Waking up after some hours Joan felt lost; first off it was night out meaning she had spent most of the

day in bed, not that this made her worry she was used to sleep long periods during the day on weekends. that what worry her was that she woke to a roof she did not recognize with no memory of what had happen.

Fighting the urge of just going back to sleep hoping to wake up back on her room she started to look around; the room was mostly white with large windows covered by long heavy curtains, a few meters to her right over a tall stand there was a jar with water and two glasses. Her bed had some metallic bars on the side; rising her head trying to understand where she was, she saw it, in a grey sofa beside the stand there was a man. He was large in his mid-forty’s / early-fifties, sleeping; a man Joan had never seen before.

The more she stared at the man the more she fell into a state of panic, the man was big, one eighty-five at least with what could be a really muscular body. His bald head made an aggressive contrast with his full-grown black beard with white starting to take over from the middle.

He was wearing a black shirt and leather straps with dark pants; what made her panic was the dagger attached to the straps in his chest, normally in the dark room she would have not been able to see the weapon but the only beam of light that came through the window went directly to it revealing the weapon’s handle to her sight.

She had the intention of screaming her lungs out for help but before the scream came out, she understood that if she made too much noise, she would wake him up. Trying to be as silent as possible she started move towards the end of the bed; then she felt resistance on her left arm, she stopped.

The fear didn’t let her turn, it felt as she was being graved by a thin strong finger on her wrist and a second one placing its pointy nail into her arm. Joan waited for some kind of instruction, some order from whoever was sustaining her in place, no sound came and there was no change in the strength of the pull so she decided against everything her gut told her to turn her head slowly facing directly to her left.

To her surprise there was no one in there and she started to understand where she was. The pointy nail was actually a catheter and the other one seemed to be a leather and metal bracelet that chained her to the bed. She was in a medical facility, not in the university, she would have recognized the roof of the Medica, she had gone there in three separate occasions.

Even if her fear had decrease from the state of panic she was moments before, she was far from calm. She started to think of the situation she was in, her cloths were gone, and on their place, she was wearing a light comfortable white underwear under a light blue patient robe. She was probably on a hospital but that gave no information to why there was an armed man in her room, she had read too many stories and conspiracy theories over the years to just believe she was being taken care of because of a normal circumstance.

After a moment of consideration, she started her escape plan by removing the needle and placing her hand over the entry point for a few seconds to ensure no fluid was coming out; she didn’t know what was being injected into her body but whatever it was did no effect on her energy or mental capacity, at least not that she was aware of. Slowly she started to move trying to pull out of the bracelet placing herself and doing as much force as possible with the least amount of noise. She had small hands but the restrain were tight so the only thing Joan was able to do was to hurt her own wrist.

She thought on using the liquid that came out on the needle to make it easier to slip her hand though the hole but she knew better. There was no way her hand could pass across the opening of the restrains even with the fluid covering her hand; if Mc Millan knew that idea had been the only one, she could come up with she would go crazy.

Mc Millan, then was when it hit her. The images coming back piece by piece, the anger she felt for her professor, the sudden loss of consciousness and the bloody last moments of the older woman all in a few second. She knew she could not afford to make any noise but she had to scream, run, do something or she would go mad. Her self-control had a limit and she was reaching it, deciding to act she got the covers of the bed and the pillow she filled her mouth with the covers and covered her face pillow pushing it as hard as she could against her face as she screamed her lungs out, hoping it would silence her enough to maintain her guard asleep.

For what seemed a miracle the man kept on sleeping, he did change his position now resting on his side occupying most of the sofa. Too big for the space available he maintained his feet on the ground giving Joan an advantage as he would take more time to be able to draw his weapon.

However, she could take no more; her patience, calm and control gave the moment she screamed so spiting the covers she stood on the bed and pull with all her strength on the side bar. After about a minute she managed to get one of the sides off, sliding the end of the chain to the end she was able to break free maintaining the bracelet on.

“Hey!!” A strong deep voice called her attention.

She turned slowly to find the man watching her rubbing his left eye with his right hand.

“What do you think you are doing girl?” He asked as he stood.

Joan could not hide the fear of her face as he took his arm towards his chest. The fear she felt was not as bad, her experience in the last twenty-four hours helped maintain her from freezing and so she decided to run. Throwing everything she had at hand and she went full speed towards the door.

The improvised stun gave her results as the pillow blinded the man long enough for her to cross the gateway, she knew nothing of the building in which she was being held or the people guarding so she followed her instinct turning right at full speed. However, her victory was short lived, less than four meters out the door while looking backwards to ensure the bald man was not in her back, she crashed against something hard and cold falling on her back.

For some seconds the ringing was all she could perceive, all in her vision was white. A shadow appeared over her with it a strong thunder like laughter while it moved in closer in a swinging movement. As her vision cleared an intense pain started to build up on her head as one would expect after crashing at full speed against – against what? Her answer came from the laughing shadow.

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“B-B-B-” He was not able to speak; he could not stop laughing.

“Bitch ran head first to the medicine locker” He finally explained before going back to laughing his lungs out.

Joan felt no fear for her failed escape attempt, she felt shame because she managed to look like an idiot in front of a total stranger. The man, now clearly visible, stood at one seventy-seven meters, younger compared to the man in her room he was in his thirties with dark skin and sort dark hair wearing blue pants and a black shirt under a weapon host with one dagger each side of the chest and a sword on his side. In contrast with the dark leather of the straps a metal badge.

They were guards, probably judiciaries as they used no uniform. The more she thought about it worst she felt, it was logical, after the death of her professor she lost consciousness and was taken to some hospital where the investigators waited to talk to her as a witness. Looking back the older man came forward scolding his partner over the language used and the volume due to the fact they were in a hospital.

