Blood Bourbon

The Hospital

Daryl's words began tumbling out of his mouth without much effort, as if someone was behind the memories and pushing them over his tongue. " I remember looking out at mother through the window once while a nurse was with me and I said the word mom. The woman looked at me and wrote something on her clipboard, asking, "what does that word even mean, Echo?"

I didn't know. All I knew was that was mom and Charlie. That they were nice to me when they visited and they told me I'd be able to go home soon. I didn't even know what home meant. Most days I spent doing tests. I'd be hooked up to machines and they'd be reading or math or shape tests. Sometimes I would be walking or running for them. There was always someone taking notes, asking me questions. It went in waves. I'd have a round of treatment, they would always hook me up to extra bags and tell me it was time for my treatment. It would last for about a week and then I would be sick. Really, painfully awfully sick. And that's usually when they'd let mom in to see me and she used to cry all the time about it. But once I started getting better, then I'd have to do the lessons and the tests. For months.

It's just how it was, it was normal.

Then they started showing me these really weird things. I'd sit in a chair in front of a big window. I remember it being a window but I know it was probably a television. And through it, I would watch a person... It was a horror movie. I don't know why, but it was always the same kind of scene. Person is brought into a room with a monster and they would fight and the monster would kill them. Or sometimes the monster would avoid them. Or sometimes it would just be the monster in there, pacing and peering in through the screen as if it could watch me back.

They kept asking me, was I afraid? What did I feel. What did I feel about the monster. And I would just say that I felt sad. It didn't scare me. I knew they didn't want to be there, that there was something wrong and they didn't want to hurt the people.

I was sure of it.

After a while of that, it would be time for treatment again. I swear it got worse over time, it would feel like my whole body was burning up, being broken. Like I was dying. Whatever I was sick with, I sometimes wished that they would just stop trying to treat it, 'cause the medicine was the worst part of all of it. I only felt sick when I was getting the treatments. "

Daryl pulled himself out of the memories, clawing his way past the oppressive images of beds, testing tables, huge viewing panes that he needed to believe were televisions. The pain and sickness he had gone through and the cold, uncaring faces of the adults that had merely demanded he answer or perform.

"Honestly, the... rest of it... it's probably useless." He couldn't look at them as he spoke, his eyes staring at the floor in front of him, his voice hoarse from speaking.

Beside him, Ryker shifted, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. A glass was shoved into Daryl's hand and he found himself drinking water, the silence of the room almost as oppressive as his memories were.

"Can you continue?" Charlie's voice was odd, disjointed even and it drew him to look up to where his brother was sitting on the other side of him. He had never seen Charlie looked so haunted before.

"Yeah." Daryl offered him a pale imitation of a smile, before glancing to where Ryker sat, watching him.

"I'm right here with you." Ryker's voice wasn't above a whisper, but it echoed in his mind and almost seemed to bolster him.

"I don't remember particular lessons or anything like that, but I do remember I learned a lot. And I know 'cause I was so far ahead of my age when I was released. And every so often one of the nurses would tell me that I was doing really well on most of my tests. But that I had to try harder.