Author's Notes: I must be on a roll. I'm actually on schedule. Um, nothing more to say except 'Review please.'
Thanks to Miya, mya (hmm, might look up the book), starquestor, Rhea (cough, agreement, cough), Riley S (I like the sleepwalk idea…), Final Fantasy Princess, Emi-chan (hehe, I'm trying to get somewhere, just will take a few more chapters)
Dark FantasyChapter 5: In the Noodle House
Tomoyo frowned, taking the tip of her pencil off the ledger pad. "And they were…animals?"
Syaoran sighed, sinking further into the padded comfort of an overstuffed armchair. "They were trees that turned into animals."
"Flesh and blood?"
"No, still leaves and branches." Syaoran rethought his last sentence, drowsily replaying the dream in his head. "Actually, like paintings. Like brushstrokes that were meant to look like leaves."
"I see…" The pencil descended on the paper once again, scribbling furiously. "And that's when you caught up with her again?"
"She was leaning on the fountain. Then she was attacked by the wolf and broke into millions of pieces and then I was dropping the watch onto the bench and stomping on it."
Tomoyo shifted in her seat, casting and inspective eye over Syaoran's disturbed form. The haunted look, the furrows between his eyebrows, the clenching and unclenching hands. "And then…" She let her hand gestures take the place of the rest of her sentence.
Syaoran nodded. "That's when I woke up and all the clocks were broken."
"And your watch…"
"Smashed." Syaoran held up his wrist to show off the spider web cracks on the glass cover. "Right on the kitchen table."
Tomoyo gave a 'hmm' before circling something on her paper. "I'm sure there's a logical explanation for this…"
Syaoran scowled hard, crossing his arms over his chest. "For the past three days, I've thought of every possibility. This is just utterly unexplainable."
'I'm just saying…"
"What? That I was sleepwalking? That some guy broke into my apartment and decided to play a prank? That maybe aliens decided to have some fun at my expense?"
Tomoyo rolled her eyes, forcing down the barest hint of a smile lest she enrage him more. "Well, the sleepwalking thing isn't completely impossible…"
"Yes it is. I'm telling you something did this, and I have no fucking clue what."
Tomoyo ripped the paper off her pad, folding it into fourths. She leaned over her desk, handing it to Syaoran. "Here; I've circled what I want you to take."
"A prescription? You thinks pills will solve this?!" He unfolded the paper and looked over the various scribbled details of his dream. The bottom word was circled a few times and underlined. His face seemed to freeze in a distorted expression of surprise and annoyance. "Vacation?"
Tomoyo fought unsuccessfully to stifle the laugh in her throat. She beamed at Syaoran. "Two weeks. I'm telling you it's just stress."
Syaoran couldn't find the humour. This was something that was seriously dangerous. The distraction, the building dread and fear that raised the hairs on the back of his neck every other second. The night sweats and the broken clocks. And here she was joking. He angrily crumpled up the paper and tossed it on the floor. "I've got patients…"
Tomoyo lost her smile, opting to fade back into the professional stoic stare that she had mastered in medical school. "It's still a very good suggestion, Syaoran."
Syaoran shrugged, yanking open the door. "Yeah. Thanks anyway, I'll deal with this myself." He shut the door loudly behind him.
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Syaoran yawned widely. He glared at his coffee mug murderously, flipping over the first page of a patient chart. It was his third cup and he felt more tired than ever; maybe some idiot put decaf in the machine. The soft yellow glow of the desk lamp seemed to bleed in his vision, overtaken by the accompanying tears of another yawn. He threw down the chart in frustration, the words becoming too blurred and foreign to understand anymore. Almost with lead feet, he plodded over to the stale couch and slumped into the old foam.
The musty smell was distinctly bad, but he couldn't fight off the exhaustion that swept over him, letting it pull his eyelids shut, dropping his senses into the red-gray haze that come before sleep.
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Sakura smiled up at Syaoran, snatching his arm and pulling him through the door. "Isn't this cozy?"
Syaoran stood bewildered in the little shop, taking in the plastic countertops, the little stools and small plastic seats. The air smelled deliciously of soup and dumplings and fresh buns. He fumbled with his words, gathering himself together. "Y-yeah, it's nice."
Sakura led them to a small table against the wall. She unwrapped herself form her scarf and took off her coat and gloves. "Isn't it nice and warm?"
Syaoran nodded, removing his garments too, taking a quick look over Sakura's shoulder out the glass storefront. Fogged window corners, a light dusting of snow over parked cars, people walking by puffed up by layers of down and wool. "It's winter…"
Sakura gave him a strange look before taking up a menu from the rack. "Of course it is."
