Mad Girl's Love Song

Disclaimer: I don't own Beyond: Two Souls (the game, dialogue, characters, story arcs, or etc.). I don't own the rights to the poem Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath. I don't own Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs (because she is my queen and I love her to death for her magnificent writing). I also don't own any other book, movie, song, poem or character I may have mentioned along the way. I just so happened to use it for non-profitable fun in my spare time.

Chapter 2 – First Interview

The lab smelled like a doctor's office. It had the same sickeningly clean smell to it that I'd gotten used to during my time at the hospital. Even the generic plastic and metal chairs with the random plants reminded me of a doctor's office.

Right now my parents were talking to the doctor/scientist at length about my medical history and what had brought them here. This meant that I had been sitting out in the waiting room for hours. But I tried to ignore it as I brought my feet up onto my chair and shifted the book in my hands, trying to pay attention to what my favorite character was saying. It was unnervingly quiet there but I used it to my advantage as I read my book.

My parents had driven me three long hours to the little lab on a military base in the hopes of understanding what had happened to me. They might have been content to listen to the doctors tell them that it was some form of understated narcolepsy that had been agitated by my inability to bring in enough oxygen through my lungs… but then there had been the flying water bottles and slamming doors. Part of it had been me being bored and the other part had been emotional outbursts that had sent things flying across the room. So once I was released from the hospital with a number of pamphlets and medications, my parents had made calls to anyone they could think of. That brought me to this lab.

"Tessa?"

I looked up as my mom walked out of the office with my dad trailing behind her. "Dr. Dawkins would like to talk to you now,"

I frowned at her.

"Come on,"

I sighed as I closed my book, stuffing it into my oversized purse. I traded places with my mom as my dad sat down in the open chair beside her, leaving me to go to the door. I made sure to show them just how much I hated this as I trudged through the office door.

It was a broom closet of an office if I'd ever seen one. Even my guidance counselor had had one bigger than this… my closet was bigger than this. Every part of the room was being utilized to store something; bookcases lining the walls, filing cabinets stuffed to the brim, piles of folders teetering on every flat surface. The only clear spot was the area in front of the desk with two chairs where visitors were supposed to sit and where my mom had apparently left her scarf by accident.

The man behind the desk was wearing a suit and tie instead of a white lab coat like I'd been expecting, but he had the typical nerd glasses like in the movies. He looked up as I entered, smiling kindly and making wrinkles appear around his mouth and at the corner of his eyes. He had the worst haircut and the widest mouth I'd ever seen but the smile saved him.

"Hello, Tessa. Come in," he greeted in a warm voice, as I closed the door behind me. "My name is Nathan. Nathan Dawkins,"

He gestured for me to sit in one of the chairs as I stood with my back to the door, shifting the strap of my bag on my shoulder in sudden shyness. I sat down in the red chair closest to the door, feeling the tight awkwardness clench in my chest as I clasped my hands in my lap. I was painfully shy around people in a one-on-one setting. Give me a presentation any day (unless I faint and turn into a ghost in the middle of it), but don't ask me to sit comfortably through a parent-teacher conference.

"Hi," I squeaked, looking up at him through the fringe of my blonde hair shyly.

"There's no need to be nervous," he assured me, which didn't help at all. "I just thought it would be a good idea for us to have a little chat… get to know each other a little better,"

Even though he seemed like a nice guy, I knew this all had to do with figuring out what had happened to me. He was a scientist at a lab who my parents had gone to when I'd exhibited weird abilities. There wasn't any real interest in knowing me any better. However, as quick as that would make the interview, I wasn't going to bring that up to him. Even the thought of making a full sentence made my stomach curl and my hands go numb.

"K,"

Dr. Dawkins nodded and smiled. "I don't know if your parents told you, Tessa, but my job is to study strange events and then try to explain them…"

I nodded. That was pretty much the generic definition to what a scientist did, though the "strange" was usually left out of it now that the human race knew about cells and stuff.

"… Like what happened to you," he continued.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat and dropped my eyes to my lap.

"So… your parents tell me that you're in sixth grade this year. How is that going for you?"

I shrugged.

"Do you have any friends?"

