On a regular Saturday morning, in the homes of Alex's family and his beloved friends, lived people who should have been enjoying their weekends in laughter, sleep, fun, visits, discussions and joy.
But what instead followed was a damp eerie unease that could be sited in the few in each of these houses. More less to say his friends, Wendy, Evelyn, Dave and Oliver and his family were down for the count in their moods and general actions as most lain in their beds either staring at story books, or gazing upon their photos with Alex whereby his attention was not on the camera or doing something that ruined the picture entirely.
But who could blame them? For their friend and beloved one was hospitalised in conditions that even a man in his thirties wouldn't be able to clearly survive. This was proof of two things. One was a clarity and one was desperate hope.
One, that either the hospital he went was really good with their patients or that his body was just really sturdy. For the second guess among the two seemed like a figment of one's own pitiful imagination after all, the mysterious injuries that Alex had sustained were brutally fatal with the consideration of how much he bled in that time.
Two deep and long cuts to his general abdominal area with on being a straight cut that ran from his from upper left chest to his lower left waist area and one diagonal running from his lower left ribcage area to his lower right stomach. All deep yet none truly fatal in a way that medical attention couldn't help him live just another day.
But by the time he had reached the ambulance before his body was reduced to a long of skin that was tightly attached onto his small flesh a symbol of his threatening blood loss.
Oliver too rethought of that moment and flinched as it ended. Snapping out of his daze as his hear sounded against his chest as his gaze fell back onto his homework...
Homework? Right now? Well, how could he when his friend was fighting for his life in a hospital?
Well, it was simply because the Alex he knows. Wouldn't let him leave his home to go anywhere without finishing his homework? That sounded rather absurd right? Yah, that was case for Alex and all his friends with him being the pathetically glue that held them all together. Even in his absence, his memory drove his friends along the right path.
And besides, this would bring about one other conclusion about him. One that he stated and etched into his friends minds more than anything. And it was that, they never had to worry and were not allowed to worry. Because the God who created them did not give them that and so when worry or any feeling like crept at their minds, he simply reminded them to pray about it. For he knew that their God would always answer.
And so that brought them all to their second conclusion about this.
And that was-
Click, clack, click, clack.
For their prayers...
Click, clack.
And the mercy of the Lord...
Click, clack, click.
Kept Alex alive better than any medical attention ever could.
Click.
As the scene shifts to the hospital where Alex was located, as the mechanical glass if the hospital doors opened and a pair of shiny black high heels is seen walking in without stop until they reach a counter.
The view of the owner of these shoes is slowly seen and as we now see the same woman from when all this started.
She was clad in a fairly tight white dress that was designed with black stipes that ran all over it, her skin, her hair, her eyes, her face and her scent were all as elegant as before.
She stopped at the counter as she kindly greeted the nurse who sat at what looked like the reception counter who was a second's moment later than her as she turned her gaze to look at the person who stood over her.
She looked and saw the lady's plastic smile that would have looked real to any regular person but not someone whose seen the faces of the many other broken people that walked in here before her. Rather than questioning why she faking her pleasure, she instead smiled back and said, "Yes, good madam..." as her voice lingered off signaling the other woman to say her name.
"Vanessa, I'm Vanessa Clarke."
"Oh, what a lovely name. And how may I help you?"
"I would like to visit a patient here please."
"Ah... what's their name and how are you related to this person?" She said as her hands sorted through the different papers that lain in a drawer to her lower left.
"His name is Alexander Hawkings. I'm a family friend and you can contact Alicia Hawkings to confirm my relations to him." Vanessa said as she effortlessly maintained the look that she had plastered on her face.
The receptionist finally pulled out the form that she had seemingly looked for and handed it to Vanessa to fill in.
Vanessa gazed down on the paper as she filled word for word with efforltess perception almost as if she practiced for this which of course raised a slight hint of suspicion in the receptionist whose doughts were quickly erased by the sudden pause of Vanessa as write down what she needed to write.
After a simple minute passed, the click of Vanessa's pen snapped the receptionist out of her fixed work that she resumed to as Vanessa scribbled away at the form she was given.
As she passed the paper back, there seemed to be blank spaces left in the paper that the receptionist looked at and immediately filled out as she opened her mouth to say, "How long will you be visiting him for?"
"30 minutes." Vanessa sais as her smile returned to her face but a little faint now unlike before.
"Good, its... 3:47pm so you will be leaving at 4:17pm. And passed that will incur to our penalty fee of 5 dollars per extra minute."
The receptionist saud with a smile as looked up at Vanessa hoping to fish something out if her plastered look.
But Vanessa wasn't fased by this miner taunted at all. In fact, she maintained her smile as she looked at receptionist and said, "With the time I have... it'll feel like ive been in their for a day. So, I accept the challenge miss."
The reception signed off at the paper with signature with almost clear initail showing the name 'Agnes' on it as she officialised with a stamp.
Her gaze quickly flared up at Vanessa whose smiled was steady and aura glistened with calmness as she said, "Alright, Miss Vanessa. Go on your time is running out."
And without a second thought, Vanessa grabbed her bag which had lain on the counter and walked steadily away from the reception.
But as she did. She left the receptionist wondering just what she was hiding under that mask of calm gladness. But from she could muster from it. It seemed like rather two emotions that lingered from beneath it. One, was desperation a common expression among the many who came by her desk and went away faster than they came. But the difference between Vanessa and the rest was that... her desperation was an expired kind. How dud the reception know? Pure intuition and analysis. That narrowly helped her get through to her mask of smiles and lies.
And as for second emotion?
Click, clack. Click, clack.
She would never know because inthoee moments. Those small fractioned moments when her analytical gaze tried to find its way through her pretentious eyes.
Click, clack.
She found herself getting more and more lost with seemed to look the mischievous mind if calm woman. A lunatic who knew to play the part maybe but, that want the case for Vanessa. For as her mind wasn't mischievous nor puzzling like and endless maze. No, it was simply...
Click, clack, click.
And endless space...
Click, clack.
That she either let you explore with ease.
Click, clack, click, clack.
Chhk, chhk.
Or let you get lost in as you dived further and further within.
And that wasn't even most horrendously bizzare thing about her. What was truly terrifying about this about her was...
Shhhhhk!
If she let you get lost from within her mind, it was up to her to either let you go back from where you came... or-
Click, clack.
"Hello, Master Cronix..."
Keep you within her the vast prison once looked like a mere barrier that guarded what seemed to look like a fragile mind.
"Its been a while hasn't it?" She sais as she set her bag down besides her to her left.
As a shiver ran down the receptionist's spine as she thought of the only thing that seemed like an obvious answer to this even more puzzling situation, 'A... a dreamscaper?'
The scene then shifts to Vanessa who is seen sitting kn a stool on next to Alex's bed. Who looked like he had recovered by just a tad bit ever since this all started.
Her gaze was full of wory and yet she smiled. Not forcefully but wut with a genuine comfort that lingered in the air of Alex's hospital room.
Oh my oh my, truly one this woman a true wonder to behold. Complicated like most yet more mysterious than the world itself and a singular person.
My oh my. She was truly a wonder.