It was eight in the morning when my phone rang the first time. I groaned, not wanting to wake up just yet, and decided whoever was calling could wait a few hours. Thankfully the phone stopped ringing, and I sighed contently, burying my face into my pillow, only to growl when the phone rang again. Begrudgingly, I threw the covers off of me and walked over to the phone, picking it up.
"Yes?" I asked into the receiver, hoping that whoever is calling has a very good reason.
"Is this Kanaya Maryam?" A female voice asked.
"Yes, and who is this?" I asked, for some reason apprehension clenching my gut.
"This is Dr. Peixes at Charleston Memorial Hospital." Her statement immediately filled me with dread. Why would a hospital be calling me? Especially a hospital two hours from me. Unless…
"May I ask why you're calling?"
"It's about your friend, Vriska Serket. She's had an accident."
"What happened? And why call me of all people?"
"Miss Serket has you listed as her emergency contact. We assumed that you knew this. As to what happened, well, we honestly don't know yet. Would you be able to come down to the hospital?" The doctor asked in a tone I assume is supposed to be calming, but doesn't help whatsoever.
"I'll be there as soon as I can." With that I hung up the phone, quickly threw on some clothes, packed some things for an overnight stay, and raced to my car.
Vriska and I had been friends for years; I met her in third grade. Actually now that I think about it, noticed was probably a more fitting word word.
I had been sitting in the front of class, doing some math problems, when I saw a notebook go sailing trough the air and smack into the back of our teacher's head. I looked back to see a girl, lanky, even at that young age, sulking (really, there was no other word for it) in the back of the classroom, her arms crossed, a scowl on her face. Her long blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail, and glasses hung from her nose, and even at that distance I noticed the right lens was considerably thicker than the left one.
"Miss Serket, did you throw this notebook?" The teacher, an old chubby woman, had questioned her, anger evident in her tone.
"I dunno." She muttered, and I could see her trying to contain a smirk.
"It has your name in it young lady, I know that it's yours." The teacher waved the bright blue notebook in front of her face.
"Wow, thanks! You found my notebook." The young blonde smiled, snatching the offending school supply.
"That does it young lady! Detention, after school, all week." And with an angry huff the teacher walked back to her desk and scribbled something down.
I had never seen a child unnerve an adult as much as Vriska could. I later discovered that the young Vriska wanted detention. She had been in an orphanage since she was a small child, and hated it with a passion. Vriska viewed detention as an escape from the building she considered a prison.
Once we became friends I always offered to have her over after school, trying to keep her out of detention as much as possible. For some reason I felt the need to keep her out of trouble, always fussing over her, she had even nicknamed me Fussyfangs, in honor of my strangely prominent canine teeth, and my "meddling" behavior as she called it. I always had the unspoken fear that some family that lived far away would come and adopt her, and I wouldn't be able to look out for her anymore, but as she grew up that seemed less and less likely. I tried asking her once if she wanted to get adopted, but she gave me some noncommittal answer that it would never be her family, and just left it at that.
The day Vriska turned eighteen she packed the few things that she had accumulated over the years, the money she had been saving from the job she had since she was 15, and left the orphanage, never looking back. I remember her showing up at my dorm room, telling me that she was leaving town, going to Charleston, South Carolina, the city her parents had met in, and told me that if I was ever in town to come see her. I won't lie; I was a little devastated at her leaving so suddenly, I tried to get her to stay the night, but she told me she couldn't stay anywhere near that hellhole of a town anymore, and, with one final hug, left.
I had plans to go to Ohio State to study psychology; it was an in-state school, which would save my mother a lot of money (after all, being a single parent was hard on her). I'd be lying if I said that my obsession with the human mind didn't start with Vriska; I wanted to really study how people's brains worked, and to find out how to help them. However, I got a call the June after that fist year that Vriska had slipped in her room, on an eight ball of all things, and given herself a concussion. My strange protectiveness coming back, I packed up all my things, and applied for a transfer to USC (University of South Carolina), only two hours from her, and never looked back. I even went as far as getting an apartment in Colombia so that I could be there in the summers, and she'd have a place to stay if she came to visit me.
Shaking myself out of thoughts of the semi-crazy blonde girl, I tried to focus on the road. It seemed like everyone was driving at least ten under the speed limit, but when I looked at my speedometer I realized that I was going fifteen over. Worried about getting pulled over and wasting more time, I took a deep breath, slowed down to seven over, and forbade myself from thinking of my friend or wondering what she did to herself this time.
