The hospital room was that monotone toothpaste color. Somehow mint green had become the standard for cleanliness. I'd rather have been unconscious than to have to suffer that visual aesthetic travesty, but our medical plan didn't cover anesthesia for routine checkups.
I was already laying down when the doctor came in.
He gives a curt nod and smile. He's been my doctor since I was seven. I have spent a decade with this cancer specialist. Ten years of my life. "So, Dakota, what have you been up to lately? Anything interesting?" he asked.
"Oh no, just the same old," I say politely. For some reason I've always valued what he thought of me. He is like an old family friend or a cool uncle to me.
"Nothing wrong then? I presume," he said inquisitively.
"Nope, feeling fine. My hair has even started to grow back which is exciting," I said
He smiled at me, then takes my blood sample down to the lab. He came back and sat down on his stool. Then we began the conversation portion of the checkup where he asks me questions about my life and writes down answers he already knows onto his clipboard. Once that is over he comes back with the results of my blood test. "...You said you were feeling fine?" he asks.
"Yes, I haven't gone back to school yet but life has really settled down from the last year," I say.
He just sighs and looks at me like I'm some sort of unfixable part. "Well, it looks like there might be a chance..."
"Okay. Just fine. Let's just start the treatment now then." I say indifferently.
He smiles and says, "You're so brave but its not that easy. We will need to get you all cleared before we start anything and what we detected was so small it could be anything."
"Well would you please just run some more tests so I can get on with my life. I'd rather not spend another year putting up with this."
"This isn't something you put up with, it's something you fight with. Your case is very peculiar, Dakota, and its going to take more than a couple tries to get rid of it."
"What will this be?" I ask, "The sixth try?"
"It's no ones fault Dakota, you just happened to be very unlucky. You're such a strong girl. Other people in your situation would be burnt out by now or worse."
I shrug and look blankly out the window.
"I'll go run some more tests, then I'll let your mom know," he says.
The thick door squeaks closed, ushering out the fresh hallway air. Noise from outside fades. My tomb is sealed.
The drive home was horribly awkward. My mom kept trying to comfort me by reaching across the car to touch my knee. She had always thought human contact was the greatest medicine. She was right, because it did make me feel better than Kimo.
"I can't believe it's all starting over again," she said through tears. "I wish this curse would just leave your body, it's taken enough."
"It's not going to leave Mom. They don't know how to get rid of it. It's going to stay with me until I'm to weak to fight it off," I said grumpily.
She shook her head. "No, no. You are being treated by the top cancer specialists in the U.S. They will figure out how to get rid of it. Permanently."
"No doubt they are great doctors," I countered, "but if there was a permanent fix then they would've found it in the last ten years."
"You can't just lose all your hope yet. They can make you better again, buy some more time. They will give you life."
"No they wont," I half shouted, "What's the point of having life that's not worth living? This is like being trapped in limbo! I would rather get on with my life without this cancer, or..."
"Don't speak like that," my mom shouted at me.
"I don't care anymore," I whispered to myself, "I just do not care.
How do you fill a void if there was never anything to leave one? If I remember correctly, it was three in the morning and I was doing nothing in particular. I further pressed my headphones into my ears to make my head echo with music. I was listening to some weird, new band I found and had made a loose connection with. Laying down on my bed, I proceeded to question existence and the meaning of life, because thats what your mind wonders to in the earliest hours of the morning.
My cat hopped onto my bed and curled into a neat ball on my lap.
"And what do you think, Misty?" I whispered. "Life is very dull, wouldn't you say?"
She purred and slipped a paw over her eyes.
"Your lucky. You're to stupid too have any ideas or cares other than your most basic ones. In fact, I almost envy you.."
Her ears perked up as if she had understood what I said. She stood to her feet and looked warily before springing off my bed and walking to my door. Then, she began to claw at the wood.
"Stop that!" I half whispered half shouted, careful not to wake my parents.
She never did things like this. Misty was a well behaved cat that only ever scratched at field mice, not the house.
I turned on the light and walked over to her. I reached out and tried to pick her up but she hissed and clawed at me. I opened the door and she sprinted out.
She sprinted down the hall to the back door and began to claw again.
I knew she was an indoor cat but when I refused her she turned on me. Once the little devil had bloodied my arm, I let her out. I followed her moonlit shadow through my backyard. She led me to a very flat, grassy area. I looked up and immediately felt anxious and exposed under the huge night sky, speckled with an infinite amount of stars and galaxies. "How come you brought me out here, Misty?"
Off in the distance I could hear my neighbor's dogs barking. Birds glided over the treetops, like a swarm of locusts blocking out the limited star light. Something was wrong. I looked back at my house but my body gravitated forward, no longer needing to follow my cat. My long, steady strides began to out pace hers. Suddenly, I was running.
Clearly out of control, I tried to yell, but my voice was stuck in my throat. Then, I felt myself trip and I began to roll down a hill which hadn't been in my yard previously. What the hell was happening?
I slowed down at the bottom of the incline and stood up, covered in dirt. I looked around and realized I was standing in a large crater. No longer feeling my body pulled, I decided to see what was in the center of the crater out of my own curiosity. The crater had a reddish glow to it and the further towards the center, the more it intensified. Finally, at the center I looked and saw a tiny red light. When I squatted down next to it, I realized it was a small stone. "Wow," I gushed.
It sparkled and reflected every glimmer of light. The stone glistened like fire itself.
I reached down and scooped up the stone and some earth. I brushed it off, feeling the heat it emitted when I touched it. I closed my hand around it and my entire body heated up.
The last I remember of Before, was feeling like I had the worst fever I had ever had. I felt queasy like I was on a roller coaster that never stopped. My entire body was burning up, I was so hot.