He came out of the room and adjusted laboratory ID on his breast pocket. The black-haired male in white lab coat slid his glasses up the bridge of nose and took a turn to his right before making sure no one is following him. He dropped his head to his chest, covering side of his face from the eye of camera though not in suspicious arousing manner and slipped inside the medical laboratory room. There's a no one inside the room, good to his chance, and he ran through the computers for the data that he needed to look for. He clicked on the recent entries and went through the list till he found what he had been searching for.
"Got you"
-
"That person maybe tried to kill me." Rohan rephrased for doctor completely frustrated and gulped down the liquid in a medicine cup in one shot that nurse had brought him.
"It's a reaction of medication and ..." The male in white coat tried to reason with his patient in calm demeanour. But Rohan snapped at the him and it took last bit of his self- control from not attacking the doctor.
"It wasn't an hallucination." He shouted out and abruptly clutched his throbbing head in headache.
"Rohan, I had been with you all the time. There's no one inside the room." Melaine told him for the umpteenth time and Rohan locked his scorching eyes with Melaine in anger. She had left him for few minutes to use the bathroom and upon her return she found him in panic seizure, and immediately rushed to call in the doctors.
"Are you sure about this, Melaine?" There's slight tinge of bitterness in his tone, Melaine noticed. The questioning look that Rohan cast at Melaine unnerved the girl and she shuddered under his scrutiny as if he had been condemning her guilty of his conflicted mind.
"Rohan, we have already checked the CCTV cameras. It didn't show anyone entering or exiting the room." She insisted and held her arms underneath her bust.
"Then how do you explain the injection?" Rohan burst out finally losing his temperament with Melanie. Annie who had been listening to their argument caught a glimpse of Melaine's face out of her periphery and noticed a strange emotion passed across Melaine's face.
"It's the injection that nurse had given you before..."
"It's because of the heavy dosage and you're just recovering from head injury." Annie cut in Melaine and shifted on her heels pretending that she didn't notice a half concealed smile of Melaine.
" Leave the room." Rohan told them and turned his back to them fisting his hand in the bedcover. There's no point of having them around when he couldn't get them to listen to him for what he had experienced was real.
"Rohan, look..."
"Leave, Melaine!" Melaine closed her mouth and exit the room disappearing somewhere in the corridor. Annie sighed and left from the room. She looked around the corridor and hurried to chase the doctor to his office.
"Excuse me Dr. Reynard, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"Yes?" Reynard tucked his hand in coat's pocket.
"I-I want you to run Rohan's blood and urine test." Annie spoke moistening her lips.
"We had already run the blood test to check what had his caused heart palpitations and we're changing his medication..."
"There's nothing in his blood, like some drug to trigger this? Annie questioned.
"No, his blood and urine report is clear of any foreign serum."
" Thank you for your time." Annie gave a dejected smile as the doctor nodded and went inside his cabin. Annie exhaled out in disappointment because she had believed Rohan for a moment and a blotch of smeared red at underside of Melaine's arm put a thick doubt inside her head. The face that held a smirk of amusement at Rohan's tortured mind and his desperation to prove himself to be in his working senses than a surreal hallucination disturbed Annie. There's something about Melaine, from the start, that spoke so differently about her. She had carried an aura of mystery around her; a secret within secret of herself. But what it could've been, Annie hadn't gotten a smell of it to know. The girl dropped her arms and turned to leave from there, when Melaine immediately pressed herself against the wall as Annie passed by her. The corner of Melaine's lips turned up in a lopsided smirk and she entered inside the room no. 42 handing an elderly man his coffee.
"Thank you, kid." The man smiled up at her and took the plastic cup from her hand.
"It's my pleasure, Sir." She returned the smile and sat beside him on the chair.
"How's Dan's condition?" She asked Mr. Henderson whose tired eyes looked straight at his son and got moistened given his condition when he answered her,
"It's taking time for him to recover. His burns had been severe."
Melaine nodded back and took in Dan's resting form on bed. Bandages had covered his burnt scalp to his right ear under a white patch. There's a thin scar, Melaine assumed, starting from his hairline and stopped above the arch of his eyebrow that was hidden underneath the band aid. His entire right arm, resting at his side, had been in clean bandages and his left hand stuck with canola was placed on his stomach.