Syaoran shook himself from his thoughts and turned his attention back to Sakura. "You realize this is a dream right?"
She nodded absently, glancing up and down the beverage list. "It always is. The seafood special looks good."
"This isn't real; we're here in this noodle shop and it's just all some figment of my imagination."
Sakura put down her menu, sighing. "It's as real as anything else. And if we're here, why can't we enjoy it? Now, go pick out what you want."
Syaoran shook his head resignedly and took up the laminated sheet and started to weigh out the choices. "The dumplings look good…" He tried to focus on the background noises, the shuffle of metal utensils clinking against the bottom of pans, the quiet sizzle of potstickers, the sensual twisting aromas of scallions and ginger. It all was so real.
A shadow formed over Syaoran's menu forcing him to look up at the slightly flustered face of the waiter. "Are you read to order?"
Sakura nodded, replacing the menu on its rack. "I'll have the seafood special."
Syaoran followed Sakura's example. "Wonton soup."
Nodding the waiter took off at a furious pace, ripping the paper and slapping it onto the counter before scurrying back to the other side of the little shop and picking up empty bowls and chopsticks.
Syaoran broke the silence first. "What's going on?"
Sakura looked confused. "We're having dinner…"
"No; I mean with all of these dreams. I close my eyes and find myself in them."
Sakura shrugged. "Beats me." She cringed her nose in distaste. "Let's talk about something else."
Syaoran gave Sakura an appraising look. She seemed normal, attractive with her pink cheeks and soft, kind face. And yet, there was something wrong there, like she wasn't a person. She lacked that spark, that consciousness that truly made others…right. She spoke fine, she moved fine and still she wasn't quiet right, like a puppet. He shook himself and scowled inwardly. He was thinking about her like a real person when all she was part of his subconscious, created by his own mind and without the substance of reality. "So what kind of family do you have?" He listed to her talk about her overprotective brother and father who was a professor who worked at the university. Almost grudgingly, he had to congratulate his imagination; she seemed more real by the second.
Sakura finished almost abruptly, flushing a deep red. "And here I am going on about my childhood and you're probably bored out of your mind."
Syaoran smiled and shook his head. "No, it's interesting to hear about it." The shadow of the waiter appeared again, the blur of the man depositing two large bowls on the small table and streaking away to give out checks and take orders. Syaoran stared into the depths of his bowl, making out the small round wontons and their almost translucent wrapping swimming and floating over the golden green onion littered broth. He experimentally dipped in a spoon and sipped cautiously at the hot liquid. The taste was soft, without the pretense of expensive and exotic herbs. He smiled at the soup, a homey kind of food that worked perfectly to provide a hot filling delicious meal on a frosty night. "This is good…"
Sakura slurped the end of a thick noodle up. "Yeah, it's nice, just right." She greedily stuffed a shrimp into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
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Syaoran noticed the wall clock and was faintly surprised that an hour had passed so quickly. He picked at the sweet bun on his plate and laughed. Sakura was talking about college and her job; she was currently complaining about a failed attempt at getting a raise. "I can't believe you forgot about the printers."
Sakura dropped her head onto her right hand, her exposed cheek stained a deep red. "Don't remind me! They couldn't get the quarterly reports up to the board meeting. The meeting got delayed until the next day."
"So what happened?"
"So they put me on answering phones for a week and threatened to fire me if I ever took the initiative again." She laughed a little breathlessly. "I still haven't got up the nerve again to ask for a raise."
Syaoran bit into the bun, savouring the sweet honey taste. "At least you can get a raise. The hospital doesn't even like you asking for vacation days."
Sakura sipped at her tea. "But you get to save people's lives. That's so much more than being some assistant at a huge corporation. You must feel lucky."
"Lucky? It's hard work and most of the time the patients treat you like dirt." Syaoran softened. "But…I guess there're those time when you feel really proud of what you do."
Sakura smiled and nodded, entranced. "Sound wonderful."
Syaoran blinked and squinted. Sakura's form was getting darker and harder to focus on.
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Syaoran barely lifted an eyelid, feeling the crushing weight of some strange influence pressing his lids back downward. In the small gap of his open eyes, he made out a bleary silhouette standing over him and shaking him. He wrenched open his mouth to speak but found he lacked the energy to control the breath in his lungs, much less form words from them.
The nurse shook harder. "Doctor Li."
The effort was too much and he surrendered his eyelids back to their shut state. The dark swam and there was suddenly light again, the same soft orange-yellow glow of the noodle shop.
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Sakura's smile went crisp again. "When you said you were going to go to the bathroom, I never thought it'd take twenty minutes. Did you fall in?"
