"Do you think he's dead?"
"Course not. See? He's moving."
"Maybe it's like that weird thing Miss Emily read about that one time, about how dead ducks continue to move if you cut its head off. You think?"
"Rupert, don't be morbid!"
The sound of distant voices echoed through Mark's head as he slowly regained consciousness. Opening his eyes, he found himself lying in one of many iron cast beds inside a room that had its walls painted up in a bright mural of a park on a sunny afternoon. A small handful of children, whose ages appeared to range from five to eight, were sitting on the bed, watching him intently.
"There, see? He's alive," one of the children, a young girl around the age of seven, with strawberry blonde hair, blue-grey eyes, and a small bridge of freckles decorating the bridge of her nose, stated.
"Aw!" an Asian boy frowned. "Jerry and I were about to poke him with a ruler, too."
"Where am I?" Mark asked, looking around the unfamiliar surroundings.
"The Center," the freckled girl explained. "You were out for almost two hours. You must have hit your head real good." The memory of what had happened came flooding back to the filmmaker instantly, accompanied by a slight throbbing pain in his skull.
"Oh, great! I'm paralyzed, aren't I?" Mark began to panic when he noticed he couldn't feel his arm, failing to notice that one of the kids was sitting on it.
"If you were parawised, mista," a five year old girl with curly hair pointed out, "You couldn't be movin' your head around like that."
"RAAAH!"
The kids immediately screamed on hearing the shout. From the doorway, an Italian woman who looked to be in her early twenties playfully mimicked their screaming before breaking into a laugh and walking in, ruffling the freckled girl's hair in the process. The newcomer in the room had extremely frizzy mousy brown hair and hazel eyes. She was dressed in a New York Yankees jersey and cargo pants, with a navy blue Yankees cap mounted on her head.
"Well, it's good to see you're awake," she smiled at Mark. "I guess that means you're going be okay." The woman looked over at the children. "Okay, everyone. Mac and Cheese is waiting in the dining hall. Hurry, or it'll be cold before you get there!"
The children immediately hurried out of the room. Once they were gone, the hazel-eyed woman turned back to Mark.
"So, then. How are you feeling? You got yourself quite a bump on the head there."
"Yeah, I can feel that." Mark groaned rubbing the back of his head.
"Just sit tight a bit longer, Mark. I called up a doctor who does house calls a short time ago. He's going be around soon to make sure you didn't get a concussion."
"How… how'd you know my name was…?" The woman responded by holding up a wallet Mark recognized as his own.
"I had to go through it to find some identification, and possibly some emergency contact information. I didn't want any friends or family you might have worrying about you," she explained. "My name's Emily. Emily Goodhall."
"Hi. Nice to meet you." Mark and Emily shook hands. "So, where are we, anyway?"
"The Center. Think of it as a children home of sorts. I'm sort of the unofficial Assistant Director of Operations here. At least, I would be if it was an actual paying job. We run on funding programs, so all the workers here are volunteers. But I digress."
Before the conversation could continue, an elderly Asian woman poked her head into the room.
"Oh. I see that the young man has decided to join the living, has he?"
"Yes, Nana. Has Dr. Jordan arrived yet?" Emily turned to the old woman.
"Not yet, Emily. I just wanted to see if you remembered to take your blood test?"
"Nana," Emily sighed in exasperation, as she got up and made her way over to a glass cabinet and taking out a blue case. "I've been taking those blood tests my whole life. You don't think I'd have made it a habit by now?"
"I know. I just wanted to make sure you didn't let it slip your mind, what with the arrival of our guest."
"Mark, this is Nana Chang, The Center's founder, and an old friend of my mother," Emily introduced.
"You forgot to include your caretaker in that resume, Emily." Nana scolded in good nature.
"Nana, since I'm no longer a minor, I don't need a caretaker anymore."
"Oh, so I guess that means I'm just a worthless old crone no one wants around, then."
"Nana!" Emily exclaimed. "Stop putting words in my mouth, please. You know I didn't mean it like that."
"Oh, I know," Nana smiled. "I may not be your actual mother, Emily, but I still reserve the right to uphold motherly duties over you. That includes messing with your head every now and then."
"Aw, go watch for Dr. Jordan, Nana! You know I hate big audiences for this!" Emily brandished the case in her hand.
Once Nana had left, Emily once again took a seat next to Mark's bed.
"So, what blood test was Nana talking about?" Mark asked in curiosity before being seized by a horrible thought. "You… you don't have HIV, do you."
"Why?" Emily looked over with a bemused expression. "Do you?"
"No. But… some of my closest friends have HIV. One of them died a few months ago."
"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. But, in answer to your question, last I checked, I was HIV negative. Even so, that's not the only disease or disorder you can have. Take me, for example. I've got IDDM."
"IDD… what's that?"
"IDDM. Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus."
"You're diabetic?"
"Since birth. That's what the blood test's for." Emily shrugged as she went about taking a blood glucose test. "I've got to monitor the amount of sugar in my blood. If it gets too high, for instance, I could go into hyperglycemic shock and possibly die.
"I like your camera, by the way. 16mm Bolex, right?" Emily asked, changing the subject while pointing at the table next to the bed, where his camera resided.
"Yeah! You know about cameras?"
"Yes and no. I don't really know much about movie cameras. However, I've got a Nikon FM2 downstairs. I'm… something of a nature photographer. Only amateur, at best, but still…"
"And you're a Yankees fan?" Mark questioned, eyeing Emily's wardrobe choice.
"Oh, good! I was worried people wouldn't get the message!" Emily joked, as the two shared a laugh. "My brother, Zack, used to take me to Yankees games all the time when I was a kid, so I grew up with them."
"Ah, so here's the patient in question!" A middle aged man suddenly walked into the room.
"Dr. Jordan!" Emily waved as she gave up her seat for the doctor. "Thanks for stopping by."
"Any time, Miss Goodhall. You don't have my number on speed-dial for nothing, after all. Although, I never thought I'd ever come down here for anyone over four feet. Now, let's see how you're doing, Mr.…"
"Mark Cohen."
AN: I don't claim to know much about diabetes, but I tried to do some research on it before writing this, so hopefully I got the information accurately represented here. Also, if anyone hasn't figured it out yet, or if you were wondering: Yes, Emily is the same frizzy-haired woman from the prologue. Sorry if she might come off as a Mary Sue right now: just wait- her character development is coming up fairly soon.