"Yeah," I nodded, flashes of my friends faces in my head… of them crying because they thought I was dead. "Lizzie and Claire, I guess,"

He nodded. "Your parents told me about a presentation you had a while back. Can you tell me about that?"

I frowned and shifted again, feeling the tightness in my chest quicken then numbness in my hands as I debated on what to say. Luckily it seemed that my silence had gone on for too long because he felt the need to ask me a new question.

"What was your presentation about?"

"Bill Clinton,"

He nodded. "And how did you feel during the presentation? Were you scared? Excited? Nervous?"

"Not really," I evaded, twisting my hands in my lap despite how dead they felt.

"Can you tell me how you felt?"

I frowned down into my lap. "Uh… I, um… I felt cold," I told him honestly, remembering back while trying to block out the fear. "My fingers were numb… Like they always do,"

He nodded again, pulling out a fold I could remember Mom bringing in with her. "You parents told me that you've had numbness since you were very young. The doctors diagnosed it as an inability for oxygen to diffuse into your bloodstream and into your extremities," He read over the file for a second longer before looking up at me again, causing me to drop my eyes back to my lap. "Do you think that's why you went into a coma?"

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably, keeping my eyes firmly on my hands which felt dead now. I could feel the sensation moving up my arms but I didn't say anything, just tried to will it to stop before I passed out in the middle of his office. I didn't want to talk about this anymore, didn't want to answer him, didn't want to know what was happening to me. I just wanted it all to be some sort of bad dream even though I knew it wasn't.

I'd never had a dream before.

"Tessa?"

I shrugged at him, keeping my eyes down.

"It's alright, Tessa," he assured me, his voice softening again. "You can tell me,"

I sighed, lifting my eyes to meet his shoulder. There was a white piece of lint clinging to his shoulder, right below the seam of the lab coat. "I… it felt the same. My figures were numb but then all of me started going numb,"

"And then you fainted,"

I nodded. "Yeah,"

"Did anything odd happen before you passed out?" he asked, interested. "Did you see anything or feel anything? Did you have any strange dreams?"

I quickly shook my head. "I don't dream,"

I could see his eyebrow raise out of the corner of my eye but I remained silent.

"Your parents told me that strange things began to happen in your hospital room. Like things moving that shouldn't, the lights flickering… Did you know that?"

I nodded again.

"Do you know why that was happening?"

I shook my head, dropping my eyes to a chip in the paint on his desk. I knew why they had happened, that I'd been the one to cause them, but I didn't want to tell him that. I'd rather not be told that I was a freak of nature or have my parents be angry with me. I just wanted to go back to school and be a normal girl with an intense shyness. I didn't want things to change any more than they already had.

Suddenly Dr. Dawkins sighed and shifted in his seat, making me jump in surprise. "Tessa… did something or… someone… make those things happen in your hospital room?"

I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, keeping my eyes on the chip on his desk. "I don't know,"

"It's alright, Tessa. I just want to know," he assured me, leaning forward in his seat. "Do you know what happened? Can you tell me?"

I didn't want to. I really didn't. I was freaked out enough by the fact that I'd been separated from my body and hadn't been able to go back to normal for an entire week. I was still unsure whether everything with Haily and the slamming door had happened. I would have rather it have been some sort of weird dream… but I'd never dreamt before… and no one had even said it was like that. But I knew that this was all stuff Dr. Dawkins wanted to know about. And so, I started talking.

"I… I wasn't…" I frowned, not sure how to explain it. I could feel the numbness working across my shoulder blades and tingling at my toes, but I ignored it. I was here so that he could figure out what had happened, help put my family at ease. "I felt numb at first but it was like how it was before the doctor's pills. And when I closed my eyes… I wasn't in my body anymore. It was like in the movies but I was still attached,"

He frowned, confused. "You were attached?"

"I was… I was attached to my body… like a cord," I swallowed hard as memories flashed in my mind's eye, images of my body. "I wasn't dead," I told him, meeting his eyes and willing him to understand how important that was. "I wasn't dead,"

"Alright," Dr. Dawkins nodded, surprised but believing. "Alright,"

Author's Note: Maybe a review? What do you think? Is this worth posting more of for those of you reading this?