If she peeked around the corner, she could se them coming. They were taking their time, as they always did, pretending to check on the others. She knew why they were coming, why they really bothered coming down this hall. More tests, more talking, more people wanting to talk about why she was there.
Useless. Boring.
Terrifying.
On the brighter side, maybe they brought Jell-O.
She peeked around the corner, knowing they were there, knowing full well what she’d see, and yet she found herself to be incapable of not doing so. Weeks ago, she’d chalked it up to a morbid curiosity. Lately, it had become kind of a guessing game. She started guessing which door they were at and then she’d peek around the corner to see how right she was. Her guesses were getting more and more accurate. She gave it another couple of days before she’d be almost completely accurate.
One of them saw her so she ducked back around and went over to sit on her bed. That had never happened before. She was too afraid to move, so she sat there and waited, waited for them to come, waited for it to be over with.
They came. They were late. It occurred to her that they might know about her game. Maybe they threw it off deliberately just to see how she’d react.
Bastards.
The first one smiled. He was trying to make it a friendly smile, but the smile never reached his cold, flat brown eyes. “Good morning, Ziarre. How are you today?”
She looked between him and the other man who was slowly making his way to her bedside. The only reply she could manage was a strangled whimper.
Risa woke to the sight of the plain walls of her room in the hospital. She sat up and looked around. She sighed, feeling her stomach grumble in protest. She got out of bed and had a shower, wondering what was on the menu in the cafeteria. The hot water felt good, so good that she made a note to be sure to shower every morning. She debated making the bed, but decided against it in order to see if the hospital staff took care of such things.
She did another exam of herself in the mirror after getting out, noting that she had a tattoo on her lower back. She traced the outlines as much as she could with her fingers. The design meant nothing to her. She didn’t recognize it at all, so she ignored it and got dressed.
Fortunately for her, there were signs all over the place informing both the residents and any possible visitors as to where they were in relation to everything else. The cafeteria was located on the first floor of the hospital, so she made a left turn, heading for the stairwell. She couldn’t quite bring herself to use the elevator, especially after what Lachlan had told her the day before about the button to the thirteenth floor. She didn’t remember anything about herself, but she was pretty sure that, if she went into the elevator, she’d be tempted to push that button.
On her way to the stairwell, she passed several rooms containing other patients of the psychiatric ward. Many of the doors were closed, but some were open. In one, a girl with dark red skin lay in a bed. She had a face that was completely void of all expression. In another, there was an unmade bed and clothes tossed around, as if someone had been either very angry or trying to find something important. She continued on, past a room where a girl with grey hair was making up the bed.
So either that patient isn’t here anymore or they do tend to these rooms.
She was wearing the uniform worn by the people who volunteered in the hospital. Feeling as if she was being watched, the volunteer turned around and her blue eyes met with Risa’s light green ones. Risa felt a shiver crawl up her spine, but what the cause was, she couldn’t say for certain. She walked away, making it to the stairs without further incident.
Given that she was a patient at the hospital, identified by her bracelet, all she had to do was walk up to the counter with her food and the cashier would scan the bar code on the bracelet, same as they did in the library. She made a note as to what Risa had taken in a thin black binder.
Risa sat down at a table and started to eat. As she did, the volunteer kept returning to her mind. She shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature in the cafeteria. She’s creepy, Risa concluded. She looks familiar, but I’m sure I’d remember someone that weird. She nearly laughed. Then again, I’m sure I’d remember my own name since that’s a pretty important thing. She finished her meal and decided to head back to the Psychiatric Ward to see if she could track down that volunteer. It was a matter of curiosity. If she looked familiar, then maybe she had some clue as to Risa’s true identity.
Finally, they left her alone. Ziarre rubbed the upper part of her left arm, the part where the one man, the one who never said anything, had poked her with a needle. The one who always did all the talking had tried to assure her that the shot was for her own good, that it was a part of her treatment, but just like the other times he’d told her that, she didn’t believe him. She got up and went into her bathroom and examined her arm more closely. There was a small red mark on her arm from where the needle had punctured her skin. It would fade in a couple of days, but she hated it all the same.
