Hanna felt weird, as though her body were elastic and being pulled in several directions. She was unsure if it was a dream or reality, but it didn’t really hurt so much as it felt strange and surreal. She felt her arms pulling off at each side, painlessly stretching and stretching, then a kind of sucking feeling, as though each arm were being pulled into the suction of a vacuum. They stretched on and on until they stopped and she began to feel a strain on her arms. As it started to become a discomfort, she had a vague feeling of the nerves in her arms spasming. Then, snap! As though whatever was pulling had finally gave in, her arms snapped back to her like rubber bands. Hanna was hit with a roiling nausea and vertigo.
Hanna rolled over onto her side, arm flailing for her trash can, afraid of what was coming. She still had no idea if it was remnants of a dream or if she’d been awake, but the nausea now was real.
She grasped the trash can and, groaning, pulling it beneath her face.
“Are you feeling sick again?”
Hanna lifted her weary head and, as if it had never been there, the nausea and vertigo vanished. Soohae watched her, the beginnings of morning light coming through the window. Not trusting herself to answer, Hanna nodded.
“I think it has something to do with the medicine,” Soohae said softly, her voice thoughtful as she approached Hanna and helped her sit up slowly.
“How?” It was just one word, but Hanna felt like it took a lot of effort, as though her mind were still half somewhere else.
Soohae tilted her head. “You had a LOT of different medicine in your body. More than usual. Then they changed your medication, as well as increasing the amount. Your body retains that for a while.”
“How do you know all this,” Hanna asked, her brow furrowing. Soohae lowered her head with a slight frown, her hand absently playing with a sliver of Hanna’s sheet as she sat down on the bed. “Aema told me. Then I noticed that when the medicine weakens in you, you tend to have more spells. Or,” she added, looking at Hanna, “When you have too much. That’s expected with too much, though.”
Hanna pondered this a moment, thinking. It made sense that the medication was some sort of.. What? A neuro-blocker? And, if that’s true, then it makes sense that when she was off of the meds, or they weaned in her, that it would stop whatever this ‘traveling’ was. She recalled the first time she palmed her meds, how the next time she woke after sleeping that she had traveled again. So…if she wanted to get back home, she just had to avoid taking the medication!
Hanna startled out of her revelation when the door opened and Legacy poked her head in before quickly moving her body in and shutting the door stealthily behind her. “Soo,” she said, her quiet voice lacking inflection. Soohae looked up at her. “The morning rounds are about to start,” Legacy said with some urgency. “We need to get you back to your room.”
After a moment, Soohae nodded. Turning to Hanna, she gave her a gentle hug, then rose and crossed to Legacy. “Thank you,” she said softly with a nod of gratitude before opening and slipping out the door. Legacy lingered for a moment, staring at Hanna. She seemed as though her skin were leeched of color, the bruising rings around her eyes darker and her hair seemed disheveled and limp.
“You won’t be able to stay in here forever. I’m sure they’ll probably want to see you today. You might as well get up. Just make sure you come back to the room for lunch and meds—unless you actually want to be forced to take them. Today is Thursday. Nurse Anna works Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. Nurse Sasha works Thursdays through Saturdays. Wednesdays and vacation days are alternate Nurses.” Legacy turned to leave.
“Wait—how do you know what day it is?” Hanna asked. Since the moment she woke here, she hadn’t the foggiest idea what day it was, nor the month or even year.
Legacy shrugged. “The Nurse’s calendar.”
Hanna sat dumbfounded. It had never even occurred to her to look around the Nurse’s Station for a calendar.
-
Hanna spent the next hour showering, dressing and taking care of her matted hair until it was as smooth as silk. She was at the desk, staring out of the window when Aema came in, pausing a moment in the doorway when she saw Hanna, and closing the door behind her.
“Well, good morning,” Aema said with a weak smile, but the only thing that showed in her eyes was exhaustion and a profound sadness. Not asking what was wrong made Hanna uncomfortable, but she was afraid that if she pried too much, whatever it was would hurt Aema further. I’ll let her come to me, she thought, offering her own weak smile.
“Good morning,” Hanna replied. “I made my own bed today.” Hanna almost winced at her lame attempt at conversation.
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“I see that,” Aema said with a slight nod. Then the façade broke and Aema sighed, sitting on Aema’s bed. “They expect you to wake up today,” she exhaled. “I don’t know what I can do to protect you anymore.”
Hanna nodded. “Legacy already told me that would probably be the case, we’ll just have to be careful.”
Nurse Aema’s face jerked towards Hanna. “You spoke with Legacy?” she asked, something in her tone making Hanna feel uneasy. “Just for a little bit. She told me about the shift schedule.” She made a face. “Nurse Sasha’s gonna be on duty today, right?”
Aema froze for a moment, not looking at Hanna.
Hanna frowned at her. “What? What aren’t you telling me?”
Aema looked up at Hanna. “No one has seen Nurse Jennings since the night after you collapsed.”
Hanna felt her temperature drop and her limbs feel a numbness. “What do you mean? She can’t have just disappeared, right?”
