"Sir, really. All our sources say your daughter just has a stomach virus. Probably a 72-hour one. It'll pass."
"I'm telling you, her heartbeat skipped! I felt it! And she wasn't breathing!"
Charles Deetz was beside himself with frustration. The doctors had simply examined his daughter for a mere five minutes before passing judgement. And all three of them had said the same thing; stomach flu.
"Charles, maybe it is just a stomach virus…" Delia tried to sooth, but he would not be placated.
"Listen, buster. I make more in one year than the average medical intern makes in two. If I wanted to be spared the details simply because I look like I couldn't afford the treatment, I'd be going to her pediatrician!" he snapped.
The doctor shook his head. "Mr. Deetz, I think you're overreacting. Really, it's just the virus."
He let out a groan of exasperation and looked over to his daughter who lay sleeping on the padded table. Her breathing was even, but her brows were knit in pain. Her lips were slightly parted to reveal clenched teeth, and the dried trails from tears gone past lined her wan cheeks.
"There's nothing that can be done to help her?"
"Nothing that's worth it. All it takes is patience. She'll come around, sir."
Mr. Deetz, comforted by his wife, left the room and went to sit down and collect their thoughts. Delia, unconvinced of the dire malady her daughter might or might not have, only cared to calm her husband. After all, it just looked like Lydia was sick. Not terminal.
Meanwhile, the doctor closed the door just as Lydia's eyes snapped open.
She let out a hellish shriek and clapped her hands over her eyes. In an instant, the doctor had returned with two nurses, one male one female, and they tried to calm her. But her cry went on for at least a minute after it had first begun, shrill and piercing.
"Lydia! Lydia, calm down!" the doctor tried to shout over her scream. The nurses tried to pry her hands away from her face, but she wouldn't lay eyes on the world around her.
Her parents, summoned by the noise, ran back to see the room in chaos: the doctor was frantically paging for help, the nurses were still trying to tear their daughter's hands away from herself where she dug the nails into her forehead as if to drive them into her brain.
"Lydia! Lydia!" Charles and Delia cried, joining the nurses in attempting to free her. But the girl went on screaming, now in short, shrill lengths. Slowly her cries died down until she was doing nothing more than whimpering. By then, they'd transferred her to a gurney where they'd tied down her wrists to keep her from slicing open her skin.
"Alright, Mr. Deetz," their doctor sighed, rubbing his temples and trying to lose the ringing in his ears. "It's plain to see that Lydia is severely traumatized from something. She's been psychologically hurt, and this is something we can't solve with medicine. I recommend letting us keep her overnight for observation."
"What does that mean?" Delia asked frantically. "Charles. What does that mean?"
Her husband kept his eyes locked on the doctor, a cold and emotionless tone in his voice. "It means they're gonna lock her up. It means they think she's crazy."
"No, sir. It just means-…"
"You don't think I know what 'observation' means when there's no physical wound, Mr. Eight-years-of-medical-school? I'm no idiot."
The man threw up his hands. "Fine then. Call it what you want. All I'm saying is that she will be safe here, under our close examination and protection. She won't get hurt in an accident that could happen very easily if we released her to you."
Delia clung to her husband, eyes wide with worry. Charles as well tried to hold back his emotions as he realized nothing he could do right then could help his child. With disdain, he nodded and went over to kiss Lydia on the forehead.
"We'll be back early tomorrow, pumpkin," he managed. "Just try to sleep it off, alright?"
Her eyelid twitched at this and she let out a little sound of fright. He dismissed it as separation anxiety; she knew they were leaving her here.