Heart of The Trident

Two ~ Cade

“Whoa!”

I drop the file in my hand as the high-pitched sound assaults my ears. Cupping my hands over them, I run over to my screaming patient, kneeling in front of her.

“Calm down. I’m Dr. Cade…”

“Stay away from me!”

She swats my hands away and then backs up against the wall.

“Okay.” I hold my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I won’t come any closer but please, calm down. No one is going to hurt you.”

Her blue eyes narrow in suspicion. “How can you be sure of that?”

“Because this is a hospital.”

“Hospital?” Her thin eyebrows crease.

“Yes. Don’t tell me you’ve never been to one. Well, if you haven’t, you’re very lucky. But surely, you’ve heard of a hospital. We help people, not hurt them.”

She lifts her hand, showing me a small red dot on it.

I frown. “Alright. Maybe we hurt our patients a little sometimes but that’s part of our intentions and efforts to help them.”

“Why am I in a hospital?” she asks.

“Because you almost drowned,” I explain, remembering what I read on her file. “Someone rescued you and brought you here. You’re lucky you survived.”

She shakes her head. “No.”

Now, I’m confused. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not lucky.”

“Why…?”

Just then, the door opens behind me, nurses coming in.

Seeing them, my red-haired patient screams again and I cover my ears.

“Stop!” I say to both the woman and the nurses, who already have their syringes ready.

None of them listen and moments later, my patient falls limply to the floor, unconscious from the sedative. The nurses lift her, placing her back on the bed.

“Shall we restrain her?” one asks.

“Shall we transfer her to the psychiatric ward?” another asks.

I get up, shaking my head. “No. She’s…emotionally troubled, not mentally disturbed and she was only scared, not aggressive. She isn’t any danger to anyone.”

“That scream was something though,” one of the nurses says as she steps forward, rubbing her ears. “Some of the people outside couldn’t move. It was as if they had suddenly turned into statues. Others fainted while others broke down in hysterics. And it’s not just the people. Some of our equipment stopped working and some medicine bottles shattered, too.”

“Really?”

I knew her scream was loud but I didn’t realize it was that powerful.

“The strange thing is that all of those who were severely affected were males. Why, even Dr. Shore’s blood pressure shot up and Dan, one of the male nurses, suddenly had an asthma attack. Are you sure you’re alright, Dr. Lennox? Should I check your pulse?”

I bend over to pick up my files. “I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.”

“Do you still think she’s not dangerous?”

I straighten up. “What do you want me to do? Gag her?”

The nurse looks away.

“Well, screaming is not a crime, is it? All those adverse effects you mentioned might just be coincidences or something about a strange frequency but I’m sure she’s not doing it on purpose. If anything, it just shows how upset she is. Let’s let her rest for now and hope she wakes up in a better mood.”

--

When I return to her room an hour later, I find her still asleep. Slowly, I approach her bed, staring down at her.

Now that she isn’t screaming or hysterical, her mask still off, I feel like I’m seeing her for the first time.

She’s young. She didn’t have an ID – I’m assuming it’s lost in the ocean somewhere – so I don’t have any information about her, not her name or her age. She’s still a Jane Doe. But looking at her, I can tell she’s just somewhere in her late teens, 20 at most.

She’s also a little underweight, her breasts the only part of her body that seem to have been filled out, a fact which I try not to dwell on. She looks frail, in fact. It’s surprising she could scream that loud. A banshee, some are calling her. A witch, others are saying. Of course, I don’t believe in such nonsense.

I find it even more surprising that she survived, practically unscathed. Yes, she has a few bruises and she was a little dehydrated when she was first brought in but that’s all. Her lungs are clear. Her brain looks fine. Her heart is stable.

She’s lucky.

And yet, she doesn’t think so. I wonder why.

Even her hair looks lustrous, not at all like hair that’s been immersed in seawater for hours.

Taking a step closer, I find myself unable to resist the urge to gather a few strands between my fingers, finding them smooth as silk.

She’s strange, alright.

And beautiful. Stunning even.

For the first time, I’m seeing how fine her features are, how elegant. Her eyelashes are long and curved. Her cheekbones are pronounced, her cheeks rosy. Her lips are full, the upper one shaped like a bow. She reminds me of one of those women in royal portraits or old paintings.

A witch, they said. But she looks more like a fairy.

A sleeping fairy.

Suddenly, she stirs and I step back. A moment later, her eyelids flutter open and she looks at me with wide eyes blue as sapphires, the bluest I’ve ever seen.

As she sits up and opens her mouth, I clamp a hand over it.

“Please don’t scream. Some people will hurt last time and if it happens again, I don’t think I can help you.”

Just like that, the flicker of fear fades from her eyes and she nods.

Ah, it’s just as I thought. She’s no danger to anyone.

“I’m Dr. Cade Lennox,” I introduce myself, taking my hand off her mouth and offering it to her instead. “You are?”

She looks down on her lap. “How many people?”

“I’m sorry?”

“How many people did I hurt?”

“I don’t know but they’re all okay now,” I assure her, slipping my hand into the pocket of my blazer. “You can rest easy. Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt them.”

