CHAPTER FIVE: Hallucination
I felt like I was in a daze as Jacob drove me to the hospital. He had the gas pedal to the floor and the speedometer needle was teetering just at the maximum speed and bouncing as if it was trying to go even faster than it should or could go. "Jake, really, it's okay. I'm just such a klutz and this sort of thing happens to me all the time, you should know this by now," I said in a feeble attempt to reassure him that I was more or less fine. He wasn't having it. He knew me all too well and therefore could see through my facade, he was all too familiar with my self sacrificing tendencies. I just hated for anybody else to be caused any kind of stress or problems because of me.
"Oh sure, sure Bells. I know you're not the most graceful person ever, but you really cracked your head open good this time. I don't like the looks of it," he explained, and then added on, "And dammit Bells, keep pressure on the cut so you don't bleed out right here on the way to the hospital!"
Oh yeah, I had forgotten the towel he handed me to press against my wound, apparently every time my heart pumped, a fresh stream of blood would gush out of the gaping gash on my forehead. It was making me feel pretty lightheaded and then just as I went back to holding the towel to my head, I got the strangest feeling of deja vu. It was as if this moment had already happened, it sure felt like it had. I was looking out the window as we sped to our destination and caught a glimpse in the side view mirror of something that made me jump in my seat and just about made my heart pound right out of my chest, which wasn't helping with the bleeding either for that matter. I saw a human like being running down the street chasing the car and catching up to it, on foot, but no human I ever knew of could run that fast. Jake had the speedometer pegged at over 100 miles per hour so it wasn't even plausible that this could be a human being.
When he got close enough I could see that this person had bright gleaming red eyes and a bone chilling look of menace on their face. "Jake!" I exclaimed frantically, "hurry up, it's gaining on us!" I began to go into a massive panic attack, on the verge of hyperventilation and all.
"Oh no Bells, are you hallucinating or something? What are you going on about?" Jacob said in a confused tone of voice, "I told you that cut was worse than you thought!"
"It's....it's...a-a-a.....VAMPIRE!!" I screamed and then I cowered in my seat as if to protect myself from the danger that was fast approaching and gaining speed with every second that passed. As I was being completely taken over by my fear, I managed to somehow stop panicking for long enough to notice that Jacob was looking at me as if I was completely off my rocker. And then it hit me "Jake? Please tell me you see the creepy red eyed person trying to catch up to the car....you know, right there behind us there?"
He glanced around to see what I was so hysterically frantic about and it was obvious that he saw nothing. He only looked more confused at that point. He didn't even have to say a word to me for me to be able to tell he thought I was imagining things. "So you really don't see it?" I asked just to confirm that he really didn't see or sense anything, and just then I turned around and saw-nothing. Nothing but open road. No other cars, no people, no human like, albeit impossibly fast person chasing after the car. Nothing at all.
I glanced back in the side view mirror and again saw nothing. Whatever it was, it was gone now, if it had ever actually been there at all. I really needed to get to that doctor and quick since I was now hallucinating. "I'm sorry Jacob, I guess I hit my head harder than I thought. I don't see anything now either. I must have imagined it," I told him although I still felt a strange chill throughout my body and I also had goosebumps, but I just chalked that up to the loss of blood from my head wound. After a few more minutes I began to calm back down and before I knew it we were pulling into the parking lot of the hospital by the emergency entrance. When the car came to a complete stop and he turned off the engine, I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the door to let myself out, but Jake interjected, "Are you sure you're okay to walk Bells? Maybe I should carry you."
"No, I think I'm okay to walk. But maybe just walk close to me in case I get dizzy or anything like that," I feebly responded.
So he walked beside me and put his arm around me to help hold me up in case I did pass out or something, but it was unnecessary after all. I managed to make it up to the emergency check-in desk without fainting.