Syaoran furrowed his brows. "Bathroom? What?"
But Sakura's attention wasn't on him anymore, instead focusing in her empty noodle bowl. "This is interesting. Look."
Syaoran felt a fuzziness in his head as he craned his neck and looked into the bowl. There was the murky dregs of her soup. He blinked and the bowl had suddenly filled up.
Everything seemed to spin incredibly fast as Syaoran stared transfixed at the bowl. Bugs, insects, all sorts of small biting monsters. And there seemed to be something wrong with his eyes, magnifying and distorting them, projecting them. Large hairy legs, sleek twitching antennae, wings that looked sickly brittle, the movement of a disgusting tangle of limbs and bellies and bodies. They were filling up the bowl, overflowing and sweeping across the table top with the endless pinching of their jaws, the hypnotically nauseous motion of writing maggots, their white, blue veined bodies wiggling about and contorting, the metallic green sheen of millions of honeycombed facets on eyes. The rising queasiness rose high up him, entranced and sickened by the rampant legs, and dancing bodies and the dry crackling exoskeleton that looked deceptively wet and sticky.
The room was worse, the dimensions all awry, some corners jutting out like oversized cornices and others shrinking into a cornerless spherical dead end. And the claustrophobia smothered the air around him with a choking sucking sound. Smaller and tighter and still held in the malicious grip of the thousands of insects running across the tabletop, on the lap, scampering with unnaturally light and tickling steps under his shirt, up his arms, circling his neck.
Sakura was watching him with a curious gaze, rolling up her sleeves. She plunged her hands into the overflowing bowl, reaching down up to her elbows into depths that were impossible for a bowl. She made a flinching gesture and pulled out her hands, bumps and red blotches scattered over her pale skin.
But Syaoran couldn't pay attention to her. The air around him had disappeared and everything rose to a peak, the twisting room, the oppression, the feeling of suffocation. The bugs were crawling against his skin, paralyzing him with their light flittering touches. Around his throat, coating his chest, invading his mouth and marching with their furry limbs and gnashing pinchers into his throat, down into his insides, tickling and biting and swimming, underneath his skin, circling his ear, between each of his fingers. And then the blackness swam over him, the kind of frightening infinity of millions of black skinned insects skittering across his open eyes.
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Syaoran jerked up into a sitting position, a fierce scream lodged in this throat. His hands involuntarily scoured across his arms and neck, nails scraping over his skin, leaving trails of red as he sought to rid himself of the phantom bugs. His breath came out in loud rasping heaves, sucking in the air with a vicious strength. The sweat poured over his forehead and his body shook violently, uncontrollably.
The nurse next to him patted him on the back reassuringly. "Doctor?"
Syaoran vaguely noticed Terada at his side, the older man's fingers over the rapidly throbbing pulse in his wrist. "T-Terada?"
Terada looked away from his watch. "What happened?"
"Just a…bad dream."
"Not just a bad dream. We were trying to wake you up for half an hour."
"Half?" Syaoran tried to close his eyes and swallow but the teeming mass of iridescent wings and black backs behind his eyes kept twisting the nausea inside him.
Terada nodded and sighed. "I'm sorry to have to do this Syaoran, but I'm ordering you take a vacation."
Syaoran looked up confused at the older man, head still thick with the warped noodle house walls. "Vacation?"
"You've been so erratic these past few weeks. We can't have you endangering patients. I hate to pull my boss card, but I'm the chief of staff and I have to look out for the hospital." His stern voice softened. "Besides, you look like you really need a break."
Syaoran nodded dumbly, finally able to swallow and slowly feeling his twitching muscles coming back under his control.
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Syaoran leaned heavily against the wall outside the ward, coat dangling in a loose grip. It had taken nearly an hour to get himself under control, to stop the shaking and the involuntary turning motion his stomach kept making. And now he was gathering his nerve to enter the room.
The room was nearly the same as the last time. The striped curtain wasn't drawn today, leaving Sakura open to public view. She was still lying in the same position, hand open and stretched out. The night nurse was recording the machine readouts. She looked up at Syaoran and smiled. "Saying good night to a patient?"
Syaoran nodded. "Something like that."
The nurse turned to go, but stopped short. "Oh, doctor? Can you look at her arms? I think she might have bedsores."
Syaoran frowned and stepped closer, leaning over the nurse's back. Sakura's arms were red and littered with swollen bumps. His face darkened considerably, sucking in a half breath. They weren't bedsores; they were insect bites.
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Author's Notes: Hey not bad, a longer chapter. I promise to get to the killer in the next chapter.