"He didn't deserve this much pain." Melaine spoke and his father hung his head in grief as his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Melaine placed her hand on his shoulder to comfort him but Dan's father excused himself out of the room for some privacy, not before mouthing apology to the girl . Melanie looked back at sleeping Dan and came to stand beside his bed. She removed the band aid revealing the red scar and made a clinking sound with her tongue out of her pity for his miserable condition. She traced it with her thumb smiling and put her thumb inside her mouth tasting the antiseptic on her tongue. She smirked humming in the delight of pleasure. Melaine leaned over down encasing his torso with her arms and levelled herself at his ear.
"You must never blow smoke on my face again, Dan." Melaine grinned rubbing his arm up and down.
"Because you know how much pain a burning cigarette can cause on the hard palate." She kissed his covered ear and abruptly pulled back when she heard his father, Mr. Henderson entered the room.
"I ran into his doctor on the way." He tried to explain breaking the silence of the room.
"He'll be fine."
"I wish it was me in place of him."
"You have to be strong for him, Mr. Henderson."
"It's a lot for an old father."
"I better be going." Melaine returned old Henderson a smile and left for Rohan's room. She's about to step her foot inside the room, just then her blood ran cold upon the sight of Darren sitting on the edge of Rohan's bed and handed him a bouquet of flower. Melaine stepped back pressing herself in the wall and overhead heard their conversation.
"You didn't have to bring me these flowers." Rohan chuckled that made her insides twist at the sound he made for another man.
"I have heard about your accident, so I came here to see you in person rather than sending a wish card." She scoffed at Darren's choice of words. He couldn't have come to visit Rohan without any ulterior motive.
"You didn't have to."
"My student is in hospital and as a teacher it's my responsibility to know his well being." Rohan snickered at Darren's words.
"You're out of your professional ground, Sir Darren." The obvious insult to their past fling didn't go unrecognized by Darren.
"I don't think I have a right to be informal with you since you're with this Melaine girl, if I am not wrong?"
"Does it bother you?"
"I'm an adult person, Rohan. Things like these don't affect me."
"I'm glad we are clear."
"You like this Melanie girl?"
"If obsession falls in the category of love, then you can say that."
"Madness also falls in the category of obsession." Darren chuckled.
"You're saying my love for Melanie is madness?"
"No, her madness is love for you."
"Well, Darren she hasn't told me if she loves me or not."
"Well, she mightn't have told you if she's insane or not." Melaine curled her hand into fist biting her tongue in anger.
"Why are you talking like this?"
"No reason." Darren shrugged nonchalantly and turned to leave.
"I must go now, lunch break will be over in few minutes." Darren went outside the room and turned to cross the corner when Melanie yanked him back by his elbow.
"Ah, Melaine...you took a day off from school?"
"Stop this drama!" She seethed through her gritted teeth.
"What did I do?"
"You know exactly what are you doing."
"And what are you doing, Melaine?"
"Don't aggravate me!" She snarled at him much to his enjoyment.
"Rohan has been suspecting you for the last night's incident." He told her and grabbed her hand.
"You don't have to worry about him. His tests' report is all clean. Besides, he isn't sure himself what has actually happened last night. His memory is clogged up." Melaine smirked up at Darren who palmed both of her cheeks and placed a kiss on her forehead.
"Very well and keep a good eye on Annie. She's been on her eyes and ears around you." Darren lightly tugged at her arm revealing smeared paint on her arm that made her eyes go wide.
"She's all taken care of." Melaine answered jerking her arm back from Darren.
"I'm leaving." Melaine nodded at him and Darren stepped inside the elevator pressing the button to close the lift.
"Do you think I'm a fool, Darren?"
-
Rohan looked at the bouquet of flowers that his friends had sent him. He reached for the nearest one and pulled out a red card in white roses. He flipped open the paper card and furrowed his eyes in confusion.
'See you again, Rohan
Alan'
"What are you starring at, Rohan?" Melaine questioned Rohan who snapped his attention up at her. Melaine furrowed her eyes at him and took the red paper from his hand, reading for herself.
"Who's this Alan?" Melaine looked up from the card at Rohan who's staring back at her.
"Alan"
" Alan who?" We don't have a classmate that goes by the name of Alan." Melaine tucked the paper card in her pocket.
"It's Alan."
"Rohan, you are not making sense." Melaine sighed combing her hair back and sat next to him on the bed taking his hand in hers.
"It's Alan, Laine." He spoke to himself barely audible for Melaine's ears.
"Rohan, Alan is dead." Melaine whispered back gripping his hand tightly in hers.
"I saw him last night!"
"W-What are you talking about?"
"It was Alan."
"What was Alan?" Melaine asked irritated at Rohan.
"The clown was Alan."
"Alan is dead, Rohan"
"He might not be..."