Part 27 (1/2)

The two nurses pressed Mariko's hands down desperately. Her waist leapt up into the air in fierce opposition. She was putting up quite a fight for a girl her age. Yos.h.i.+zumi heard a sound. Thump. Thump. The kidney was beating like a heart. As he held down her kicking legs, he thought, This is crazy...

”Hurry up and tie her down!”

The bed springs creaked as her body jumped up nearly a foot into the air, throwing Yos.h.i.+zumi head first into the wall.

Then, Mariko's movements suddenly stopped.

The swelling in her abdomen subsided and her body slowly stopped hopping up and down, like a rubber ball falling to the floor, gradually losing its bounce, and rolling to a standstill.

As Mariko lay silent, the nurses stood up apprehensively. Yos.h.i.+zumi rubbed the pain out of his head and approached her. The room was now enveloped in quiet, as if the previous commotion had all been an illusion.

Mariko's eyes were still closed. Her breathing was as slow and calm as that of one sleeping. She was not sweating at all, despite the ma.s.sive tantrum. Her kidney was no longer moving. Only a peaceful expression upon her face.

Yos.h.i.+zumi tried touching her abdomen gently with his fingertips, but felt nothing unusual. No bulge, no beat. He opened her gown again to check her surgical scars. He caressed them, only to find they were normal.

He cast a sideward glance at the nurses. By the looks on their faces, they were just as clueless as he was, and even afraid. He looked back at Mariko.

After straightening her clothes out, he gazed at her face once again. Seeing her placid face, his distress faded away. Maybe the sedatives had finally kicked in? But sedatives never had such a sudden effect.

”When did it start?” he asked the nurses, still staring at Mariko's face.

”About twenty past seven,” said one of them. ”One of the patients next door called about her. By the time I got here, she was already in a bad state. I thought she was just having one of her nightmares, so I stayed with her. But then it got too much for me, so I called for help. Half an hour into it we started losing control of the situation...”

”I see.”

”And the whole time, she kept saying 'Go away,'” the other nurse added.

”'Go away'? What's that supposed to mean?”

”I don't know, but she's been saying that a lot in her sleep lately.”

”I wonder who she's talking about. I guess she's being chased in her dreams?”

”We've asked her about it, but she never gives us any answers...”

Yos.h.i.+zumi took a deep breath.

Mariko had seemed like a completely different person until a moment ago. Even that youthful rouge-like tinge in her cheeks was back. Her mouth was open slightly, and clean white teeth peeked out of them. Yos.h.i.+zumi drew closer and touched her cheek with his hand.

Her eyes shot open.

At the same time, Yos.h.i.+zumi felt an intense vibration in his fingertips. He cried out and withdrew his hand. The nurses screamed loudly.

Her eyes were opened all too wide, her pupils dilated into perfect black circles. She began to look less human by the moment, making a cold s.h.i.+ver run along Yos.h.i.+zumi's spine.

She looked more like a plastic doll with gla.s.s eyes inserted into its face.

She sat up. Yos.h.i.+zumi backed away. She stared intently at him without so much as blinking.

”What the...” he said hoa.r.s.ely. The nurses held their breaths and stood trembling in the corner.

Yos.h.i.+zumi then realized she was not looking at him.

He followed her line of vision to his stomach.

Not that, either. She was looking behind him.

He turned around.

Just a sink. A little smaller and more antique than the kind one found in a real apartment bathroom. Every sickroom had been outfitted with one when the hospital was built.

The sink was an old make, with a small faucet. Yos.h.i.+zumi looked back and forth between Mariko and the sink.

Just then, something caught his eye.

A single drop of water was forming at the tip of the faucet. It needed to be tightened.

The droplet swelled ever so slowly into a sphere. Like Mariko, he could not look away from it. This was what had riveted her attention.

The drop got bigger and bigger. It just would not stop expanding. It soon began to stretch into a teardrop shape as gravity finally took over. It dangled from the hp and grew even larger, its surface waving gently.

It broke free.

Then fell straight into the sink with a sound: FLAP.

13.

Tos.h.i.+aki reached the hospital. The main lamp was off. He stopped his car at the entrance and peered inside. Not a soul around. It was clearly locked. A sign hanging on the door read: Medical services are concluded for today.

In case of emergency, please go around to the after-hours service entrance.

The after-hours service entrance? Tos.h.i.+aki frowned. Where was that?

He got out of the car and ran up to the main doors. He tried pounding on the gla.s.s a few times. No response. He looked around for any sort of map, but found nothing.

He was getting nowhere like this. He broke into a run along the right side of the building. If he circled around, he was bound to find something.

As he ran, he was soon swallowed in darkness. He proceeded cautiously, stumbling on some rope and a set of stairs. This place was so huge that the lights from the streets and houses didn't reach the premises. Tos.h.i.+aki had gone to the University Hospital many times at night on business, and the darkness there had always been different from the Pharmaceuticals building's. Of course, the premises there weren't pitch dark. In the hallways too, there were soft emergency backlights left on. Yet, all along the way from the courtyard to the Department of Medicine, there was a peculiar murkiness in the air. It was a darkness absent from a building that dealt only with lab animals. Tos.h.i.+aki thought of it as the darkness of dying people, of people ill.

When Tos.h.i.+aki was about half way around, he heard an argument coming from behind the storehouse. He could not see anyone, but from the deepness of their voices judged them to be men. The asphalt brightened as he made his way closer. He turned the corner. Sure enough, the yellow light was coming from the service entrance.