She took a face cloth and, after wetting it, washed her face and wiped the bit of blood off her arm. She got dressed in her usual stuff: baggy pants that were cream in color, a loose dark blue tank top, and her fuzzy kitty slippers. She tossed a zip up hoodie on over top of that without zipping I up and headed out of her room, intent on going down to the library.
The instant she walked out of her room, she collided with another girl, one with dark honey blond hair. Both girls landed on the ground, looking very confused. Ziarre looked at her in mild fear.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered as she scrambled to her feet. She headed back into her room and hid on the other side of her bed.
Risa got up, rubbing her head. “My fault,” she replied, following Ziarre into her room. “I really need to watch where I’m going. I was in a hurry, so I didn’t even notice you coming out of here.” She looked around the room. “I’m not going to hurt you, you know. I just want to apologize.”
Ziarre popped her head up above the mattress. “Really?” she squeaked.
“It was an accident and entirely my fault.”
The timid brunette stood up. “You’re not mad?”
Risa gave her an odd look. “Why would I be? If I’m upset at all it’s at myself for not paying more attention.”
With a huge sigh of relief, Ziarre sat down on her bed. “That’s a relief.”
Risa came in and sat down beside her. “Do people get mad at you a lot?”
Ziarre fidgeted with the hem of her hoodie. “Everyone gets mad at me.”
“That’s not really fair, is it?”
Her Wedgwood blue eyes lit up with something resembling hope. “You think so, too?”
Risa shrugged. “I may not remember anything before I woke up here, but I think so, yeah.”
Ziarre looked at her, head tilted slightly to one side. “You don’t have memories?”
“None,” Risa admitted cheerfully.
“And this doesn’t bother you?” Ziarre was feeling bolder the more she spoke to this odd girl with the honey blond hair.
“I know it should, but it’s not.” She frowned. “I wonder why?”
“So that’s why you’re here? Memory loss?”
“Apparently, I was in some kind of car crash that killed my parents. No one mentioned if I have siblings or not, so I’m assuming not. The accident left me with amnesia. The doctors say that my memory could return, but until then I’m supposed to stay here under observation. At least until they find any relatives I may have.”
Ziarre’s shoulders slumped. “They won’t find any. They never do. Some times I think they don’t even look.”
“That’s really pessimistic.”
“They never found Aloysia’s parents,” Ziarre pointed out. “She’s been here longer than anyone else.”
“Aloysia? Isn’t that the girl with the dog? I’ve been told to avoid her.”
“Good advice. Who gave it to you?”
“A guy named Lachlan.” At Ziarre’s blank look, she explained. “He owns a flower shop in the hospital, down on the main floor by the entrance.”
“Oh. I don’t know anyone here who isn’t a patient, a doctor or nurse, or one of those volunteers.”
The word volunteer sparked in Risa’s head. “Speaking of those, do you know a volunteer who has light grey hair and blue eyes? Looks kind of creepy?”
“That’s Amaris. She’s been here a few months. I don’t have much contact with her much, but she hangs around Misu’s room a lot.”
“Misu?”
“Officially, her name is Jane Doe #1013, but the staff started calling her Misu one day as her official name is long to say. The reason given is that the only thing that seems to hold her attention at all is water.” Ziarre nodded. “She’s the girl with the red skin who just lies in bed, staring at the wall.”
That clicked. “I’ve seen her. I wondered about that.”
This was a new experience for Ziarre. She was shy and knew it, but for some reason she felt that she could trust Risa. Out of all of the people she’d met in the hospital, this one felt safe to her. It could just be the girl’s amnesia that made her feel secure enough to speak with her. Or it could be something else, though what that could be she didn’t know.
“So, how come you’re here?” Risa continued.
Ziarre fidgeted. “My mom died when I was eight years old. My dad passed thee months later.” Risa waited patiently for her to continue. “It was ruled as a suicide by Dr. Letum Neco, the hospital’s coroner. I was in the room when he died.”
“That’s horrible!”
