Lumen Buelow (burninginside_) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2014-05-01 20:12:00 |
|
|||
It was a few hours after lunch and Lumen was starting to feel the effects of being up since 6am. Not just that, but the exhausting aftermath of waking up from a hell-dimension and being shuffled around and poked and questioned. Her short temper has practically non-existent at this point, and it was certainly not helped by the fact that even though the back of her eyes were burning, Lumen refused to shut them and sleep. She would have burned the first person who suggested it, but she was terrified that if she shut her eyes, she would be taken back to that cabin. Like many of the others who had been trapped in the gym, she was having trouble wrapping her mind around what had happened to her. Everything had felt so incredibly real and yet she had woken up without a single tear in her dress or a mark on her body. Only a few hours had passed, but, in reality, an entire week had come and gone. And where were the explanations? All the people in doctor’s jackets and business suits were looking to them to shed light on what had happened. Lumen hadn’t been questioned yet, but she had seen the men in dark clothes skulking the hallway, stopping at each room as they passed.
She had her head resting on her knees, staring at the IV drip plugged into her arm, when they finally came to question her.
“Miss Buelow?”
Lumen didn’t raise her head at the question.
“Lumen Buelow, we need to ask you some questions. May I come in?” When she didn’t answer again, the man who had been standing in her doorway entered the room, shutting the door behind him. He didn’t speak as he pulled up a seat beside her bed. From the corner of her eye she could see that he had a manilla folder containing a handful of stark white papers. He pulled a silver pen from the inside of his coat and, with a click of its top, the interview began. At first she was non-responsive. The last thing Lumen wanted to do was go over (in extensive detail) all the things that she had seen. Or the wounds she had sustained. Or that she had drank the blood of a vampire to keep herself alive. But it was obvious the man refused to leave until she gave him what he wanted.
“Listen, I know you’re tired. You kids went through something horrible, I get that.” He leaned forward in the chair, obviously trying to make eye contact with her. She denied him. “How about we talk for a little bit, and then I have one of the nurses come in and give you a sedative to help you sleep?” Lumen turned dark eyes toward the man in the suit. That wasn’t exactly incentive for her to talk, but then again, maybe a sedative would help her get over this ridiculous fear. That’s all it was: ridiculous.
So she talked, in painful detail. Lumen told the man about the family that wanted to eat them. About how it had felt to be shot in the back with a shotgun. About the stench of the tunnels where they had to weave through Jethro’s Maze of Horrifying Booby Traps. She couldn’t decide if the man’s blank face was professionalism, or because he had heard stories that made her’s seem like a walk in the park. Then, just as he promised, the nurse came in and injected something into her IV.
Within a matter of minutes, she was asleep.
She woke up to the frantic sounds of several nurses all around her.
“Did you know she was a fire elemental?”
“No. It wasn’t on her chart.”
“Did they not survey them at the site? What a fucking mess.”
Lumen cracked open her eyes to see two woman slapping out the embers that had spawned under her hands and begun to burn all the blankets and her hospital gown underneath. She had been dreaming that the family had found her in the hospital and they were going to use the medications there to paralyze her so they could eat her slowly while she was still fresh. In her dream, she had been able to create flames from her hands and keep them at bay, if only for a little while; apparently, back in reality, all she had been able to muster was heat strong enough to slow roast the fabric around her. It did nothing to improve her mood.
“Just get the fuck off me okay,” she said, flinging her hands up to swat at the women around her. “If I was going to burn the building down, I would have done it by now.” If I could that is. She kicked the blankets off of her, fighting the only thing within her reach.“If I were you, I could get the doctor in here to release me before I change my mind.” Lumen crossed her arms over her chest, hoping that no one would call her bluff. She had no idea where she was going to go, but she couldn’t be in this place anymore. She couldn’t be stuck anywhere. Not again.