Doctor Knows Best

The humming in her head intensified. It seemed to make her ears ring, and her eyes water. She shook herself to make it go away. Bad idea.  Now it was worse accompanied by a throbbing to the side.

She sat back down in the bed quickly still shaking her head, trying to find clarity in her surroundings.  Eyes closed, her hands reached out to find the edge of the bed, and then stretched out to the side table she knew was there. Fumbling, she felt for the lamp switch and transformed the room into darkness. The pain in her head seemed to diminish.

"What did they do to me?".  Since she woke up that first day at the hospital, her life became a blur of unexplained events and emotions.  Now three weeks later, she was no closer to finding out the truth than when she started.

She was being drugged, this she was certain of. 

Why? She had no explanation.

Swift, heavy footsteps approached on the corridor - they belonged to "Helga".  It was a name she associated with the large, blond, German-looking female whose arms were so muscular that they could crush Hulk Hogan effortlessly.  Names were off limits at the hospital, even her own, as she could not remember and had no clear idea of what it was.

In five minutes Helga tidied the bed, changed her gown and was wheeling her down the corridor to the dreaded West Wing where the experiments were done.
She hated the hospital-like odors emanating from the Blue Room, as she wheeled past it. They were smells she associated with visiting her father years ago in another hospital far away from here. A mixture of medication, cleaning chemicals and urine.  Strange how she remembered his face so clearly and could not remember his name or hers.

Elvis was waiting for her in the West Wing.  Another pseudonym she came up with after taking in his long sideburns and cow lick.  He was a creepy Elvis though, giving her a sideways grin and looking her over in ways a doctor shouldn't.  Helga roughly pulled her out of the wheelchair and in one turn had her on the reclining chair that reminded her of the dentist's office.

Her stomach was in knots.  Vaguely she could remember seeing a syringe filled with clear fluid and groggily waking up nauseous that last time she was there. 

He had different plans this time.

Without any warning Elvis grabbed her right hand and jerked it upwards holding onto her wrist tightly.  Her legs and other arm was being clamped down to the chair by Helga.  Terror filled her, gut wrenching fear that boiled in her stomach.  She could taste the bile in her throat.  Biting on her lip she struggled not to protest, she had seen last week what happened when a patient protested.  Helga placed tape over her mouth which she welcomed with relief, as she knew she was going to cry out loud and be punished.

A flash of light reflecting off metal drew her attention the the knife in his hand menacingly above her. it was only after she saw the red line trickling down her wrist, that she felt the cold blade penetrate the center of her palm. The smell of blood was in the air already, coppery and evil.

Her body even though restrained, was pushing, squirming, shaking, trying to fight through. Trying to escape. Her neck raised obscenely off the chair, stretched, taut, her eyes never leaving the knife.  There was a ghostly moaning sound around her, becoming louder and louder by the second.  Full of pain and sorrow and terror.

She then realised - it was coming from her.

Elvis had something else in his hand.  Her vision blurred and then focused again.  It was the size of a small coin, but thicker. Maybe a pebble, she squinted to see better.  He had it grasped with a pair of tweezers. Helga was washing and cleaning her wound now.  And then, after what seemed an eternity, slowly, slowly he inserted it into her palm. 

That was when the moaning stopped and room became dark and she drifted into another world that she welcomed and would have been relieved never to escape from.