Day 4
I woke up to the sound of beeping and a shuffle of shoes. My eyes felt like they were glued shut and I raised a hand to to rub at them, but the hand dragged a tangle of tubes and wires and I wasn’t sure if my hand even got near my face. I groaned and tried to roll over. What was going on?
“Miss Preston?” A voice floated towards me from somewhere far away.
I cracked one eye open and tried to look around. The far away place was a door on the other side of the room. A woman in scrubs stood halfway in the room and looked like I’d spooked her. But I should be the one feeling spooked.
Was I in the hospital?
I mumbled something in response to the woman’s stare, but I wasn’t sure what the words were even supposed to be, so I didn’t blame her for not understanding.
“I’ll get the doctor…” she left, and the door remained cracked.
Light spilled in from the hallway and I got a better look at my surroundings with my one open eye. I was definitely in a hospital room. And there were machines all around me and I seemed to be hooked into each and every one.
The door opened wider and a man in a white coat came in, wrapping a stethoscope around his shoulders as he walked.
“Hello, Miss Preston. How are you feeling?” He checked the monitor nearest my bed.
“What happened to me?” I answered his question with a question. Besides, I wasn’t sure how I was feeling yet. I still couldn’t even open my other eye.
“Well…” The doctor pulled up a stool and sat next to my bed. “You suffered from a severe nosebleed. And we had to cauterize the blood vessels in your sinus cavity to get it to stop.”
When he said the word, a flash of pain and the smell of burnt flesh flitted across my memory. Had it really been that bad?
But why couldn’t I remember it?
“And after we stabilized you, we did some scans to see if we could figure out the cause of the hemorrhage. We saw a shadow on your cat scan, and we’ve determined there to be a growth on your brain.”
A growth.
“Like a tumor?”
I thought I should be in more shock than this. But the doctor's words sort of flooded around me as though I could swat them away like a swarm of gnats.
He nodded. “A tumor. Precisely.”
I swallowed and forced my other eye open. I wanted to sit up straighter and look him in the eye. This felt like a ‘look you in the eye’ type of conversation. But I could barely hold my head up. There was no way.
“So… what does that mean?”
This was the only time I remember seeing a doctor feeling uncomfortable. He must not be the one in charge of my case. He’s just on call. He didn’t one to be the one in here giving me this information.
“The plan hasn’t been agreed upon yet.” He said after a long pause. “You didn’t respond well to some of the pain killers and you were admitted for the night. There is a meeting in a few hours to discuss what the next steps are.”
That was a whole lot of words for, ‘they don’t know what to do about it.’ But I sighed and rolled my head back to stare at the ceiling. All I wanted in that moment was to go home.
Day 5
It wasn’t until the next day that I was out of the hospital.
A group of doctors poked and prodded at me. They talked over my head about different procedures.
Should they shrink the tumor? Should they go straight to surgery? Could I keep living my life now that I knew the tumor was there?
And after a few more scans and another round of doctors coming into my room. They let me go home. I had three other appointments set up, but they didn’t see the harm in me leaving the hospital for the night.
I didn’t think they’d ever seen anything like it. But it also wasn’t threatening enough to keep me for constant observation.
But I knew what the cause was.
It was the book.
When I arrived home, the book was still sitting where I’d left it on my kitchen table. How small and harmless it seemed. But now I knew better.
I dropped my bag and sat at the table.
What I really wanted, was a shower and to crawl into my own bed. But I also needed to see the first page of that book again.
There had to be something I’d missed. A way to put it back…
Proceed no further. The curse within these pages will bring you to your knees If you keep reading, you will be exposed to secrets of the universe. These secrets will damage your mind and change the way you see things. Heed this warning. If you turn the page, it will already be too late. Heed this warning or you will come to your doom.
There is no turning back. There is no uncrossing the line. You cannot put back what has been broken.
This is your final chance.
You were warned.
That was it.
There was no way to stop what was happening.
I blinked furiously at the sudden rush of tears in my eyes. After I heard a splat on the paper in front of me, I thought I’d lost the battle against crying. But when I looked down, it was a drop of blood.
Followed by another drop. And another.
I wiped my hand under my nose and found I was bleeding again.
I pushed back from the table before my blood could cover the book. Even though I didn’t know why I bothered.
Maybe my blood soaking the pages would make the next person who read it pause and take a second to think about what they were really doing.
Maybe they’d listen to the warning.
I stood and hurried towards the sink for a towel. I really didn’t want to go back to the hospital.
After I got the bleeding to stop, I crawled onto my couch and pulled a blanket over myself.
I wanted to shower and sleep in my own bed. But I also didn’t think my legs could support my weight right now.
It was all too much.