Danny woke up feeling like a million dollars, his whole body humming in content pleasure. He opened his eyes to the unfamiliar walls of a hospital room and recalled the previous night. He winced at the memories, the full-bodied pain haunting him.
He then spotted a man sitting in the corner of his room, a security guard. The man was staring at his phone, unaware Danny had woken up. “Am I on suicide watch?” Danny asked, bewildered.
The man jumped in his seat, obviously caught off guard. “Ahh no man, no. The doctor just wanted to know when you awake.” The guard scrambled to his feet and left the room, soon replaced by a nurse.
A bit confused, Danny questioned the nurse. “What’s going on?”
The nurse smiled at him gently, one of those smiles that barely masked pity. It made Danny’s skin crawl. “You had a pretty bad toxicological emergency, Dant-”
“Danny.” Danny cut in.
The nurse took it in her stride. “We believe you were poisoned Danny, but the doctors were unable to determine by what. You were in severe pain for about two and half hours, before all symptoms disappeared.”
Danny recalled Claude and the glowing liquid that had burnt him. He pulled his arm out from under the blanket and inspected it. His bicep had a small burn on it. A fleet of doctors suddenly entered the room armed with clipboards. They barraged Danny with questions about his health, his diet, and the events of last night. Their frantic energy unnerved Danny and he did his best to answer every question they had.
They seemed very interested in his drug taking, repeatedly asking him if he had been taking anything illicit. Danny was honest, he did a bit of drinking here and there at parties and the like, but had never taken anything serious. “What’s the big deal? What’s wrong with me? I’m feeling fine now.”
“That’s just it young man.” The oldest doctor in the room, who had been asking most of the questions, answered. “We have very little idea what happened last night.”
The doctor recalled events from his perspective. One of the guys at the shelter had called for an ambulance as soon as Danny had collapsed. The ambos had found Danny having what appeared to be a seizure with a strange orange glow pulsating beneath his skin, seeming to emanate from the contamination site on his arm. Danny had been completely unable to communicate or acknowledge outside stimuli and had been rushed to the emergency department. The glowing had now spread across his entire body and the pain appeared to have worsened. Sedatives did not affect him and clinical toxicology reports were showing the impossible, that there was nothing foreign in his blood, at least that they could detect.
The doctors spent two hours trying to stabilise his condition to no avail when he suddenly screamed, a scream the doctor described as a sound that he’d have with him until he died, and every symptom disappeared.
“So you see, we are at a bit of a loss with your condition. You’ve been unconscious for a day and all our tests are showing that you’re healthy, incredibly healthy. I’m sure you can feel it but you’re somehow in a better condition than you likely were before this incident, and we can’t claim it was anything we did.”
“DANNY!” The door swung open with a thunderous crash, knocking an unsuspecting doctor clean off his feet. A young woman in a blazer with a glamorous hairstyle charged into the room.
Danny grinned. “Hey, Belle. What brings you back to Madley?”
“You!” The woman glared at him before turning her glare on the rest of the crowd in the room. “Could you please give some siblings a bit of privacy?”
“Of course,” the older doctor corralled his staff out of the room.
Belle then rushed to the bedside. “What the hell happened Danny? I could hear your screams through the phone when they called me.”
“Huh, how’d they know to call you?”
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Belle shook her head and sighed. “They called St. Veronica’s and I was listed as your emergency contact there. What happened Danny?”
Danny took a second to process everything he’d just heard. “I… I don’t know Belle. I really have no clue.”
Belle’s brows furrowed. “Have you been taking drugs?”
Danny deadpanned. “Me?”
“It runs in the family,” Belle sighed.
“Yeah well, not me.”
“I told you working at that place was bad news. You can’t trust the homeless Danny. You should move over to Melbourne with Sam and me, I could get you work you know and-”
“I’m not leaving Madley Belle, you know that. And you can’t say things like that, they’re good blokes just down on their luck. Someone needs to lend them a hand.”
“Why does it have to be you, Danny? One of them poisoned you for god’s sake.”
“I know Claude, he’s a decent guy, he wouldn’t have done this on purpose.”
Belle let out an exasperated sigh and threw her hands up. “Whatever. How are you feeling?”
Danny grinned. “Amazing honestly.” Belle raised an eyebrow. “The doctor even said that all my tests show I’m like, suspiciously healthy, or something. It’s weird, they don’t get it,” Danny shrugged.
“So you can just leave? Wanna get brunch?”
Danny rolled his eyes. “What’s your obsession with brunch?”
Belle just grinned and went to find a doctor. She soon came back with the old doctor.
“I would prefer if you stayed here a while for monitoring, but I have no authority to force you to stay.”
“I’d like to leave.”
The doctor sighed but arranged the discharge forms and summary for Danny and made sure he booked a follow-up in a few days, including brain and full-body scans. They would be covered by Medicare and the hospital so Danny had no reason to refuse.
Soon he and his sister were sitting in some trendy cafe Belle had found on her phone. The two talked about life for a while before Belle had to take a business call. She had dropped everything to fly interstate to see Danny, and she was a busy woman these days. Danny slumped in his chair, unsure what to make of the situation.
He felt fantastic physically, but something was off. He noticed it as he ate, the food wasn’t filling him. He could taste it, but it felt like his body wasn’t happy with it. There was something seriously off about his body but he wasn’t sure what was happening. Maybe leaving the hospital wasn’t the smartest decision.
Belle came back into the cafe with a sorry look on her face. “Something happened to one of our biggest client’s properties and they need me to put out all the fires. I’m sorry Danny but I’ve got to go.”
“No stress sis, you’re crushing it these days. I’m happy you came down though.” The two hugged and Belle dropped him back at his place before heading to the airport.
Danny threw himself on the sofa and settled for a bit before getting bored and pulling out his phone. He had a few messages from the people he worked with and his manager, but that was about it. He decided to ignore them and started browsing youtube, losing himself in his usual mix of mindless content.
The front door opened and his roommates came in. “Yo dude, where you been the last few days?”
“Hosptial,” Danny replied without looking away from his phone.
“Wild. You good?”
“Yeah, now.”
“Cool, wanna smoke?”
“Nah.”
“Aiight.”
His two roommates went into one of the bedrooms and soon the earthy smell of their chosen herbal refreshment spread through the townhouse. Danny sighed and got up. He changed out of the clothes the hospital had given him, had a shower, and then went for a walk.
As he was walking the image of Claude's inhuman visage haunted him. The glowing eyes and veins were burned into his brain. Suppressed questions finally began to sprout in his mind. What had happened to him? What had happened to Claude? What was going on with his body? There was only one place he could think of that would have answers. He decided to head to work.
Saint Veronica’s Crisis Shelter was a male-only homelessness shelter he’d been working the overnight shift at for about a year and a half now. The hours fit well with his schedule after he’d decided to go to university. He hopped on his usual bus and crossed the city toward the shelter. The guys who stayed there knew what each other was up to, so they’d likely know what Claude had been doing recently.
Danny didn’t bother entering the shelter, he walked down to the local park where the guys liked to hang out and smoke during the day. Danny made his way to the usual spot and said hello to the guys, he was going to get his answers.