BRAINS: with a side-order of Flesh., Siagrrl [best e reader for epub TXT] 📗

Prologue - Awakening. [Updated]

[Prologue]

I awoke to darkness. 

Or, at least I felt like I was awake.I could hear my heart beat thumping away against my ribcage, feel the blood rushing its way around my body through my veins leaving a slight tingling sensation in my hands and arms, and, for some strange reason, an all-over aching feeling with a cause I couldn’t seem to locate. I tried to remember where I was, why I was there, and why it was so dark, to no avail. Suddenly awake, I sat up as fast as I could. Dots of white light exploded from behind my eyes.

 

Everything hurt.

 

Gasping I flopped back down onto what I now realise is a bed. A school infirmary bed, to be exact. I couldn't see it, but our school was pretty underfunded so our supplies weren't really fantastic. The mattress was as hard as stone. Whenever you’re in the hospital overnight, you’re either hooked up to a lot of machines, tracking your heart rate, and blood pressure or you have tube attached to seemingly every part of your body from a drip. Since I heard no beeping of a monitor, nor did I feel any tube protruding from anywhere obvious, it was easy to figure I wasn’t in a hospital.

It’s amazing what you learn from daytime television.

Everytime I even remotely twitched, a sharp stabbing pain starting from my feet travelled upwards causing me to bit my lip from refraining from making any noise. Everywhere I looked, the darkness would sure enough, follow me, hugging at my retina. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, focussed on slowing my breathing, in a futile attempt to miraculously remember everything. To remember something.

 

I clenched my fists and drew back my shoulders, doing my best to stretch. I wiggled my arms around a bit to get a feel of my surroundings as best I could. To both my immediate left and right there were two metal bars that went from the head to the foot of the bed. Obviously to stop me from rolling off it in my sleep. Shrugging my shoulders I reached up and grabbed the metal bars on either side of me and, using my elbows I, ever so slowly this time, pulled myself up into a comfortable sitting position. I could feel the muscles in my shoulders and back protest to my decision; a similar feeling  to when you have done a lot of strenuous excercise and all ones' muscles feel achy. Like having run a marathon, I thought to myself.

 

First plan of action was to figure out why I was in so much pain. Having decided it be best to start from my feet, I stretched my left leg, all the way out, pointing and wiggling my toes. Right. So far so good. Time for the right leg.

 

The pain was unbearable. A hot stabs of pain erupted just above my kneecap which was replaced moments later by sudden liquid-like warmness spreading up and down my leg. As if a cup of warm water was being poured over my leg to ease the pain. It took me a moment to realize it was blood - my blood. Gasping in more surprise than pain, I reached down to my knee. Sure enough there was a watery substance covering my knee. The smell was so overpoweringly metallic, I could almost taste it. There wasn't too much of it yet, thankfully, it hadn't even reached the hem of my skirt. I wiped my fingers gingerly over my leg and discovered a felt-like material wrapped around leg, from my upper calf to just below my knee.

A bandage. The blood must have soaked through the material.

I paused for a moment, my fingers hovering over the bandage, contemplating my situation.

A skirt? I hate skirts. So why was I wearing one now?

An lightbulb pinged inside my cranium. I patted my stomach feeling the material of my blouse and skirt. Yep. That’s what I thought. I’m in my school uniform. The only time I wore a skirt was when my adoptive mother woke up early and made sure I was wearing it before I left the house. I did my best to cross both my legs under me, but settled for just the one, closed my eyes again thinking as hard as I could.

Nothing added up.

There is some kind of wound in my right leg, and I’m still in my school uniform which would supports my idea that; 

a) I’m still at school, and

b) I'm in the school infirmary.

Its pitch black, so presumably night time, yet I don’t even remember the previous day. I feel like i've spent my entire life running a giant marathon, and i'm exhausted. Which is odd in itself, because despite my lack of interest in sports, I always had the stamina for it. And if I am at school, and it is indeed nighttime, why have I been left here tired, wounded and unattended? Surely, if there had been some  kind of incident, then my adoptive parents would have been called. Either that, or i'd be in a hospital.

I couldn’t help but smile a little, at the little investigation I had going on inside my head, but it’s that shrewd kind of thinking that sustained my status as an A-Grade student.

Then I remembered a few things.

My adoptive parents died 2 years ago in a car accident, and as I live alone now, there isn’t anyone left who could pick me up and take me home. And since I can only manage very few part time jobs due to school hours, and most of the money I do earn, gets used for school fees, there is no way I'd have much money, meaning I wouldn’t be able to afford the medical bills of going to hospital. Nor the insurance. Knowing me I wouldn’t borrow the money either. It just wouldn’t feel right. Since this is such a small school, most of the teachers are already aware of this, so they must have left me here to rest over night until I was conscious enough to get myself home again.

