Author's Note: Firstly, a HUGE collective thank-you to all the folks who read and reviewed! I felt pretty confident about this story when I posted it, but I didn't expect so much response so quickly. So you guys rule! Secondly, this chapter is much longer, and more the length I'm expecting to get out of the rest of the chapters in this story. The first was meant to be an introductory sort of thing, and introductions by their very nature wind up shorter than proper chapters. Just fyi. Thirdly, in case anyone's wondering why I'm not describing Katie in more detail – I kept my eyes shut during that part. I have no idea what that face looks like, I've never seen it, and I don't care to – I scare too easy, heh. SO that part of it will just continue to be vague, and we'll all just have to live it. Kay? No hard feelin's.
Day One: Dr. Massingale
Becca wasn't supposed to be in the Sunshine Ward. The nurses thought the terminal patients would be depressed by the sight of a young girl alongside them, and the patients in the psyche ward weren't supposed to go up there anyway. But Becca had slipped out of her room and taken the elevator to the rooftop while her nurse's back was turned.
When the nurse assigned to watch over Becca finally found her, she was sitting on a lonely metal folding chair in the solarium, bundled up in a brown and beige terry cloth robe, facing the window. All the other patients were watching the T.V. anchored to the ceiling, but Becca had turned her chair so she couldn't see it. If anyone had looked at her face, they would have seen that she wasn't really looking through the window. Just staring blankly at the glass.
The nurse walked over to her and gingerly touched her shoulder. Becca didn't respond.
"Becca?" said the nurse.
Still nothing.
"Sweetheart, your parents are here to see you," the nurse continued. "Let's go back to your room and say hello, hm?"
Slowly, Becca stood and let the nurse take her by the arm.
"That's it, dear," said the nurse. "Right this way."
Mr. and Mrs. Jordan were waiting in Becca's room. They'd been told that the nurse had taken Becca up to the Sunshine Ward to get some "fresh morning air" and a change of scenery. No one wanted to admit that they'd lost track of her, and since no mishaps had taken place, they figured one little white lie wouldn't hurt anyone. So when Becca and her nurse returned to her room on the psyche ward on the ninth floor, her parents smiled up at her as if nothing in the world was wrong.
"Hi, honey," said Mrs. Jordan, coming up to the girl and hugging her tightly. "How are you feeling?"
Becca hugged her back woodenly, repeating the gesture out of habit rather than affection. "I want to go home," she whispered.
"I know, Becca, I know," said Mrs. Jordan, rubbing Becca's back. "Not today. Sometime soon, though, okay?"
Mrs. Jordan let go of her daughter and put an arm around her shoulders to guide her into the room. There was a doctor standing near Becca's bed, not far from where her father was sitting. It was a lady doctor, with dark blond hair and the first etchings of age beginning to show on her once lovely face – high cheekbones, warm complexion, deep blue eyes, all boldly highlighted with make-up that didn't quite hide the worry-lines on her forehead or the wrinkles behind her eyes.
Mr. Jordan stood. "Becks, this is Dr. Massingale," he told Becca. "She's going to give you something to help you sleep."
Becca looked up at Dr. Massingale, who was smiling kindly, and frowned.
"Hello Becca," said Dr. Massingale, reaching out to take Becca's hand. "You can call me Lona, if you like. I heard you've been having some bad dreams."
Becca pulled her hand away and moved past Dr. Massingale, to her bed. She sat up on the bed and faced the window, pulling her knees up to her chest. "She never sleeps," she said quietly.
Mr. Jordan sighed. "Sometimes she refers to herself in the third person," he told Dr. Massingale apologetically. "We don't know why, but it started after . . . the accident."
"Don't worry," said Dr. Massingale, taking on the firm, no-nonsense tone of the practiced physician. "I specialize in sleep-related neuroses and disorders. First I want to get her on a regular sleeping schedule, get her rested, and then I'd like to take her downstairs to the lab so I can run some more tests. Now, if you want, I can stay with her tonight and watch her, to see how she reacts. . ." Dr. Massingale rattled off a number of complicated-sounding medications and techniques, to which Becca's parents responded by nodding and looking worried.
