A Spirit Broken

By: IsisRose

Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hospital or any of its characters

Chapter 5: I'm Not Crazy

Paul paced uneasily in the Pain Room, scratching at the back of his head anxiously. His fingers combed through his dark curls and his jaw muscles tightened and twitch in suppressed rage as his eyes burned with hate. He stopped at one of the tables and picked up a beaker filled with an odd green mixture. He examined it for a moment and then, without warning, whipped it across the room; the goo erupted into a large, slimy green blotch as the beaker shattered against the opposite wall. "DAMN IT!"

"What the hell is going on in here?" a familiar voice demanded from behind him. Paul's frustrated motions froze and he turned to see Dr. Gottreich standing in the doorway, looking livid. The boy moved his eyes away to stare down at the floor.

"Well?" the doctor questioned. Paul wisely kept his eyes on the floor, not daring to meet Gottreich's gaze, and found that his tongue seemed unable to function. "Did you find the girl?"

"Yeah..." he admited dully, eyes still down.

"And?"

Paul opened his mouth to speak, but his voice caught in his throat, not wanting to break the disappointing news to the ill-tempered doctor. "Have you taken care of her?" Gottreich demanded, clearly losing his patience. Paul took a deep breath.

"She got away," he muttered.

"What?" Furious, Gottreich came walking into the room towards his young accomplice. "You mean to tell me that you were overpowered by a little girl?"

"No..." Paul finally lifted his eyes to look at the old man; his voice was calm, but full of rage. "She had help."

"What happened?"

"I had her. I had her right there, she was as good as dead..." A small smirk appeared on Paul's face as he remembered the moment and the look in Blake's eyes. Then, as quickly as the smirk appeared, it faded and was replaced by a look of loathing. "And then he showed up."

"Who?"

"That overgrown, flea-ridden, face-stealing son of a bitch!" He spun around, violently kicking over a table, sending a row of beakers and test tubes crashing to the floor. "What the hell is he doing lurking around down here?" He turned on Gottreich, pointing an accusing finger at him. "You said he was gone for good!"

Gottreich grabbed hold of Paul's raised hand and twisted it around excruciatingly, bringing him to his knees. The boy groaned and fought the urge to yell out in pain. "Calm yourself, boy," the doctor ordered. He gave his arm a particularly sharp yank and Paul gritted his teeth, fighting the sting. "How many times must I tell you to control your anger?" The doctor pulled harder, not showing any mercy until Paul finally let out the cry he had tried so hard to hold back.

After being released, Paul got to his feet, rubbing his shoulder. "You don't seem too irked about all this," he commented grudgingly.

"Why should I?" The doctor moved around the upset table, the broken shards of glass cracking under his feet. He sat in a nearby chair and nonchalantly propped his feet up. "There is nothing he can do now."

"That's what you said last time."

Gottreich sat straight up in his chair and pounded a pale fist on the table. "ENOUGH!"

He stood, calming himself as Paul's gaze fell once again to the floor. "Those souls will be mine. The pieces are already in place and Anubis is of no concern."

"But he knows we're still here, and that girl—"

"We will take care of the girl. And as for that meddling rodent, he knows nothing of what we are doing, so we must simply continue to operate under his radar. Which means no going after him." Paul looked up in protest, but Gottreich continued. "I mean it, Paul! Leave it alone. There will be time enough to deal with him later, I assure you." Paul sighed, but nodded in reluctant agreement. "In the meantime, you can occupy your time with the girl. I still want her taken care of." Gottreich resumed his previous position in his seat and Paul, clearly pissed, faded from sight.

Blake stood in front of the sink in her tiny hospital bathroom. She wet a cloth and dabbed it over her bloody arm, wincing in pain as she inspected the shallow cut. She rolled her eyes and scoffed to herself. "Why is it always the little ones that bleed the most?"

Despite all the blood, the cut wasn't actually that deep, really just a minor flesh wound. Cleaning up the water around the sink, she glanced up at the mirror to see her own big blue eyes staring back at her anxiously. "I'm not crazy," she stated indignantly to her reflection. It merely stared back at her, eyes full of disbelief. "Okay, maybe I am."

She threw down the cloth in annoyance and walked out of the small bathroom. "After all, I am talking to myself," she mumbled, before stopping short at the sight of her vacant hospital bed. The blankets lay in a misleadingly innocent mound in the center. She cringed at the thought of going back to sleep and possibly finding herself back there in Creepy Land with psycho boy.

She looked back down at the cut on her arm. The blood had stopped running from it and, apparently coming to a decision, she reached down to the IV taped to her wrist and carefully pulled it out. She walked to the door of her room and looked around outside. No one was out in the halls and the lone nurse supposedly manning the small station seemed to have fallen asleep in her chair. So, as if on a mission, Blake walked straight down the hallway to the elevators, though she hesitated as she reached out to call for one. Thinking twice, she walked a little further down the hall and entered through a doorway that read 'stairs'.

Blake descended the cold staircase until she reached the basement. She left the stairs and as she walked the ominous, vacant halls, she is reminded of the dreams. That weird place, the creepy old hospital she keeps visiting in her mind—it had looked almost exactly like this. But a small afterthought nagged at the back of her brain. Had it all just been in her mind or was it real?

Blake stepped into her small office, or at least what had been her office for all of four hours before she had her accident. She walked over to the desk, picked up a book bag from beside her chair and returned to her room, careful not to wake the sleeping nurse. Once inside she pulled a sketchbook out of her bag and sat down onto the mess of blankets that covered her bed. Opening to a new page she picked up a pencil and began to draw.