The ARC 03: Fractured

by Alexandra Moody

  CHAPTER TWO

  It’s evening by the time the doctors finish with me, and I feel more pincushion than human as the nurse leads me back to my room. I can’t for the life of me understand why they needed to take so much blood. My skin has turned so pale I’m surprised I have any left.

  At least I’m not back in the ARC, although after the news the doctor told me earlier I think I’d rather return underground. I blow out a long, drawn-out breath and try to remain calm. These people know what they’re doing and everything will be okay.

  My attention wavers as we walk and I struggle to keep myself upright. I feel woozy and quite sleepy now. I almost wish I’d taken the nurse up on the wheelchair offer. Almost.

  ‘You will be staying in a ward with other young people,’ the nurse explains, as we walk down one of the corridors. It’s just as abnormally quiet here as I’d found the walkways earlier today and I am yet to see a window anywhere.

  I try to memorise the way we walk, to gain some bearing on where everything is, but this place is a maze. Each corridor is identical to the next, with no numbers or signs over the doors indicating what is in each room. How the nurse can find her way in here is a mystery to me.

  ‘There are others here sick like me?’ I ask.

  She nods. ‘Yes, there are, though not all have the same diagnosis as you.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the others?’

  The woman looks away from me, to the door we walk towards at the far end of the corridor. ‘There’s a variety of different things we’re treating,’ she replies, before falling silent and upping her pace just enough that I struggle to keep up.

  She seems reluctant to engage in conversation after my question, but I press on. ‘When will I be able to contact my friends and foster family on the outside?’

  She chews down on the corner of her lip. ‘This is a quarantined area and we don’t allow visitors. Dr. Milton would have already spoken with your foster family when you were admitted, so they know you’re safe and being taken care of.’

  ‘But I can’t talk to them,’ I surmise.

  She refuses to meet my gaze. ‘You’ll have to check with Dr. Milton. For now, you should just focus on your treatments.’ She slows and approaches one of the doors, tapping her cuff against the security sensor by the doorhandle.

  ‘Just in here, Elle,’ she says, pushing the door wide.

  Inside is a large room with two rows of metal-framed beds that extend along the walls to the end of the room. Next to each bed is a machine similar to the one I’d been hooked up to earlier this morning, but on closer inspection there is one small difference. Instead of one, there are two cylinders protruding from the metal contraptions. One has the same clear liquid that was pumping into my skin earlier, but my gaze is immediately drawn to the other, which is filled with a bright purple liquid.

  I watch the liquid in the machine closest to me as it moves from the cylinder and up the long tube, then into the skin of the child who sits on the bed next to the door. She can’t be more than five years old, but she doesn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest. Instead, her inquisitive blue eyes are glued to me as I enter the room. All their eyes are.

  There are kids and teenagers in here of varying ages. Most of them are in bed, though there are a few younger children playing quietly with the bright array of toys at the far end of the room.

  For a place filled with so many children, there’s a solemn air to the room I wouldn’t have expected. The few that talk to each other do so in hushed whispers and I haven’t heard so much as a laugh since the door opened.

  I follow the woman down the middle aisle between the beds until we reach an empty one near the back of the room. On one side sleeps a boy who looks to be a couple of years younger than me, but the bed on the other side is empty.

  I lower myself to sit on the edge of the bed and face the nurse. It’s a struggle for me to not immediately collapse. I’m so much more exhausted than I realised and the promise of sleep the bed offers is too tempting to ignore.

  Today has been an emotional rollercoaster and I’ve barely been able to come to terms with everything the doctor told me. I don’t want to even think about it, let alone accept it. Yesterday I was fine and today I’m told I will die if I don’t get help from these people.

  ‘We’ll do our next round of check ups in the morning,’ the nurse says to me. ‘If something feels wrong or you need anything, press that big red button on the control panel next to your bed.’ She lifts her chin in the direction of a panel secured to the wall to the right of the bed.

