Thank to everyone who reviewed this story. I'm not sure how long it will continue on for. Maybe up to chapter 10 or 11, just some information for you all.
As Alessa grows older, conditions at the hospital grow worse. The nurses very slowly become very ill, as do the doctors. Patients begin to die off one by one. This causes talk amongst the people in the town. Dr. Kaufman becomes increasingly agitated. He constantly lashes put at his co-workers. Lisa is one of the few that fights back when her head is straight. Unbeknownst to her, she is suffering from the drug that Kaufman gave her to keep her calm. During the night Lisa sees and hears things that frighten her. Alessa's cries always snap her out of it though. The burned girl cries often now. Her screams feel deafening to Lisa's ears. She tries everything she can to calm the child but nothing seems to work. Miles away, a baby sobs at the same time as the burned child. Emily, like Lisa, cannot find a way to comfort the child. Both sit with the children wait for them to go back to sleep.
One night Lisa wakes up from a nightmare. She does not remember it clearly but she remembers seeing dead bodies: sexless, faceless, dead bodies. She tries to calm herself down by taking in deep breaths. After her heart stops pounding in her chest, she walks over to the sink. The silver handle for cold water turns with ease but does not work right away. She turns it off and turns it back on again. This time it runs but it does not spill water in the sink. Instead, a dark, thick, red liquid pours from the faucet. Lisa begins to panic when she sees this and tries to turn it off but it just keeps running. She yells for someone to come help her. "What's wrong?" Kaufman asks.
"Look," she says, pointing to the sink.
"What? The water is running. Is something broken?"
"That's not water, it's blood!" Kaufman shakes his head at her. "Don't you see it?"
"I see water. Lisa, are you sure you're feeling all right? Maybe you need to get some more sleep."
"Yeah, maybe." She swallows another pill before she lies back down on the cot. Kaufman turns the water off and goes back out in the hallway.
"What was wrong?" Dahlia asks.
Kaufman says, "She's starting to hallucinate. Dahlia, are you sure that spell is working? Do you have something else we can try?"
"Give it time, doctor. Alessa's other half will come but you must be patient."
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you," Emily sings a year later. Cheryl is sitting in a high chair looking at the bright candle on the cake. "Happy birthday, baby Cheryl. Happy birthday to you." Emily claps and Cheryl gurgles. "Can you blow out the candle, hm?" The baby just looks around, first at Emily then at Harry. Her curious expression suddenly turns sad and she begins to cry. "Oh, honey, it's okay," Emily says as she picks her up. Harry cuts the cake then takes the candle out. Emily feeds Cheryl a tiny bit of frosting when she is calm again.
"Do you want me to get her present?" Harry asks.
"If you want to you can." He goes into the living room to retrieve a stuffed doll. She has tan yarn hair, a red cloth dress, and with the exception of her nose, her facial features have been sewn on. He puts the doll in Cheryl's tiny little arms. She stares at it then sucks on the doll's hand.
"At least it's clean," Harry says. "We'll probably have to wash that thing often."
"She seems to like it though. That's good. She likes the frosting on the cake too."
Emily and Harry love Cheryl so much that they often forget she is not their biological daughter. They found her at the right time too. They found her at the time they were considering having children. The doctor never calls them to tell them anything about the mysterious child. He is just as puzzled as they are about where she came from. Emily sometimes wishes she could meet Cheryl's real mother so she could show the woman the beautiful baby she left behind. But if she knew anything about where Cheryl really came from she would not dare to do that. Dahlia would take the child away. In the middle of the night, both Alessa and Cheryl begin to cry again. The noise rescues Lisa from another nightmare. That is the only kind of drama she has been having lately. She goes to Alessa's side and holds her hand until the crying stops.
Lisa looks through her bag and notices that she is out of the pills that Dr. Kaufman gave her. She is taking them a lot lately but it does not seem to work for very long. Maybe she needs to take more. For a moment, she leaves Alessa alone. She goes upstairs to Dr. Kaufman's office. He is not there so she looks through his cabinets. An unlabeled file falls on the floor. "What's this?" Lisa asks herself as she picks it up. In it there are documents on a drug, something called 'The White Claudia'. She has never heard of anything like that before.
"Lisa," Kaufman snaps. "What are you doing? Put that down!" She does what she is told.
"Remember those pills you gave me? Well I'm out of them," Lisa says.
"Well you should've asked instead of going through my stuff!"
"You weren't in here!"
"You could've waited!" He walks over to his desk and digs through the drawers. After a moment, he hands her a bottle of pills. "There you go. You got what you wanted now go watch that kid." Lisa growls but just walks away. She pops a few pills in her mouth, swallows them, and goes back to bed. In the morning, Lisa has to change Alessa's bandages. It is a hard process that takes a long time. Alessa is cooperative though so it speeds the procedure up. Lisa gags when the first bandage is removed. Red and yellow substances are mixed together on the charred skin. Lisa grabs a wet washcloth to clean the skin. Eventually, she calls another nurse for help. Together they clean and re-bandage the child. Dr. Kaufman walks in just as they are finishing up. Instantly he becomes furious and begins to yell, "What is she doing here?"
"I needed help," Lisa argues. "I can't do this by myself!"
"What did I tell you about confidentiality!"
"I didn't even tell her anything! I needed help changing her bandages!"
