Born of Blood

Chapter 19

She stared at him with a calculated silence.

The light was bright as he flashed it between her eyes, looking for indicators Scarlet knew nothing about. It hurt as it moved over the center of her pupil and she fought not to flinch from his gentile examination. The rain still raged outside the window to the right of the room, she could feel its comforting weight settling over the land she occupied, rather than ravaging it. She shook from her freezing wet hair lying long down her back as lightning and thunder struck every few moments, the lights in the room would flicker; Scarlet didn't feel scared of the storm, and the Doctor seemed just as comfortable.

Jacob could not believe his eyes, her once drooping and necrotic eyeball had regenerated completely. Healthy white tissue visible where rotting ocular tissue had been, veins bright and red surrounding her iris as the light brought tears to her eyes- goddess, what was this? Normal pupil reaction, growth and reduction as the light cast its way over her insanely blue eyes. She showed no signs of the septic tissue- or any amount of the decomposing body- he had seen hours earlier in the morning.

When she was dead.

"Your eyes look better." He gave her a smile, feeling another drip from his wet grey hair land on his soaked shoulder.

A deep fear and discomfort was settled like a heavy stone in her stomach as she sat still on the stiff medical bed. The machine on a pole next to her held numbers and letters she didn't recognize, a large computer screen in the corner held images of a skeleton, and the room seemed oddly sterile. Scarlet was scared, and she didn't like this strange man doing these tests on her. She bit her tongue, holding back her whimpers her body fought to release with every movement of his arms bring memories of the dripping of water far in the distance and the feeling of grit and rocks as it dug into her cheek.

She didn't know what her eyes looked like before, she only knew them to be blue, so she just nodded and watched intently for his next move, holding the cold white sheet to her body, avoiding the spot with the red liquid that smelt of death. It had sunken into the cloth and mattress below it, and this Doctors eyes traveled to it every other second with a deep breath, before he held his lungs still and went back to his examination. He had already examined her scalp, moving her long, soaked, hair over her shoulders and prodding her skin lightly with his powdery-feeling gloves. He performed tests with what looked like a hammer on her knees, he mentioned the word reflexes, though Scarlet had only visited a doctor to remove her toe when she got frostbite. His fingers had prodded her forearms, he had asked her to raise her limbs as far as she could and so far, she had soreness in the muscles of her back, face, and head, but it felt no worse than a bruise.

Doctor Novache had never seen anything like it.

He didn't know a scientific explanation for these results, and he could not recall a single piece of werewolf folklore that could apply to this woman's...condition? He took a calming breath, knowing he had gathered as much information as he could from her physical assessment. Her heart was beating, she had active and proper reflex responses, her previously pulverized bones had healed, her brain showing no indications of the damage previously witnessed- and she was alive. No broken neck, no stilled heart, she was alive in the flesh.

Taking a deep breath, Jacob removed his readers and placed them onto the wooden table beside the medical bed, their thud as they landed on the wood the only noise occupying the room. He rubbed his forehead, so many thoughts spinning through his mind, before looking this young lady in the eyes. Should he tell her that she had been dead, should he tell her what had been of her head and eyes, of her infected and bulging skin oozing from an infected whip wound? Should he tell her how her flesh had practically slumped away from her skin and how her wrists wouldn't handle an IV because the flesh was so thin it broke through and tore her veins?