Fallen Raine {Completed}

Chapter Twenty-Nine - Inner Demons

I woke up the sound of beeping, a terribly annoying sound that made me want to claw my eardrums out just to stop it. I smelt something like hygienic products, a mixture of staleness and lemon mixed into one vomit-inducing concoction that made my stomach lurch.

I rolled to the side with a groan, and looked to the side to see a heart monitor beeping steadily, and a few other things hooked, including an IV machine and a drip filled with a clear liquid that I couldn’t decipher.

Just then someone walked in, and it was a semi-attractive man of about forty to forty-five, with bushy eyebrows that resembled caterpillars, salt-and-pepper hair perfectly slicked back with gel, a weathered but open face and kind sky-blue eyes that were clear and open.

He wore a light blue button-down shirt and black slacks, as well as a white lab coat. Pinned on it was a nametag of a picture of him, as well as the words, Dr. David Harrison III.

“Oh, you’re awake, Miss Miller,” he said, his voice unusually deep and gruff, sounding coarse as sandpaper.

I swallowed and nodded, suppressing the sarcasm that threatened to bubble out. Finally, I said, “Yeah, I’m awake. What happened?” I feigned innocence, deciding not give anything away.

He leant forward in the black leather seat he had taken, balancing a brown clipboard with the hospital’s crest emblazoned on the front. It was tipping precariously on his knees, but hung on for dear life. “Well, tell me how much you remember.”

I sighed and scrunched up my face, pretending to be deep in thought. Finally, I said, “Well, I remember everything happening in Mapleton Mall, and then it was only River, Jason and I. Something… something happened to Jason, and he lost it. He went for River, and River killed him. Then the authorities came, and that was it.” I raised my eyes to him. “Is River okay?”

The doctor cleared his throat uncomfortably and shifted slightly in his seat, as if preparing himself for bad news. “I’m sorry, Miss. Miller,” he said. “But it seems you and Mr. Peterson were attacked while the authorities were trying to get in. The person killed River, and then managed to get you in the stomach. The police are guessing that the murderer got interrupted before he could kill you, and he fled. We… We still haven’t found him yet.”

“Were there any other survivors?” I whispered, making my face look as horror-struck as I could.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. You’re the only one.”

Even though he was acting like he had just given me the worst possible news, to me it was the best. Throughout the night I had had some minor technicalities, but it

had run pretty smoothly in the end. No survivors? Wow, I was good.

And no one ever suspected a thing.

But, of course, I couldn’t act with the total elation I felt right in that moment, and instead used a horror-struck tone. “I don’t remember any of it,” I whispered.

“You seem to have PTS, post-traumatic stress, as it can sometimes be called. You see, Miss. Miller, there are many different forms of this. One is that the body goes into such a high amount of shock that the remembering part of the brain shuts down. In extreme cases you can forget things even as you see them. This might’ve happened to you. Your body could no longer sustain the high amounts of shock and stress it had been made to deal with, and the memories flew out of your mind. These may come back in time.” He paused. “Or not at all.”