She fidgeted some more. Can I? Can’t I? Can I? Can’t I? Should I?
“What’s wrong?”
“Risa?” she whispered. “Can I trust you?”
“I don’t know. I think you can, but I don’t know enough about myself to say for sure.”
“If I told you something, would you keep it a secret?”
“Who would I tell?”
Ziarre looked around her, checking to see if there was anyone listening. “My father wasn’t a nice person. He drank a lot and yelled at mom when he was drunk. I remember one night when I was seven, a week before my eighth birthday, he started to hit her as well. It kept going for a few months, getting worse all the time. He came home one night and he was blind drunk. They fought. It was bad. Mom said she was leaving him, taking me with her. He got mad and grabbed one of her good kitchen knives. He cut her throat open right in front of me.” Ziarre paused, her throat chocking up at the memories of that night. “I ran. I ran up to my room. I hoped he wasn’t even aware that I’d been there. I think he did. He didn’t say anything to me for the next couple of weeks. It took me that long to get up the courage to talk to him, to tell him what I saw. You know what he told me?”
Risa shook her head. “What?”
“He told me that all things die and if I wasn’t careful, I’d join my mama.”
Risa’s eyes widened in horror. “How could he say that to a child?”
“I don’t know.” Ziarre shook her head. “I lived in fear of him for the next two and a half months. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. He came home one night, drunk, and passed out in his chair. I took the knife, the one he’d used to kill mom, and put it in his hands then I jammed it into his heart. It was ruled a suicide.”
“You killed your own father?”
Ziarre swallowed, tears welling up in her eyes. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t go to the police, since they’d decided that mom’s death was the result of a breaking and entering or something like that. They wouldn’t believe an eight year old girl after three months, especially when she had nothing to say before.”
“So they sent you here?”
“Child services ruled that I was traumatized by the successive deaths of my parents and figured I needed to be put under psychiatric care. I’ve been here ever since.”
Risa was silent for a long time before she finally said, “And no one else knows about this?”
“No one.”
“And you trust me with this?”
“I guess so.”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
Ziarre nearly went limp with relief. She’d carried the burden of knowledge for so long that to finally share it with another living soul was a relief. Tears leaked out of his eyes. “Thank you,” she sobbed.
Not knowing what else to do, Risa wrapped her arms around the other girl who suddenly seemed even more fragile than she had when they’d collided in the hallway. Well, Risa thought wryly. I seem to have made a friend here at least.
“Madame Director, reporting as ordered.”
“What do you have for me today?”
“It seems our warnings went partly unheeded; Subject BUD5-5 has made contact with Subject HER9-4. It appears to have been an accident, but they were in contact long enough for #4 to decide to trust #5.”
The director’s eyes narrowed. “This is not good news, Aktaios.”
Aktaios, the man standing before her, cringed reflexively. The director’s voice never changed pitch, yet her eyes conveyed a great deal of anger. “What do you want us to do, Madame?”
After a pause, she replied, “Nothing for the time being. We don’t wish to alert anyone to the fact that we want these two apart for any reason. We will observe for now.” Aktaios bowed and backed away from the director. “Megalaisos.”
“Madame?” another man asked, standing up from his chair.
“How are things progressing with Subject PER3-0?”
“She continues to speak with animals, but otherwise I foresee no difficulties in managing her.”
“Excellent.” Three women burst into the room, interrupting anything further the director would have said. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” she asked the blond who was leading them.
“We beg forgiveness, but we have located Subject BRI8-3.”
The director leaned forward. “Have you now?”
“We have. Arrangements have been made to bring her here.”
“That is not the assignment you were given, Alecto.”
“It isn’t,” Alecto confirmed.
“We saw an opportunity and took it,” Tisiphone, the woman with the two toned hair beside her said. “We didn’t think that you’d object.”
“As long as you didn’t arrange this to the exclusion of your true mission.”
The other woman, Megaera, snorted in disdain. “No of course not. We know how vital our mission is to you, Madame Director.”
“Then I am pleased. I look forward to seeing #3 in this place.”