"You," Kaufman says pointing at the other nurse, "come with me." The girl does what she is told but it is easy to tell that she is frightened. Lisa sits down in a chair next to Alessa and waits. She knows Dr. Kaufman will becoming back to yell at her about something else. Since she cannot go anywhere anyways, she waits. Nearly a half an hour passes before he comes back. Immediately she notices that he is wearing different clothes. "How is she?" he asks.
"Um, I'm not really certain of her condition," Lisa says. "I think she needs some painkillers though. She cries a lot at night because of it."
"No painkillers. I've told you that before."
"I know but why?"
"Just do as I tell you. I give you directions and you follow them. Got it? I need to look her over. Why don't you get her something to eat?"
Lisa walks out into the hallway and up the stairs. Many of the halls are empty. Usually it is packed with people running around trying to get their jobs done. She stops by the storage room to pick up some painkillers. She does not care what Dr. Kaufman says Alessa needs the drug. Once she has successfully concealed the items in her pockets, she heads to the kitchen. While she waits for the cook to finish making breakfast, she takes a seat at a table by another nurse. "Hi, Michelle," Lisa says.
"Hey, Lisa. How have you been? I haven't seen you in a while," Michelle responds.
"I'm okay. A little frustrated with Dr. Kaufman though. He can be a pain in the ass sometimes."
"So where have you been?"
"Dr. Kaufman wants me to take care of a patient in the basement. 'You're not allowed to reveal anything about the patient,' he says. I'm so sick of him lecturing me. I'd rather be up here with you guys."
"No you wouldn't," Michelle says. She no longer has a smile on her face. "Things up here are real bad. We're losing nurses because everyone's getting sick. The patients are dying too. No matter what we try we haven't been able to save one. They're always coughing up blood and bile. Some of them have nightmares too. I've heard a few people screaming at night. You should hear them scream, Lisa. Something is very, very wrong." Lisa does not know what to say about any of this. "I think Dr. Kaufman has something to do with all this."
Lisa says, "I wouldn't doubt it."
"And that woman too. I've seen her walking around at night too. You can tell some of the patients are scared of her. Just look at their eyes. She gives me a bad feeling. I get sick when I look at her."
"I'll see if I can find out what's going on. Okay? But, if you really feel that bad then get out of here before anything happens to you too." Michelle nods then they go their separate ways. Lisa takes the food down to Alessa's room. Kaufman is already gone. She sets the food down on the stand and takes out the painkillers. "Here you go," she whispers as she injects it into the IV. "That will make you feel better." Once that is done, she begins to feed the child.
That night neither child wakes up crying. Emily does get up, however, and goes to the bathroom. She feels sick. Her stomach churns painfully in her body. Her retching brings up blood. She knows this is not a good sign. Though Harry does not know it, this has been going on for a few days. She is afraid to tell him because she feels it will pass soon and she does not want him to worry. After her stomach has settled, she returns to bed. For a moment she considers taking some medicine but then she realizes that it will do no good. A few hours pass before she finally falls asleep.
Lisa swallows a few more of those pills then sits on the cot she has to sleep on. She tries to think of a way to get into Kaufman's office without getting caught. She decides to try it when he is checking on Alessa. A dripping sound catches Lisa's attention. She looks around the room to find out where it is coming from. At first, her eyes catch nothing then she sees it is the faucet again. It is dripping blood into the sink. When she walks over there, she sees that it is almost completely full. While she watches it, the red liquid begins to drip faster and faster until it is running full blast by itself. The substance spills out onto the floor and she tries to turn it off. Her skin and clothes are now covered in blood. The faucet does not stop running. She sees the blood on her hands and flees to the bathroom. In her reflection, the blood is gone. Her clothes are spotless, not even a streak of dirt remains. To regain her composure, she takes a few deep breaths before going back. The floor is also clean along with the sink. She takes a few more pills and goes to bed.
In the morning almost a month later, Kaufman comes by to check on Alessa again. This time he is inspecting her burns. Lisa slips out of the room. She hurries up the stairs to Kaufman's office. She knows that he keeps all the important flies in his desk somewhere. As she begins her search, the phone rings. The seemingly loud sound causes her to freeze. It keeps on ringing until finally the machine clicks over. "Michael," a male voice growls. "How is the girl? What's her condition? You'd better speed this up! We're tired of waiting!" The line goes dead and the answering machine turns off. She does not know how she knows but it is obvious to her that the man is talking about Alessa. Lisa has a feeling that the child is in danger. She looks through the drawers until she comes to a locked one. She figures the files are in there. This time, she will leave the drawer alone but next time she will get into it by picking the lock.
Emily is at home with Cheryl while Harry is at the grocery store. Little Cheryl has not cried for continuous hours in some time now. Emily is still puzzled as to what brought that on before. "Cheryl," Emily says gently. "What're you doing?" She rubs her nose against the baby's nose as she speaks. "What're you doing?" Cheryl giggles happily. Emily has been feeling worse these past weeks. She has not gotten any better. She has been good at hiding her condition from Harry though. He has questioned her when she has a bad cough but other than that he has no idea. During the night, she gets up again to be sick. Her body becomes weak from all the retching and convulsing. On the way back to the room, her body just shut down on her. Everything suddenly stops working it seems. She falls onto the floor and lies there. She is trying to catch her breath but it is impossible for her to get enough air in her lungs. When she tries to call for Harry, her voice comes out in a soft moan. He does not find her until morning.