“You’re sure?” She gives me a puzzled look. “But you don’t know me.”

I shrug. “I just know you’re not…a bad person. A bit unusual, maybe, but not bad.”

“Unusual?” She looks even more puzzled.

“Well, you seem to be just fine even though you almost died and you must have been in the water for hours.”

She turns to face me, her legs, slender, long and smooth, hanging from the bed. I smoothen the edges of my blazer and shift my gaze elsewhere.

“You said I was rescued. By whom?”

“Someone who owns a fishing boat, I believe. I’m sure I can get his name if I ask,” I answer.

“And my friends?”

Ah. Now, I understand why she said she wasn’t lucky.

“I’m sorry.” I look at my feet. “You were the only one rescued.”

“I see.”

I lift my gaze back up to her, finding her fidgeting with the front of her robe. I scratch my chin, confused. I thought she’d be distressed hearing that her friends were dead but she doesn’t even seem worried, just lost in thought.

Why, then, was she so upset earlier?

“My necklace!” she exclaims, leaning to her right.

I look behind me, seeing the necklace on the table. I hand it to her.

“It’s beautiful,” I tell her.

“Thank you.”

She tries to put it on but struggles.

“Let me help you.” I put down my clipboard on the table.

She hesitates for a moment but nods, handing the necklace back to me and then getting off the bed, turning her back to me.

The moment she does, I regret my decision, becoming aware of the fact that the back of her robe is tied only with a few, short laces, patches of skin visible in between.

I try not to look at them, fingers working on the clasp of her necklace instead.

“Can you lift your hair?”

She obeys, gathering the thick strands, revealing her pale nape.

“Did your parents give you this?” I ask curiously, ignoring it.

“My mother, or so I was told.”

“A birthday gift?”

“I’ve had it since I was born.”

“I see.” Finally, I manage to secure the clasp. “It must have been your lucky charm.”

“It is a charm,” she says, releasing her hair so that it tumbles past her shoulders before turning around to face me. “Or so I was told.”

I’m curious as to who told her but remember that I have a more important question.

“Would you mind giving me your name?” I ask her. “You didn’t have an ID.”

“ID?” Her eyebrows furrow.

“A driver’s license. A school ID.”

“Oh, I didn’t go to school. I studied at the orphanage.”

“You grew up at an orphanage?”

“Yes. My name is Nia.”

“Nia.” I nod. “N-I-A, right?”

“Yes.”

I scribble it down. “Is that short for something?”

She shakes her head. “No.”

“Last name?”

She shakes her head again.

Right. She was an orphan so maybe she was abandoned by her parents and doesn’t know her last name? Maybe she wasn’t given one since she was never adopted? I’m not really sure how these things go.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” she says suddenly.

I frown. “You mean here at the hospital? Don’t worry. You’ll be discharged soon. And you don’t have to pay for anything. I’ll take care of it.”

I know, I know. Dr. Rutherford will probably give me another lecture and tell me I shouldn’t be so kind to my patients or to strangers in general. But what can I say? I have a soft spot for strays and Nia looks like one, as well as for orphans, being one myself.

Besides, I do have plenty of money to spare.

“Do you remember the name of the orphanage where you grew up?” I ask.

“No.”

“Oh.” I frown.

This is going to be difficult.

“But I know where it is.”

--

The building in front of us must be a hundred years old, a web of vines covering the brick façade, which has a few cracks. In fact, it’s the oldest building I’ve ever seen here in San Francisco.

It looks haunted, too. It doesn’t seem like it’s occupied, or that it’s been anytime recently. There’s no sign, even, of it being an orphanage or anything.

And yet, Nia is standing in front of the door, banging on it.

“Hello! It’s Nia! Is anyone home?”

As I’ve expected, there’s no answer.

“I know it’s strange but this is Nia! I’m still here!” She stands on the tip of her toes. “Please open up!”

I scratch the back of my head. Maybe the nurses were right. Maybe she is a little crazy.

Or maybe she’s just disoriented? She did nearly drown, after all.

“Um, Nia.” I approach her, scratching my temple. “Maybe this isn’t the right place.”

“But it is,” she tells me, turning around. “I’ve lived here for the past twenty-two years.”

My eyebrows furrow as my hand falls to my side. “You’re 22?”

“Yes. Why?”

I shrug. “Nothing.”

She frowns, hands on her hips. “Do I not look like I’m 22?”

“Well, I thought you looked younger, not that 22 isn’t young. But it’s not old, either. It’s…well…” I scratch the back of my head again. “Yeah. On second glance, you do look 22.”

She frowns. “You’re a bad liar, Dr. Lennox.”

“Please call me Cade.”

“You’re a bad liar, Mr. Cade.”

I sigh. “I guess that’ll do for now. Now, let’s go home. If you’re sure this is the right place, then maybe no one’s home.”

I grab her arm, leading her away from the house.

“But that’s impossible. There’s always someone home. The children, the…”

The rest of her sentence disappears as the house behind us suddenly explodes into pieces, the bricks flying into the air.