“Are you all right?” The older man asked as he crouched and extended a hand to aid her get up.

Joan doubted for a second before taking his hand, as she stood up the inquisitor added;

“My most sincere apology if I scared you, I was taking my Badge out, you must have thought I was going for my weapon”

Joan responded only with a nod.

“I am Inquisitor Burk and this is my partner judiciary Grif, we are in charge of the investigation on the death of Doctor Elizabeth Mc Millan we need you to answer some questions, could you accompany me back to you room?” He signalled with his thumb as he turned.

Joan started to sweat, an inquisitor was a high-ranking member and could act as guard, judge and executioner; a very dangerous man.

They went back to the room and the inquisitors asked her if she wanted some coffee, she declined as she hatted anything bitter, however she accepted the offer of a hot cocoa. They waited in silence as she drank half way through the cup before continuing the conversation.

“Before we get your statement there is some information, we need to tell you, you may think it has been around six to twelve hours since the event as it is dark now. It’s been, however, closer to what… hundred hours, its Tet night, we were worried you had some kind of brain damage because you –”

“I HAVE BRAIN DAMMAGE?!” Joan shouted standing up.

Both the inquisitors stood with her trying to calm her down.

“No, No, No. We thought you did because you didn’t wake up, you are fine, nothing to worry about”

“Then why did I sleep for five days?” Joan asked now sitting, her face still showing alarm.

“That is a question for the doctors, you will have your time when we are done; is that fine with you?” Not knowing how to respond to the news or answer she just took a long sip from her drink.

“Ok… Going back to the business at hand regarding Elizabeth –” Inquisitor Burk began before being interrupted again.

“Doctor Mc Milan, she would not let us call her by name she considers it rude”

“Fine, Doctor Mc Milan, we know this is a traumatic event but we need you to tell us all what happened; every detail is important to us, we took statements from other witnesses and they placed you closer to the victim”

For the next half hour, she told them what had happened trying to explain to them that even if she was taken down by the water, she knew nothing of how it happened. She was down before she even realized something was wrong; but they seemed convinced that she knew more than she showed asking for details on the structure of the tanks and the amount of water inside.

After they had finished with the questions and Joan had taken three cups of cocoa, they left leaving her for a nurse to scold her for drinking substances not allowed to patients.

A long and tedious physical examination came next, done by an old foreign man whose accent made it difficult for her to follow instructions, he reassured her she was not in danger and presented no signs of lasting damage. The old man contributed her long slumber to bad nutritional habits, not sleeping and the exhaustion both physical and mental caused by the event.

For the next three days she was stuck in observation, they did not allow her to go home until all possibilities of damage had been discarded. No one came to visit her, she expected no one would, and she did not mind being alone but she was bored as hell because she lacked the possibility of reading. Her books at home and Jacob had never liked mail because ‘It disrupts the pleasure of human communication’. She had to endure three days of the worst form of food, hospital food.

Her belongings were returned at Saset noon, they had cleaned them as they were covered in the blood of her professor, and even then, it took some minutes for her to put them on and decided to burn them or at least throw them away as soon as she got home.

As she left the room, she noticed the guard had been station outside to look after her. Two officers had been outside her room at all times, she had not noticed it as the hospital in which she was treated was old and had no windows to the hall. With all that had happened she was glad some one cared for her but it also felt as an unnecessary effort, those guards could be doing more important things.

As Joan approached her home, instead of feeling at ease as she would do on any other day, she started to feel overwhelmed. The fact that her garments were once covered on those body fluids started to settle in, she knew it was just a psychological but this only made it worse, the more she tried to forget about it the more she could feel and picture of her arms and legs covered with that dark red fluid.

She though some kind of meditation could help her retain her composure. Especially as she was moving in a carriage full of people.

She was wrong.

She managed to stabilize her breathing but as she closed her eyes, she saw her professors face sending her back into panic. Joan somehow managed not to shout; the other passengers however looked at her concern in their eyes. As the carriage stopped at her station she rose covered in sweat and tears beginning to fall from her eyes. The safety of her room and the distraction given to her by the books would be her salvation.

As she closed the door behind her, she felt somehow relieved, placed her back against the door and took three deep breaths. There was something off, but this was her apartment she was sure of it, the key worked so it must be.

The temperature was too high, the smell of incense and the smoke in the entrance made it look foggy.

She walked slowly towards the living room through the small hallway that marked the entrance and took a look at the interior of the apartment.

There was nothing out of place; only thing different was the black metallic bowl with three incense sticks at the coffee table. Joan looked at the kitchen as the door started to open and Jacob entered the room a bread full of vegies in his right hand and what look like a green juice in his left, he looked somehow surprised of her arrival.

“Sup J” He greeted.

She just looked at him for some seconds, puzzled.

“Sup J? That is all you could manage to muster? What is going on?” She responded as she walked towards the kitchen door.

“Well, I was going to have dinner and paint for a while, aside from that I know nothing” He responded as he before taking a bite of his bread.

“I’m not talking about your disgusting food, you are breaking two out of the five rules of the apartment, the incense and the temperature, there are… two, two fires running? Are you insane? We agreed on no fire for at least another month” She knew she acted crazy but she wanted her comfy apartment, she needed it.

“You need to calm down. Well, you know, I took over when you went away. I know you dislike her but going on a seven-day vacation to celebrate she is gone was a little inconsiderate you know”

“Wha- Wha- What?” She was unsure if she wanted to cut his gut open from side to side or just storm out to her room.

“But seriously where were you last week? I mean the old man came twice to get his rent so I had to pay all, by the way I pay most of it don’t I?”

Joan started to feel overwhelmed and felt the tears running through her cheeks, she tried to contain it as much as she could but she just gave at the end.

“GO TO HELL” She shouted with all she had. Joan just started to run to her room pushing him in her way.