 

I wasn't sure how to react to this sudden relapse of memories.

How had i forgotten my adoptive parents had died?

Had I been hit on the head too?

Should I be grateful that the teachers' let me stay here to recover?

Or be upset that they didn't care enough to even stay with me, let alone, take me to hospital?

 

I felt suddenly parched. “Ugh, I need a drink.” Startled at the sound of my own voice, I jumped a little. The more awake I was beginning to feel, the more I was aware of how I felt.

“I’d be happy to get you something.” The darkness called out to me. The sound echoed off the walls, in the room and in my head.

"Huh?"

I must've got a real mean bump on the head...

 

"First, shall I illuminate your world a bit?"

What?

Hell on earth could not begin to describe the things I felt in the next few moments. I was blinded by the instant flash of white that enveloped my vision; tears formed in the corners of my eyes and my heart stammered and missed a beat.

Chapter 1 - The Beginning. [Updated]

“Ughhhh!!” I moaned, covering as much of my peripheral vision with my hands.

“Oh? I’m sorry. I thought it might be nice for you to see who you were talking to. Silly me.”

Bite me. I thought grudgingly.                                                             

After a few moments, I dared uncover my eyes and assess my situation. The infirmary looked smaller than I remembered it (Point 1 for me). About the size of your average restroom. So it was no surprise that it could only fit two beds, a desk and a small, rusting filing cabinet. The curtains were drawn back so the darkness on the other side of the window indicated it was night time (Situation = 0, Me = 2).

 

“How’re ya feeling, Ale (pronounced Al-lee)?” I hate the name Alexis. But I hate the nickname Ale 10x more. And there was only one other person who knew that. Because he created it.

"Dee.” I spat, managing to sound more bored and dissapointed than expected. He grimaced. I felt suddenly better.

DELEVAN hated that nickname as much as I hated Ale. There he was, leaning against the door frame, in all his 6’2” glory.

Lucky bastard. Most girls could only dream of being that tall at 17. Unless they too, were lucky bastards.

“You shouldn’t sound so pleased to see me. I might get the wrong idea!” He chuckled, his face wrought with mock-hurt. I rolled my eyes and yawned. He’s been saying stuff like that ever since we met, which if I remember correctly, was when we were both about 5. When my parents died, and his took me in.

“Ha. Ha. Haah.” I said, lathering my voice in as much sarcasm as I could muster. “What happened?” I immediately regretted asking, sitting up as slowly and carefully as I could.

“What?! The school’s cherished little brainiac hasn’t figured it out yet!!” More mockery. “And here I was, thinking about cheating off your paper on the next Geography exam...” Ugh. I hated how I was stereotyped like that. And Delevan knew it, too.

I mean, I hate Geography.

“Sports injury. Unconscious. School. Infirmary. Night time...” I said checking off all the things, I had figured out since waking up, on my fingers. “Don’t worry, Dee. I’m sure you’ll still pass the next exam.”

He pushed himself off the wall with his elbows and made his way over to the bed I was sitting on. “Hmm...well, close enough." His face suddenly sad.

He noticed me staring at him, and continued. "Glad to hear the genius has collected all her marbles and is back on the case!” He said, laughing it off. Aside from the constant teasing and mental pain that we put each other through, we considered ourselves to be the best of friends tied together by an unbreakable bond.

Cheesy, I know. But true.

And apparently, smart females make a good wingman.

Delevan’s words. Not mine.

“I was called to the infirmary, around noon,” he sighed. “Mr. Pericotti was with the school nurse. They told me there had been an accident during P.E, and that you were unconscious. Then they just kept babbling on for a while...”

“Specifics please.” I huffed.

“Something about wanting to call home,” pausing for a moment, he ran one of his hands through his jet black hair. “But I told them that no ones home tonight, since mum’s working late and dad’s still on his business trip, so calling home would be pointless. We talked it over and we thought it would be fine if you stayed here the night to rest. I’m just here keeping watch.”

“How is that responsible?”

“It’s fine,” he laughed. “Ms. Faeshar (the school nurse) gave me some keys, just in case. I guess she didn’t think you’d wake up tonight.”

“Umm...That's not what I meant. But anyway, keys? What keys?”

“Yeah. There’s one for the latrines, one for the infirmary door, another for the medical supply cabinet, and one –”

“Well, that’s smart. Just give an irresponsible teenager, keys to a cabinet with drugs in it and leave them there over night.”

“– and one,” he