CHAPTER SIX
I arrive at door #15. The sign on the door reads Arianna Phillips Vision Analyst. My knock on the door is answered by a quick, “Come on in.” The voice is so soft and definitely girlie.
“Hi, I'm Laura Sadie.” I hold up the sticky note. “This was stuck to my door.”
This room is definitely that of a woman's design; a very feminine woman. It has big puffy couches with soft, fluffy pillows, and multiple photos of a fat white cat framed in silver, placed aimlessly all over the shelves. The room has dusty-rose coloured carpeting, and white wallpaper with thousands of tiny pink flowers all over it. Dear God it looks like a Barbie doll threw up in here!
I sit down on her light blue sofa. She slides gracefully out from behind her desk, and shakes my hand.
Best way to describe Arianna is that this room does suit her; she looks like a Barbie doll. She's young, probably only about 23 years old. Her hair is platinum blonde; long down to her waist and straight as an arrow. Her eyes are sky blue, and her skin is perfect. She definitely should be modeling, not dealing with a bunch of kids all day long. She could totally be rich and famous.
“Hi Laura, I'm Arianna. It's very nice to meet you. My job here is to help you decipher any messages that come to you through your visions. I'm called a Vision Analyst.” She sits about a meter away from me, in a puffy purple chair, and immediately kicks off her shoes and folds her legs up under her butt. “I don't really do anything fancy, I'm the person that you can tell all of your visions that you see through a migraine, and also the dreams that you have at night when you're asleep. You can always tell them to me, even if they're sexual dreams. ‘If it stands out, dish it out’ I always say. I will not judge you in any way, shape or form. Dreams can sometimes tell us information that we need to help figure things out. The dream, slash visions, also help to determine where you're at in your understanding process to learning your craft.”
Arianna puts a clipboard on her thigh and tells me, “I'm going to write down key points of your last vision. It will help us to put all of the pieces together and try to figure stuff out. Ok, all I want you to do is first, take a deep breath, then I'd like you to tell me all the details of your vision; no matter how tiny or insignificant you think it is. If something was shown to you, then it must be relevant; enough for your mind to make it a point for you to see it. So start from the beginning.”
She seems like a person I can really let my guard down with, even though I don't normally like prissy type females. She isn't snooty like most primpy girls are. She seems casual, caring, like a big sister. At least, that's how I imagine a big sister to be. I have no siblings.
I fill her in step by step with everything that I saw in my vision. A few other details stand out; that I hadn't even realized that I'd even seen. Like, there was a shoe store on the left, and a jewelry store right next to it. I could see a taco stand, juice store and cinnamon bun bakery straight ahead of me. Things I hadn't even thought about during the vision.
“I'm going to do some research about different malls and see if one matches all your details. If I find something, I'll be sure to call you back down so we can discuss it.” Arianna shakes my hand again and I leave her office.
Note to self: Arianna seems to be pretty cool.
On my way to the mess hall, I run into Laden, the extremely hot, delicious orderly who walked me to my room for the first time. My stomach flutters and flips, not because I'm hungry, but because he is the sexiest man I have ever met. Even his walk, or should I say swagger, is mesmerizing.
“Hi, it’s nice to see you again.” My voice actually comes out, and sounds normal; no stuttering or cracking, which is surprising to me. Laden is so breathtakingly gorgeous.
“Well hello there, Missy. How are you adjusting?” Laden’s voice is so smooth. I lose myself in a stare, watching his plump, kissable lips form his words. I just want to touch my lips to his. I bet they'd be soft and warm. His mouth looks so inviting.
Suddenly I realize that he's stopped talking and is looking at me, waiting for me to respond. I must look like a tomato face, because I can feel the blood rush to my skin. “Great! I'm... great. The kids you introduced me to are really nice. Tara's been helping me out with a lot; you know, showing me around and stuff.”
“That's awesome. Yeah, they're great kids. So I hear you had a vision earlier. Was it worse than the first one that you had? I mean pain-wise. I'm not going to ask you about the tragedy that played out. I just want to know if you're ok.” Laden seems truly concerned. Ok, so now I really, really like him. He's eye-candy and he's also very caring! Way too good to be true.
“It was worse pain, at least at first, but when Sherri touched me... I don't know... I think she absorbed some of it somehow. She felt and saw everything I went through. I feel really bad about that.” I pause and can't help but giggle, “She doesn't ever want to touch me again.”
Laden's eyes travel down to my chest then slowly back up to my eyes. He speaks softly in barely a whisper, “That would be a pity.” He reaches his hand out and strokes the length of my arm from the top down to my elbow. “I'll touch you anytime.”
I can't breathe, I actually think my body forgets how to… until I gasp, not a nonchalant gasp either. I can't speak. All I can do is smile and nod, like a star-struck teenager. Was he hitting on me? No way, he's way out of my league! My mind is running away with things again.
“If you're heading to the mess hall, I'd love to escort you. I'm on my way there as well.” Laden wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me to his side and starts walking towards the mess hall. Thankfully my legs actually work.
“I haven't seen you around. Where have you been hiding?” What I want to say is something like, 'please come around all the time so that I can ogle you', but I am just lucky enough to be able to say what I did, without it coming out all jumbled.
Laden takes his arm from my shoulder so he can open the door to the mess hall. At first he doesn't answer my question. He waits until we are through the door and heading towards the kitchen to answer me. “I was needed in a different area of the hospital. It's restricted from the students.” He starts to walk away from me then turns and says, “I'll stop in and check on you when I can; maybe later tonight. Is that ok?”
