Chapter Text
You dream of falling. This isn’t a dream of flying, you’re scared, out of control. You try to grab onto something, anything. Pain amplifies your fear. You wake up when you scream.
Bright lights make your eyes hurt. Everything aches and you’re scared. You don’t know where you are. You can’t move it’s hard to breathe like something heavy is sitting on your chest. Your eyes adjust and you try to look around. You’re lying down. Something gray blocks your view of your body. The room is dim except for the very bright lights shinning on you. The walls and ceilings are plain white, there are metal carts and machines at the edge of your vision.
Sharp pain shoots through your left leg. Like two vice grips on your thigh and calf. Something lifts your leg and forces your knee to bend. You scream on reflex. The pain goes away.
Something moves and you try to gasp but just choke. You recognize a white lab coat. Someone stands over you. A doctor? He shushes you and reaches out of your field of view to adjust a machine. The pain goes away when he touches something. You get a better look at him. His hands and face are too white. His face is a skull. You gasp and choke again. He shushes you in a comforting way. He doesn’t seem mean.
The last thing you remember… Sad, lost, looking for something, falling. Falling and pain. Oh! you were injured and now you are at the doctor’s office. Everything suddenly makes sense. You look at the man again. You don’t know why he is a skeleton but he is definitely a doctor. He has a white coat and gloves, and hasn’t done anything mean. Doctors are allowed to hurt you as long as it is to make you feel better latter, like cleaning your scraped knee, or pulling a tooth, or giving you a shot. That’s all he’s done so far. The leg he made you move doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s still numb, tingly, and cold, but doesn’t ache like the rest of your body.
You relax into your seat best you can. You’re determined to be a good patient. The doctor seems to sense this, he meets your eyes for a moment but doesn’t say anything.
He goes back to work. Sharp stinging pain travels up your left leg. You stare at the ceiling and try to think about something else. You absentmindingly hum a lullaby Mom used to sing to calm you down. The doctor looks at you again briefly before returning to work.
You flex your stiff foot when he orders it. Experimentally, you try clenching your fists. It causes sharp pains. “Stay still!” The doctor barks. “foot.” He prompts again. You obey. He nods and starts work on your knee.
You look around best you can. The metal bib-thing around your neck stops you from seeing yourself and most of the room. What you can see is white and dark gray, dimly lit compared to the spotlight shinning on you. You spot machines that you don’t know the names of but look vaguely like they belong in a hospital.
Something shiny catches your attention. You have to tilt your head uncomfortably but you can just see a glowing tube. It pulses with orange and blue light, it’s a comfortable color. As you watch the color changes to a mix of blue and yellow. It disappears into the wall, or is that a door?
You stare at it for a while, you might have dozed off.
“Leg!” the doctor surprises you. You wince as you stiffly force your left leg to bend. The doctor nods. He stands from his chair and rearranges a few things outside of your vision.
“Wha’s th’” you try to say something but your voice slow and slurred. The doctor looks at you disapprovingly. You really want to know though and force your heavy tongue to comply. “Wha tha” you indicate the glowing plastic tube with your eyes. The doctor almost seems surprised you noticed it. He hesitates before answering.
“Medicine.” That almost sounds like a lie. But the lights aren’t mean, they make you feel warm and happy, so you decide it doesn’t matter.
Despite the pain, you doze in and out. You don’t now how long you’ve been here; how long the doctor works on you.
He moves closer. He hovers directly above you. You stare at the reflection in his glasses. You can just see his hands moving near the grey metal bib that blocs sight of your body. He moves up even closer. Pain comes from your throat now. It stings. You try to take deep breaths through your nose. The doctor slows and his skull looks at you. But he doesn’t stop working. You see a flash of a tiny knife in his hand. Is he cutting your neck?! You whimper and try to move. You realize something is holding your head in place, you can’t get away.
He sets the small knife aside and you see it’s sticky red. Blood? Your blood? He has a pair of tweezers. It hurts very badly as he lifts something out of your throat. You hope it’s a rock or something weird you swallowed but it’s not. It’s red and bloody, flesh colored, and tube shaped. That’s your throat, he’s cutting your throat apart.
“Shush.” He tries to quiet you but you don’t listen. You try to scream but you can’t make any noise, he’s taken your throat apart. You can’t talk. The doctor reaches out of your sight and beeps come from a machine.
Everything goes dark. You feel heavy and tired. You go back to sleep.