Chapter 9:
It had been another typical monotonous, isolated day. Velma woke up; Velma checked her email and responded as well as she could; Velma took whatever medications she was given (at this point she didn't really keep track of them) and waited for the imprisonment to be over.
She tried picking up the book she had been given as a get-well present from Daphne. She couldn't really concentrate on it, though. The morphine she had been given as a painkiller made her head swim. Everything felt as if it were swimming... swimming...
Velma hated this state of mind. At any other time, she could have finished the book within an hour; now she was only halfway through after four days. She hadn't really felt confined until her brain wore down like this...
Confined...
Something was wrong. Velma couldn't explain it, but she knew. Something was wrong, and she couldn't concentrate enough to think about what it was. All she knew was that something was leaving...
----------------------------------------------
"--and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!"
There. It was sealed. Mystery, Inc. had solved another mystery. The gang climbed back into the Mystery Machine and headed for the Malt Shop.
They were trying to get into the swing of things. They really were. It wasn't too different without Velma, right? After all, once they split up, Fred and Daphne could pretend that she had simply gone with Shaggy and Scooby, and Shaggy and Scooby could do the same with Fred and Daphne. She usually went with Shaggy and Scooby, sure... but not always. Sometimes they went by themselves...
Nobody was fooled. As they had been since Velma's return to the hospital, this mystery was unbearably silent. Shaggy and Scooby occupied themselves in the back with whatever comestibles happened to be lying around. Daphne felt the empty space next to her in the front and wept, but allowing nobody to see her tears. Fred was not fooled; what he longed to do more than anything was to put his arm around Daphne and release his own crying. Alas, he had to keep his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes on the road. Pain was always hardest on the driver, who must carry on regardless of the hurt inside.
----------------------------------------------
Velma felt odd. A frightening tightness gripped her chest.
She could breathe... no, she couldn't...
She could but it was hard. She could but it was getting harder. Harder every second...
What was wrong?
She racked her brain for ideas, but the lack of oxygen made that nearly impossible... things were growing darker...
Someone in white entered the room. Someone in white called for help. Someone in white attached her to some sort of machine... someone in white...
Then something went black.
----------------------------------------------
Fred's cell phone rang.
He pulled over to the side of the road and answered it. Daphne looked over at him, her red face perking with curiosity. Even Shaggy and Scooby stopped chewing for a second to listen in. Fred's phone rarely rang while they were solving mysteries; in fact whenever it rang at all it was virtually always someone else from the gang. It must be Velma; besides her and Fred's parents (who never bothered to try his cell if he wasn't home), the only people with his number were the hospital staff... Everyone refused to consider this possibility.
Finally, the blonde teenager hung up and continued driving, not saying a word.
He didn't go to the Malt Shop.
The gang knew immediately when he turned right instead of left. There was only one thing to the right at that intersection. It wasn't until they were all standing in the hospital parking lot that Fred stated the obvious, the painfully obvious...
"It's Velma," he said, jogging across the desolate plane of asphalt, Daphne at his side struggling to keep up.
"They're losing her."