“Yeah… I'd like that.” I will really, really like that. I'd love it if he came into my room and wrapped his arms around me while he kissed me passionately...
My stomach flutters, and my face turns red again. I've never gone past the kissing part, a little touching maybe, but I've never gone all the way or even anywhere close to it. What if he thinks that I will? Maybe he thinks I’m one of those kind of girls that will, even if they don’t really know the guy. I really hope not.
The mess hall is filled with people; kids, and adults too. I grab a diet soda and a package of two chocolate chip cookies, then head to the usual table where Tara and the others are sitting. All of them are staring intently at me as I sit down.
“I'm fine, everything's fine, nothing to worry about.” I speak very quickly hoping that it will stop the massive flood of questions that I know are about to begin.
“Don't worry about it. I filled everyone in already. They know everything.” Sherri speaks in a soft, sad voice. I can't help but feel really bad. After all, it was through me that she saw all that chaos and death.
“Sherri, I'm really sorry you had to see and feel all of that.” What can I do to take it all away? I would if I could. I slide the cookies over to her. “Peace offering.”
“It wasn’t your fault Laura. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She picks up the cookies. “Peace offering accepted. The combination of the intense pain and the awful vision that follow was... horrible. I've never felt pain like that in my life, and hope never to again. You didn’t lie when you said that your visions are crystal clear, like in high definition or 3D or something even better. Please remind me never to touch you again
when you're having one of those things. I don't ever want to witness anything like that again.”
Todd says to Sherri, “I wish I was there. Maybe I could have calmed you both, so that it wouldn’t have been so bad. Hopefully, I’ll be around next time. I’m sorry that you both had to go through that.” Sometimes Todd can be really nice.
Sherri says, “Thanks Todd but I do not plan on being anywhere around Laura when she does that vision thing, and if I am, I’m running the other way. There is no way that I’m going to even risk the chance of her falling on me again.” She shakes her head and waves her hand in front of her face before she picks up her milk and takes a drink. She continues, “Laura, did you have a chat with Arianna? When I saw her, I described as much of the details as I could remember, no matter how screwed up it seemed. Maybe she can figure it all out, because I'm just washing my hands of it. I can’t deal with it.” Sherri looks really tired. I probably do too.
“Sorry, again. I did talk to Arianna. Does anyone know if she’s ever been able to stop a tragedy from happening after someone sees a vision of it?”
Jessy swallows his bite of burrito before he says, “Nobody's ever had visions like you before. At least not that we know of.” Everyone stops eating and looks up at Jessy. He looks from one face to another. “What?”
“That's not totally true.” Tara looks sad. “What about Mabel Whitson? She had horrible visions too, before her…” Tara stops talking and drops her eyes down. I don’t think she purposely meant to stop talking, like there’s a big secret or something, I think she got a lump in her throat and actually couldn’t finish her sentence.
When nobody speaks up, I have to. “Before she what...?”
Reilly lifts his head from his plate. With an obvious 'it-doesn't-bother-me-anymore' expression on his face, even though I can tell he's hurting, he says, “Before she slipped into a coma. She wouldn't take the medicine that Doc Turner gave her for the migraine pain. She said that there was some kind of conspiracy or something, that if she took it she wouldn’t see all the details of the visions. She believed that what she saw would lead us to all the answers. So when she had one of her intense visions...” He can't finish his thought because his voice is starting to fail him, just like Tara’s failed her.
Todd clears his throat and swallows down his own lump. “The pain must have been too severe for her to handle. She slipped away, into a coma. We haven’t seen her since.”
Tara tries to draw everyone's attention away from Reilly by explaining what he can't. “Reilly was really close to Mabel. They were dating.” She's whispering as if she’s trying to speak low enough that it won’t hurt Reilly’s feelings. She looks down at the table when she speaks. “Mabel kept telling us that the medicine was bad. She said that everyone, meaning the doctors and nurses, are making us have these inflictions and that we are some kind of experiment to benefit some rich guy or something. I think she should have just taken the medication. We all have to take something sometimes. It helps.”
Todd whispers as though he doesn't want anyone to hear him. His eyes scan the room. “There is some weird shit that happens around here, though. At times, a member of the staff will say something that doesn’t quite make sense. They’ll immediately try to correct themselves, like we won’t notice the slip. Makes you think, doesn't it? Maybe Mabel was onto something.”
Everybody goes back to eating and doesn't say another word about it. They don’t say anything at all for what seems like an hour, but is more like ten minutes. They’re all lost in thought. I wish I had some of Sherri’s talent, so I could read their minds, especially Todd’s. I'm curious as to what he means by 'weird shit' but I decide to let it rest for now, and ask again at another time.
After dinner we all head back to our own rooms to do our homework, or whatever. We’ll meet up at Sherri's room later on. From there, we'll figure out what to do with the rest of our evening.
As for me, I just want to get back to my room and call my mom. I really need to hear an old, familiar voice. She's always been there for me, and I doubt my being here could ever change that. At least, I hope not. It does put somewhat of a strain on us though. I’m used to going home every night and having my mom there whenever I want or need her. The distance is hard. Soon enough, I’d have to move away for college or whatever, anyway. I was just hoping that I’d have more time.
At the end of the day, I’m alone.
Colours In Blackness - A New Life Page 6