  ‘Do you need anything before I leave?’ she asks.

  I shake my head. ‘Just some sleep,’ I say, stifling a yawn.

  ‘Okay, we’ll see you in the morning,’ she replies. She gives me a reassuring smile and then moves away, heading towards the door we entered through earlier. ‘Lights out soon,’ she calls, as her hand wraps around the handle.

  As soon as the door shuts behind her, the room becomes filled with whispers and more than a few sly glances my way. It’s as though the place had been on pause whilst the nurse was in here and as soon as she left someone hit play.

  I catch one or two phrases of what the others say, but I don’t need to hear their words to know what they’re talking about. After seeing how they looked at me as I entered the ward, it’s clear I’m the source of their whisperings.

  I plan to ask the kids in here about the hospital, but before I can leave my bed and approach them, the lights dim and slowly fade to black. The whispers stop and the only sound left in the room are the softly beeping machines.

  My tired eyes try to blink back my exhaustion. There are so many questions I still need answering, but I can feel my weariness deep in my bones. As I drift off, my gaze focuses on the machine next to my bed and the vials protruding from the face of it. My last waking thought is of how the strange purple liquid faintly glows in the darkness.

  The blinding lights overhead rudely flicker on early in the morning. I look at my cuff and see it’s only 5 A.M. The room erupts in a series of groans as kids throw blankets over their faces and others rub their eyes with their fists. I join the camp of kids who are throwing their blankets over their heads.

  I hear the door at the end of the room open, and I peek out from under my blanket, blinking my eyes as they adjust to the light. The nurse from yesterday is back and she sets about checking on the patients in here, starting with the young girl in the bed closest to the door.

  ‘They turn the lights back off after they’ve checked on everyone,’ the boy next to me says, catching me peeking from under the blanket.

  I slowly push the covers down and pull myself up in bed. ‘It’s not exactly an ideal way to wake up,’ I grumble. ‘Do they do this every morning?’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ he replies, though he doesn’t look nearly as irritated by the whole early wake up call as I feel. In fact, he looks pretty chipper about the whole ordeal.

  I’m curious to ask what’s wrong with him and how he ended up in here, but I’m uncertain how to broach the subject. So, instead I ask, ‘Have you been here long?’

  ‘Almost a month.’

  ‘A month! Isn’t that a long time?’

  ‘Not in here it isn’t. Some of the patients have been here for over a year,’ he says, dropping his voice low and nodding in the direction of the boy still sleeping in the bed next to him.

  The boy is incredibly pale and blue veins stand out visibly on his arms. He looks like he needs to be in a hospital, a lot more than the boy I’m talking to who doesn’t seem sick at all.

  The nurse approaches my bed and bumps my cuff against her tablet. ‘How are you feeling today?’ she asks, as she checks the settings on the machine beside my bed.

  ‘Fine.’

  She pauses to search my eyes. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, totally fine.’ Physically, at least. Mentally, I’m still trying to process what’s happening to me and I’d rather go back to sleep than try to think a
bout that.

  She continues to examine me and when she’s finished she moves on to check the boy I’ve been talking to. He doesn’t complain as she pokes and prods at him, even though she does spend a lot longer with him than with me.

  Once the nurse moves on he turns to me again. ‘I’m Will,’ he says, reaching out his hand to me across the gap between our beds.

  ‘Elle,’ I reply, giving his hand a brief shake.

  ‘I suspect we’re going to be stuck next to each other for a while,’ he says. ‘May as well get to know one another.’

  I flash him a quick smile before sinking back into bed. His words are like cold water running down the back of my neck. I thought I’d be here a matter of days. Not weeks or months or years.

  The nurse walks past the end of my bed and back towards the door, closing it behind her. Moments later the lights overhead dim and eventually they’re switched off altogether.

  I close my eyes and try to fall back into the peaceful oblivion of sleep, but I’m too troubled by what Will just said. I can’t ignore the fear that creeps up the back of my spine. What if I never leave this place?