An hour and thirty-seven minutes later I was in the hospital's parking lot. With a deep breath I got out of my car and started towards the front doors. Entering the main room I saw a few people sitting in chairs, but I swiftly walked past them to the receptionist.
"Can I help you?" He asked me in a bored tone.
"A doctor called me and told me that my friend, Vriska Serket, had an accident. I'm here to see her." I told the guy in a rush, impatient to actually see my friend. He typed something in his computer, and after an agonizingly long time (which was probably only about a minute) he looked back up at me.
"Your friend just got out of surgery. She's in room 107, down the hall to the left.
"Thank you." I told him over my shoulder as I made my way to Vriska's room. Walking as quickly as I could without actually running, I made it to Vriska's room, taking a moment to collect myself before opening the door. Once inside I saw her lying on a hospital bed hooked up to numerous machines.
"Oh my god…" I breathed out when I saw the damage, or rather the bandaging. The entire left side of her face, starting at her nose, was covered in white gauze. Approaching her on her right side, I didn't notice the bandaging on her left shoulder until I made it to her side, standing over her. "Vriska…" A sob escaped me when I saw her left shoulder, and nothing connected to it. Her entire left arm was gone, only a small amount, probably two or three inches, remained after her armpit.
"It was an explosion." I heard a voice behind me and I whipped around to find the source. In the doorway was a young man in a wheelchair. He looked about my age, with tan skin, brown eyes, and mid-length light brown hair cut into a shaggy Mohawk. "I'm Tavros, by the way. Tavros Nitram. I live under Vriska. Uh, I mean the room under her." He was obviously nervous, his voice starting out quiet, then getting louder, only to quiet down and start the cycle all over again.
"Oh…" is all I could think to say.
"I heard the explosion, and went to her room as soon as I could. I was a little scared that she'd just yell at me, or tell me to go away, but when I heard her moaning in pain I called the paramedics." He explained, rolling closer to her bed.
"Thank you. I'm Kanaya Maryam, by the way." I stuck my hand out, and he took it, a smile on his face.
"I heard a little about you. All good, don't worry. Honestly, I think you're the only person I've never heard Vriska talk bad about." He nervously glanced at her unconscious form, as if she'd wake up then and yell at him.
"That surprises me. She never missed an opportunity to tease me to my face." I laughed a bit, glancing fondly at her. Tavros only smiled in response.
"Are you Ms. Maryam?" I heard another voice behind me, and turned to see a woman in a white coat walking into the room. Under the coat she wore very bright pink scrubs with turquoise cartoon fish printed all over the top. I only nodded in response. "I'm Dr. Peixes."
"The one who called me?" I asked.
"Yes. Your friend here had quite the accident." She told me, walking to the foot of Vriska's bed to check her charts.
"How bad is she hurt?" I asked her, dreading the answer.
"Well, she suffered multiple lacerations along her face, shoulder, and left side. Luckily none were too deep, but as you can see, her arm was separated from her body, and the damage was too severe to even attempt to reconnect it. Also, there was a laceration along her face that ran over her left eye, and I'm afraid that she won't have vision in that eye anymore." The obnoxiously colorful doctor told me.
"That was her good eye." I said without even thinking.
"Excuse me?" The doctor asked, clearly confused.
"Oh, um, her left eye had perfect vision. Her right eye needed correction, so her glasses had to have a thick lens on the right side, and basically just a thin piece of plastic on the left." I explained, blushing slightly when I noticed both Tavros and Dr. Peixes staring at me.
"Well, ok then. She also has a minor concussion from the blast."
"Do you know how long she'll be out for?" Tavros asked the doctor.
"A few hours at least. You might as well get comfortable if you plan on staying." And after checking the IV and the machines, the doctor walked out of the room.
"I have to get to work, but, um…" Tavros looked away, blushing slightly.
"What?" I asked him, not quite sure what he was getting at.
"Will you call me when she wakes up. I know I shouldn't care, I mean, she's kind of mean to me, but I can't help but care about her." He finished, a full blush coloring his cheeks.
"I know what you mean. She has an oddly attracting personality; you can't help but want to be around her, even when she's being a bitch." I offered him a smile, which he returned quickly. He was a cute boy, especially when he wasn't stuttering or looking around frantically in fear.
"Thanks." He wrote down a number on some paper and handed it to me. "I'm not sure if she wants me to be here, honestly I'm not sure if she likes me or not."
"I'm sure she'll be very grateful for all you've done for her." I placed my hand on his shoulder, and he gave me one last smile before rolling out of the room. Rubbing my hand over my face, I made my way over to the couch and settled down to wait for Vriska to come back to the realm of the conscious.
