[Disclaimer: All Kingdom Hospital/Dark Tower Saga characters and elements are the intellectual property of Stephen King and/or Lars Von Trier. Characters and elements from The Talisman and Black House also belong to Peter Straub.]
"Who do you suppose she's talking to when she mutters like that in her sleep?" Sophie asked the black man that stood beside her in the doorway. She was the queen and that was her bedchamber, but ever since her husband had pulled this stranger through into their world – flipped her through – she hadn't set foot inside.
The pale young girl with the dark red hair was sobbing as she slept, murmuring pleas for help, saying the same name over and over: Paul. Sophie's husband laid his hand on the girl's forehead then, to calm her, and that was when she finally awoke. "Paul!" she cried out one last time before the man beside her swam into focus. Tall, yes; but blonde. Blue eyes instead of green. "Jack?" she blurted in surprise.
"I almost didn't pull you through," he said. "You fought me the whole way."
"Where am I?" she asked wearily, awake enough to wince at her own movie cliché.
"The Territories," he told her. "But you already knew that… You're all grown up," he added. "What were you doing in Maine?"
"I'm a doctor. Was a doctor. Why do you want to know, anyway? You just walked away," Mariella said reproachfully, squinting in the lamplight.
"You've always been a doctor, Mariella Evans," he reminded her, "even when you were homeless in the alleyways of Los Angeles, you were never 'just a girl'. They were tracking you even then, you know."
"I saw Them. Nobody believed me," she agreed tiredly. Low Men in loud cars and yellow coats. Emissaries of the Crimson King.
"They were going to take you this morning," Jack told her. "In Derry."
"Paul wouldn't have let them," she replied rather naïvely.
"Who is this Paul?" Sophie spoke up from the doorway. Parkus, still standing beside her, shot her a stern look which she chose to ignore.
"The Good Man's adopted son," Ella said calmly, almost amused by the fear in Sophie's face. Of course she knew who she meant. Marten. Walter. Randall Flagg. Many names, but always that grin. That savage, leering grin.
"I know who you mean," Jack Sawyer admitted. "You really shouldn't talk about him, though. Or his father. Especially his father. It's too dangerous to talk about those things on this side."
"How did I get here? Where is my body? I died, right? Where is my body?" Mariella inquired in confusion.
"You came through a doorway," Parkus said, "and the doorway was Death. The body is a husk. You left it behind."
"Am I my Twinner?" she pressed.
Parkus looked grim. "Why do folks always come back to that? You're single-natured, like my friend Travelin' Jack. You came through. That's all that's important."
"I didn't want to be a Breaker," she said softly, looking to Jack. "Paul said he'd keep me safe. He did. He was good to me. Please don't make me turn against him, Jack."
"That choice wasn't up to you or us, Mary," he told her gently. "Try to rest now. We'll talk in the morning."
"Don't call me Mary," she murmured. "No one calls me that anymore." Just as suddenly as she had awoken, she drifted back to sleep.