  CHAPTER THREE

  At 8 A.M. the lights are unceremoniously thrown on again. There is less groaning this time, mostly because some of the younger kids haven’t been able to sleep since they were woken for their check ups earlier and have kept the rest of us awake.

  There are no check ups now though. Instead, trays of food are brought in and placed on the small table attached to each bed.

  I wrinkle my face with disgust when my meal arrives.

  ‘Not a fan of porridge?’ Will asks.

  ‘It’s the worst,’ I respond. My stomach grumbles though, so I take a pained bite and slowly work my way through the gruel.

  Will laughs at my expression as I take another mouthful. ‘We have the same thing every morning.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘I wish I was.’ He screws up his own face and takes a bite. ‘I think this is even worse than the stuff they gave us in the ARC.’

  ‘Probably,’ I say.

  ‘You’d think Joseph would be able to supply his hospital with something a little more appetising.’

  ‘You’d think,’ I respond, cautiously. I remember hearing Joseph’s name before, and know he is the man in charge of Hope, but I didn’t realise he also ran the hospital. I quickly move away from the subject, not wanting to sound too ignorant. ‘Which ARC are you from?’

  ‘Gemini,’ he says. ‘You?’

  ‘Aquarius,’ I reply, remembering the name Sophie and James had given the place when we met at school in East Hope.

  ‘Ah,’ he says, his eyes lighting up with recognition. ‘Funny how some of them have star signs for names, considering it was something from the stars that screwed us over.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I agree.

  ‘Building a series of fallout shelters and naming them after star signs is just asking for trouble from the heavens,’ he continues, with a glance up at the ceiling as though he can see the stars that lie far beyond it.

  He takes a saddened breath as he eyes his next spoonful of porridge. Instead of lifting it to his mouth, he moves his spoon around the bowl. ‘Do you have family up here?’ he asks.

  ‘No, my family died on impact,’ I respond, trying to avoid eye contact with him. ‘I have a friend up here I’m looking for, well, was looking for. I guess that will have to wait now.’ I try not to appear too worried about putting the search for Sebastian on pause, but the thought distresses me and Will seems to notice the concern in my eyes. I rush on before he can question me about it further. ‘How about you?’ I ask.

  ‘No, no family up here. Everyone in the ward seems to be alone, with no parent or guardian on the surface. So, I guess you fit the bill.’

  I glance around the room at the other occupants. ‘They’re all alone?’ I ask, keeping my voice low.

  He nods. ‘At least, on the surface they are,’ he replies.

  I continue searching the faces around me. It’s too much of a coincidence that everyone in here is without parents, but I’m not sure what it means.

  Later that morning, Will goes for a series of tests. I’m beginning to wonder if he even needs to breathe, the way he can talk for minutes on end without pausing for air. The room almost seems too quiet without him here.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath, slowly exhaling it out. Will said it could be days before I’m taken for another round of tests. I don’t want to wait though, this place makes me nervous and I want to be out of here as soon as possible.

  I feel a presence next to the bed and crack one eye open to find one of the younger girls with her face right up next to mine, staring at me.

  I impulsively jerk back and gasp.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asks.

  I slowly sit up in bed and try to calm my erratically beating heart. ‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to sneak up on people?’

  The girl ignores my question and clambers onto my bed. ‘I’m Kelsey,’ she announces, as she crosses her legs. I recognise her as the child who’d been unabashedly watching me when I first entered the room last night. She’s tiny, with a mop of long golden hair that reaches down to her waist, and bright blue eyes. She’s looking at me in an incredibly serious way for someone so young. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m Elle,’ I respond.

  ‘What are you doing here Elle?’ she asks, crossing her arms over her chest. I want to smile at how serious she’s being. It is incredibly cute. I don’t want to give her the impression I’m not taking her questions seriously though. It seems important to her.

  ‘I’m here like the rest of you, because I’m sick.’

