to meet you too, sir," I forced the words to escape the lump that had just formed in my chest.