"How may I help you?" asked the woman behind the desk before looking up and noticing my head. "Oh, pardon me, I see you've got a bit of a nasty cut on your forehead there, don't you?" she added while eyeing Jacob suspiciously from the corner of her eye.
Oh great, I thought, now she's going to think I'm a battered woman. Little did she know, the only person doing any battering to me was myself. "Yeah, I was standing on a step stool in my kitchen trying to reach up high and the legs bent," I could practically hear her thoughts already, she was still skeptically scrutinizing poor Jake. "At that point, because I'm just oh so graceful I of course managed to land head first on the floor." I tried to add in some cheerful sarcasm so she would stop eyeballing Jacob as if he was some kind of monster or something.
"Okay hun, well, first things first. What's your name please?" asked the woman.
"Bella Swan," I answered. "Well, Isabella Swan actually," I corrected myself since Isabella was the name on my ID although I didn't like to be called by my full first name.
"Have you been seen here before Bella?" she asked.
"Oh yes, many times. I'm always getting myself scraped up," I jested.
"Alright, well let me look you up in our files and double check all your information. Oh, here we go, it looks like we just saw you last month. So, is all your information the same as it was then?" inquired the woman.
"Yeah, still living in the same place, same phone number, same everything," I confirmed.
"Okay then, I'll just need your insurance info please Miss Swan," she requested politely.
I handed over my card and she took the information and handed it back, took another look over the info before her on the computer screen and said with a satisfied look, "If you want to just take a seat right there in the waiting area, someone should be ready to escort you back within a few minutes." After a momentary pause, she tacked on "Oh yeah, and don't forget to keep pressure on that cut until you're ready to be seen."
I went and sat down by Jacob on a seat in the waiting area while keeping pressure on my forehead. Just as soon as I'd sat down, the emergency room door swung open which an orderly peeked their head out of and said, "Isabella Swan?" and when I immediately stood up, she said, "Isabella, is that you?"
"Yes, that's me," I responded.
"Okay Isabella, please come with me. I'll check your vitals and ask you a few questions and then a doctor will be right with you," she informed me.
I followed her back to one of the units in the emergency room where she went over the usual questions about how I came to hurt myself, yet again. There were questions about how bad the pain was on a scale of 1-10, all stuff I was use to, along with other random questions. Once she was done taking care of everything she needed to she told me to just wait there and a doctor would be in within a few minutes to get me stitched back up. As I sat there anxiously awaiting his or her arrival I perused the posters on the walls to kill time and then the door was opening up and in walked the doctor. Finally humpty dumpty would be put back together.
"Hello Isabella," said the doctor in a friendly tone. "So, we've got some stitching to take care of tonight do we?"
"Yes we do," I responded in a slightly embarrassed tone. "I managed to fall off of a step stool in my kitchen and land head first on the hard floor."
"Ah," he replied. "Well no worries. I'm Dr. Swanson and I'll get you all fixed up nice and quick."
I was sure Jacob must be getting anxious in the waiting room to see how I was doing. He always worried so much about me when I injured myself, which was fairly often. It didn't take too long to get the stitches in though and when Dr. Swanson had finished up, he handed me my discharge papers and said, "Okay Isabella, those stitches should pretty well take care of you and they are the type that will dissolve on their own, usually in a few weeks or so. However, if you have any problems at all and need to get restitched or anything like that, don't hesitate to come back in and see us."
"Okay, thanks", I said graciously.
"Be careful out there now Isabella," he suggested. "And try to take it easy while you're still healing."
Then I was on my way out the door, back to the waiting area where Jacob was sitting. "Well Bells, how'd it go?" he asked, obviously happy to see that I was back in one piece.
"Oh fine, it was no big deal, just a few stitches and voila," I responded nonchalantly.
"Well then Bells, let's get outta here," Jacob suggested anxiously. He never liked hanging around the hospital longer than necessary, so with that, we headed back home.
***I hope you are enjoying the story so far, feedback is greatly appreciated! Thank you!!!***