Nurse Aema just shrugged. “All I know is that after what happened in the Lounge, she got called to Sol’s office. Nobody saw her come back, nobody saw her leave. For all we know, she’s still here. But later on, Sol’s office door was open and it was empty. She was just gone. Nurse Jennings hasn’t been here for any of her shifts, they’ve all been cover nurses.”
“Why didn’t Soo or Legacy tell me this?” she asked, heart beginning to race.
“They don’t know yet. I..I haven’t told anyone else,” Nurse Aema replied, admonished.
Hanna’s stomach sunk. If even that mean, Team-Doctor Nurse could disappear after one mistake, what would evil Sol do to the rest of them?
-
Hanna picked at her lunch in the Lounge. Now and again she looked over at the Nurse’s Station desk where an oversized calendar did indeed hang next to the water cooler in the back, but the dates and months were confusing. An older, unfamiliar Nurse greeted everyone with a courteous smile—and didn’t force them to take the pills in front of her. Hanna struggled with her feelings.
I could go home, she thought. I just need to get away from Isis if I end up in World 2. But then.. Hanna forked at the carrot, giving up after a few attempts and stabbing a bite of potato. Even if she could go home now, what would stop it from happening all over again? Besides, whatever was happening here was clearly ground zero for everything that had been going on.
She thought of Legacy, pale and wild in this world, of Soohae in both this and World 2, the same dark-circled eyes for all of the girls. The evil Candace in that world, the comatose one in this.. Hanna set her fork down a little too hard, eliciting looks that she didn’t notice because of the overwhelming thought that came unbidden to her.
“Candace is dead,” Legacy had told her.
“Legacy,” Soohae had warned quietly.
“Well, she may as well be! She’s been in that catatonic state since long before Hanna…well, this Hanna, came here.”
Hanna resolved that she needed to see the catatonic Candace. She needed questions answered. And she would figure it out tonight. But first, she needed to see a couple of people.
-
Anderson sat in the comfy chair adjacent to Hanna, smiling. “It’s good to see you,” he said kindly. “We were all a bit worried.”
“I’m sure some people weren’t,” Hanna frowned, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.
Anderson gave her a concerned look and opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to change his mind. The sat in silence for a moment before he said “So, you wanted to talk about something?”
“Yeah,” Hanna started awkwardly. “You don’t seem really.. I mean, I don’t think there’s anything really wrong with you, so—”
“Why am I here?” he interrupted, an amused smile.
“Yeah,” she replied sheepishly.
“Hmm.” Anderson seemed to ponder this for a moment, then shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t really know. I was at work and I had put in for some vacation time, just a couple of weeks, nothing major. I was hoping to take a trip somewhere, get out of the routine grind. The next thing I know, HR calls me in and says Corporate is now requiring all employees to get psychological evaluations. Something about making sure there isn’t any undo stress or something. Anyway, I had to go to an office where they had a separate doctor there to evaluate me.” Anderson paused to take a deep drink of his coffee. “Anyway, so, a couple days later, I’m called in and they say that I showed high levels of stress and that if I didn’t agree to a voluntary hold for testing and therapy, that I’d be out of a job.”
“Can they do that?” Hanna asked as Anderson took another drink.
He shrugged. “I guess they can, seeing as it’s their company. They said they had a private facility that wouldn’t appear on any of my records and, as far as the other employees know, I’m on a nice, long vacation. I’ve been here a while now, but it seems like everything is okay. They had me taking medication at first, then they changed it a few times, and now they’re just monitoring me. Oh, and I have therapy sessions with that creepy doctor with the glasses.”
“Sol,” Hanna muttered more to herself than Anderson.
He gave another shrug. “I guess so. Come to think of it, I don’t think she ever even introduced herself. Just came in, asked a bunch of questions and showed me some of those inkblot pictures. I made a joke about how it would be funny if I said they all looked like the devil and she just stared at me like she had laser beams in her eyes.” He shuddered. “Then she said something creepy about how the devil could be in anything, something like that. Super weird, kind of creepy.”
“What kinds of tests did they do?”
He thought a moment. “Some of those MRI brain scans, a CT, one of those.. What are they called? EEG? CCG? I can never get all these initials straight. Some other stuff, written tests, memory tests, an IQ test. Just all kinds of stuff. It’s weird. It all just felt sort of random. Like they were looking for something.”
Hanna considered a moment that the only thing they had done to her was drug her. She shuddered remembering her last encounter with the evil Doctor.
A moment later, an orderly called Anderson over and, after a brief hushed conversation, he pointed to the Nurse’s Station. Hanna watched as Anderson approached the desk, spoke to the Nurse in charge, and signed a bunch of papers. When he came back, he was smiling. “Guess what?” he asked jovially. “I officially get to go home in three days—with a clean bill of health!”
Hanna’s throat went dry. “Just like that?” she asked.
“Just like that,” Anderson grinned. “Hey, look, there’s Nea! I’m gonna go tell her the good news, I’ll be right back!” he said jovially before sauntering off.
Hanna wondered if, like Cris or Nurse Sasha, she’d never see Anderson again.