  Kelsey taps her chin with her fingers. ‘Are you having the injections too?’

  ‘Only blood tests so far,’ I respond. ‘Do you have injections?’

  ‘Sometimes. But I only get a sweet if I’m really good and don’t cry. I barely ever cry,’ she says, with an assertive shake of the head.

  Her eyes flicker over to Will’s bed. ‘Is Will your boyfriend?’ she asks.

  ‘What? No!’

  She tilts her head as she watches me. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Extremely,’ I respond. He’s several years younger than me and I’ve only just met him. Not to mention, he’s also a head shorter. I guess to someone so young she doesn’t quite grasp that. Her small shoulders relax and I get the feeling she is a little bit in love with Will herself. ‘Is he your boyfriend?’ I ask.

  She giggles and shakes her head. ‘No.’

  ‘I think he might be…’

  The door opens and Will is wheeled back into the room. Kelsey giggles even harder and buries her face in my bed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Will asks, as he stands from the wheelchair and walks towards us.

  Kelsey’s body shakes uncontrollably, as she tries to stop herself from laughing.

  ‘Kelsey and I were just talking about you actually,’ I say.

  Kelsey’s laughter stops and she sits up and looks at me, horrified.

  ‘No we weren’t,’ she says.

  ‘Weren’t we?’

  She shakes her head, her eyes pleading with me not to say a word.

  ‘Hmm, my mistake.’

  Will frowns, but then smiles and sits on the end of my bed next to her. She crawls onto his lap, looking extremely pleased with the situation.

  ‘How did your treatment go?’ I ask.

  ‘It was okay, they had me doing a stress test today.’

  ‘A stress test? Is that normal?’

  He shrugs. ‘It’s the first one I’ve done.’

  ‘What did you have to do?’

  ‘They had all these wires attached to me and I was on a treadmill for a while. It wasn’t bad.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing they should be putting a sick person through, don’t you think?’

  ‘It was fine, really.’

  I frown, but don’t say another word, keep
ing my misgivings to myself. ‘What do you guys exactly do all day everyday. You’re not so sick you need to be in bed, and it must get pretty boring doing nothing.’

  Will checks the time on his cuff. ‘They’ll be bringing a TV in soon with a bunch of movies we can watch. The little kids pretty much always decide what is picked though, so you better prepare yourself. I hope you like Disney films.’

  Kelsey’s eyes light up at the sound of Disney. ‘Cinderella is my favourite,’ she says. ‘One day I’m going to lose a glass slipper and marry a prince.’ She glances up at Will, before quickly looking away. I try to hide a smile, but can feel the corners of my mouth lifting.

  ‘There are also board games in the corner of the room,’ Will adds.

  ‘Anything good?’ I ask.

  Will goes to respond, but Kelsey interrupts, squealing with delight as she launches herself from the bed and across the room towards a television set an orderly is wheeling in. She doesn’t seem sick enough to be in a hospital ward for treatment. I wonder what could be wrong with her and if she’s here for the same reason I am.

  I let out an involuntary sigh as I watch her race over to the television with the other kids. I wish I knew how I came to be here. It seems strange I don’t remember anything at all. It’s like a thick fog has descended on my mind and I struggle to push through the haze to recall what happened.

  When I focus, I am almost able to sense the memories through the mist, but they are as formless as the clouds that conceal them. Wisps of colour and vague blurry outlines briefly materialise through the fog, only to quickly disperse as though caught by a sudden gust of wind.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Will asks.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ I reply, locking eyes with him and giving him a reassuring smile.

  He frowns as he watches me closely. ‘Are you sure? You seem worried.’

  I glance over my shoulder at Kelsey who is chatting animatedly with one of the other girls, before turning back to him. ‘I’m just trying to recall my memories. I don’t remember anything about being brought here the night before last. The doctor said it was because of a sedative I was given, but I haven’t begun to remember anything yet.’