Chapter 1
Sarah wondered what the jello tasted like, as she wheeled her cart full of the stuff down the wide, flourescent, sterile hallway. The small plastic packets of food sold down in the cafe had a medicinal blandness to them, an almost plastic flavor, but the opaque cups that neatly lined the surface of her cart were all individually sealed with extensive descriptions taped to the lids of each one. Considering each cup was no bigger than her fist, the fact that these jello-cups contained so many ingredients...
She thought again about breaking the seal off one, and instead decided to obey Doctor Soho's strict instructions about not tampering with the food she delivered to patients.
She approached the first stop on her rounds. She searched through her chart to see which bit of food Ms. Tanaka would receive today. Sarah agreed that it was probably a good idea to vary the kinds of food given to the patients in this ward, even though each container looked, from the outside, identical each day. The only variable that seemed to change from day to day were the colored stickers on each lid. Today, Ms. Tanaka was to receive a nice pink circular sticker on her cup. Sarah wondered if this denoted a watermelon flavor. For a moment, she forgot about Doctor Soho's instructions again, as she considered just slipping one of the wooden, tongue-depressor-like spoons into the cardboard cup of jello to try a tiny taste. Without breaking the seal, of course.
Sarah began to reach for an individually wrapped spoon, and just as she felt the plastic packaging beneath her fingers...
"AHHH!..." A shout from the end of the hallway erupted from behind a closed steal door, and Sarah jumped, hands back to the handlebar of her cart, ready to explain that she hadn't done anything wrong.
But what surprised her most of all was the shout wasn't a painful shriek, or frightened yelp, but had a deep, moaning push from deep down in the woman it came from. And it didn't stop.
Even more surprising was feeling Dr. Soho brush past Sarah, almost knocking her into the wall to her right, flanked by 2 nurses and trailed by 3 security guards. They all had broken into a brisk jog down the hall, as the agressive moaning had continued, as if something was pushing down, hard into the stomach of the patient down the hall.
As the doctor and her workers arrived at the end of the hall, Ms. Soho punched in her code for the steel door, while the three (now armed) security guards postioned themselves at the threshold. Sarah heard the group muttering about the time of the "patient's afternoon delivery", and Sarah's stomach dropped. This "delivery" was located on the very cart that Sarah pushed down hall 4-D. It was the exception to the rest of the cups of jell-o. It was the only cup to hold a blue sticker, and it was to be delivered every day, with the same contents to the patient at the end of the hall. And today, Sarah had arrived to her shift ten minutes late.
The group's voices suddenly stopped, and Doctor Soho glanced directly into Sarah's eyes. Though she was at the end of the extensive 4-D ward, Sarah felt as if Ms. Soho had immediately landed directly in front of her, the anger in her stare seemed to physically shake Sarah to her core.
Both nurses nodded to the lead Doctor, and rushed toward Sarah, suddenly much more upset than before. As they ran, the steel door holding the patient inside opened horizontally, then another wall of steel opened vertically into the ceiling with a thunderous slam. The moaning was amplified, and a heavy, leather guest chair was launched from inside the room, and knocked two of the secuirty guards down.
"Shiori!", shouted Dr. Soho, as she and the remaining security guard rushed into the room and out of Sarah's sight. More Crashing eminated from the room, along with shouting and cursing, as the nurses reached Sarah and her cart.
"Where is patient 18's delivery for today?!" The nurse shouted.
Sarah scrambled looking for the blue sticker, and handed the cup directly to the nurse, and realized she forgot to hand them a spoon as the nurses immediately turned and rushed back to the end of the hall. Sarah stood quietly with the pre-wrapped spoon hanging limply in her hand as the moaning became a growl, then a heavy, staccato grunt, over and over again. And suddenly the sound was muffled, covered. Subdued. The cursing and shouting stopped, and Sarah slowly looked back down at her cart, and Ms. Tanaka's jell-o cup.
Sarah took a breath, and lightly knocked on Tanaka's door, ready to get back to a sense of normalcy. As was procedure, Sarah opened the door, and uttered "It's twelve o-clock, time for your afternoon delivery". She reached into the crack she'd made in the doorway by barely opening the door, and shut off the lightswitch.
She heard rustling in the patient's bed, as she slowly opened the door into the darkened, windowless room. She placed the cup of (maybe) watermelon jell-o onto the tray at the foot of the patient's bed, and stole a glance at the sleeping woman.
Ms. Tanaka lay there, wet hair caked to her forehead, jaw flexing, and covers pulled up tight to her chin. Sarah could hear her labored breathing, like a hiss coming from her clenched jaw and slightly opened mouth. Her eyes were closed tightly, a grimace etched on her face, as the silver, ornate bracelet on her wrist glinted in the faint light from the hall.
"Nurse". A deep, calm voice came from the doorway.
Sarah jumped, slightly jostling the tray she'd lain the cup onto. She turned quickly to see Dr. Reina Soho Standing at the entrance to the room, arms at her sides, a knowing expression on her face.
"Yes Doctor?! *Ahem*, y..yes doctor Reina? Doctor Soho? M'am?
Reina paused, and slightly tilted her head to look past Sarah at the heavily breathing patient.
Then, "Tend to the rest of the patients, please", as the doctor turned and walked back toward the entrance to the ward.
Sarah sighed, "Yes doctor," as she walked back to the doorway to resume her deliveries. She turned to the lightswitch and flicked it on, and stole a glance back at the sleeping patient, whose eyes were now locked right onto Sarah's, the blanket she had clutched in her bracelet clad hand pulled up to cover her mouth, showing only her matted hair-covered forehead, and heavy lidded eyes that saw Sarah as a lover who'd come to curl up in bed next to her. A soft, questioning murmur eminated from the patient, as Sarah's heart did a flip. Sarah immediately reached back for the lightswitch, flicked it off, and walked back to her cart in the hall, reaching to close the door, knowing that the woman who remained in the room still stared back at her from the dark.