Becca continued facing the window, but her arms tightened around her knees. Her parents talked in low voices with Dr. Massingale about their possible courses of action, depending on what showed up in Becca's tests later, and the doctor asked some questions about her previous treatment. Eventually they got to the story about her high school friend, Katie. That night, the night of Katie's death, Becca had been found in the bedroom near the door, eyes wide and glassy, her fingers caught claw-like in her dark hair. At first they'd thought she was dead too.
The one thing that no one mentioned was the fact that the sight of a dead body alone, however mangled, should not have been enough to reduce Becca to a near-comatose state. She'd seen something else.
Becca didn't know the name of the medication Dr. Massingale had prescribed for her. But she took it obediently, and that night, for the first time in eleven months, she slept.
She dreamed.
She was back in her hometown outside of Seattle, in her best friend Katie's house. They were having a sleepover. There was nothing on the T.V. so they were taking it in turns to try to scare each other. Becca told Katie a rumor about a videotape that killed you seven days after you watched it. She went through the whole façade, embellishing the story with long, low vowels and the omniscient bravado of a practiced storyteller. Katie countered by saying that she'd seen the tape, one week ago to the day, and then pretending to choke to death on her own tongue. They both laughed. After that Katie's mother called to check on them, and it was time for bed.
Becca was in the bathroom washing her face. She thought she heard Katie say her name once, but it was hard to tell with the water running. She waited, and then heard nothing. Barely a minute later she heard footsteps pounding up the stairs – Katie again, coming up from the kitchen where the phone was. And then a shrill scream cut suddenly short, followed by the dull, ghastly sound of something heavy falling to the floor.
Becca's insides went cold. She left the water running and came out into the hallway. There was water on the floor.
"Katie?" she said. Her voice came out small and weak, barely reaching past her own ears. "This is so not funny – cut it out. I'm tired."
Katie's bedroom door was open. Moisture dripped from the cut glass doorknob. Becca stepped over the threshold, ignoring the pounding in her chest. A crumpled form was lodged inside the half-open closet on the right. Becca moved forward without realizing it, without wanting to, and looked down.
Katie was only recognizable by her hair and the school uniform she was still wearing.
Becca may have screamed, but the blood pounding through her head deafened her. Her stomach heaved and her knees gave out; she crashed to the carpet, which was drenched with water. Her face was wet somehow, but she didn't remember crying.
And then, a horrible stillness accompanied by a realization: there was someone else in the room. Becca turned her head left, towards the T.V. that sat on Katie's dresser. There was a figure in a hospital gown – once white, now greenish with rot and age – with long black hair hanging over its face. The hair was parted just a bit in the middle, enough for one eye to gleam through. It saw Becca. It was only a glimpse – a bare moment, hardly enough to count as real. But it saw her.
The figure's head dipped and the hair fell back into its dark curtain. And then it backed away. It melted into the T.V. – Becca hadn't even noticed it was on – and continued to shrink in size, finally lowering down into a stone well in the center of the picture. The T.V. cut itself off.
And then Becca started screaming.
Becca was still screaming when she woke up. Dr. Massingale tried to hold her when she sat up, but Becca thrashed and kicked and pushed her away.
"Turn it off!" Becca shrieked. "Turn it off, turn it off!"
"Becca, what on Earth. . .?" Dr. Massingale started, and then she followed Becca's gaze to the T.V. in the corning of the ceiling. It wasn't even on. "Becca," she said gently, "It is off."
"TURN IT OFF!"
Dr. Massingale stood up and pulled the privacy curtain closed around the bed, hiding the T.V. from view. "How's that?" she asked. "Is that better?"
Becca breathed in once, twice, and then started to sob. Dr. Massingale went back to the bedside and put her arms around the poor girl.
"Oh, dear," Dr. Massingale said with a sigh. "We have a lot of work to do, don't we?"