NightTide: The Girl With Red Eyes

Kraus, I guess I do have a last name after all… Though it was strange the way I found out what it was. Red Kraus, for some reason, it sounds weird to me. On a side note not much happened, at least until my ribs healed up. People were a lot nicer to me after I agreed to stay, well everyone except Elizabeth. She was still being a jerk.

It’s my last day in this room, Jessica said I’d be moving to a different one once I recovered… I was just waiting around for her. There wasn’t much going so I just watched the birds. I had to wait maybe half an hour before she got here.

I heard the door click and a panting Jessica walk in. “Sorry Red, I overslept.”

She ran all the way here? “Did you run here?”

She was still out of breath. “More like sprinted here. I need a minute. Take my advice and never sprint four miles. Oh dam, it’s only been five minutes since I woke up…”

Four miles in five minutes! “H-how did you get here so quickly?! Is that even possible?!”

She was starting to catch her breath. “Red, it’s best not to question what I pull off. It’ll save you a headache…” She finally stood straight up and was breathing normally. “Well I have good news and bad news. The good news is we a found room for you stay in, the bad news is you have to bunk with Elizabeth… I’m not going to have an issue with you two trying to kill each other, am I?”

I guess she’s aware of Elizabeth’s hostility to. “As long as she doesn’t attack me.”

She stared at me for a second. “Ok, then. If there is an issue, I’m going to kick both your asses.” She scared me a little when she said that. “Alright I got you a change of clothes to. Why don’t you change and I’ll show you where your room is.”

She tossed me a white t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. I was somewhat happy it wasn’t black. I walked into the bathroom and change, when I came out Jessica was waiting by the door.

She was looking around a little impatiently. “Ready?”

I nodded to and she waved for me to follow. It was interesting, I was used to walking around people but what I wasn’t used to was for them to jump a little when they saw us. It was like it caught them off guard, maybe it did? I guess I was caught off guard myself. I wasn’t expecting to see so many people, maybe its cause most of my life was with Kayla and Owen? I was thinking about that and didn’t notice Jessica stop. I bumped into her and was a little startled, she just let out a chuckle.

She turned around. “Red you should pay more attention to where you’re walking, you’ll have plenty of time to look around later. In the meantime, we’ll have to wait for the truck, unless you want to try and keep up with me and run there?”

I’d rather not try to do that. “Um n-no I’m good. I don’t want to be left behind.”

She nodded to me and we stood there for a bit.

I saw a truck in the distance it was coming over a hill, then Jessica turned to me. “Right Red, this is the medical area of base three, you’re coming with me to base one. We have trucks that move back and forth when requested but I personally prefer to walk. There’s four bases but you only need to be concerned with one, that’s the base I run. You’re going to be tested a few times and the other three base leaders will evaluate you. We’ll find out what happens from there.

That’s a little worrying. “Evaluation? does that mean I’m considered a bad guy here?”

She stared at me for a second. “That’s not something you need to be concerned about right now. Don’t worry though, as long as you do what you’re told there won’t be any problems.”

Having to do what I’m told again, I guess it’s not unusual. “I guess nothing’s changed then. I got treated the same way over there to…”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “Well at least this time around you have a chance to be treated like a person, you’re not the odd ball this time…” She smiled at me… We stood in silence after that, at least until we got on the truck and it started moving. The second it started moving we were bouncing. “Oh fuuuuccckkkk! The dam things suspension is shot!” It was an awful trip.

We got off the truck and Jessica yelled at the driver, she said something about the suspension again. My rear was hurting from that and I think that hurt Jessica’s back, she arched it and I heard a loud cracking noise; then she seemed fine.

She looked over at me. “Let’s walk next time.” I didn’t really disagree that was pretty bad. “Red, let’s wait here for a minute I have to make a call.” Make a call? To who? She turned around and pulled out something small, I didn’t see what it was but she was talking to someone on it… She was talking for a while.

After she finally stopped talking and put that thing in her pocket she looked over at me, somewhat disappointed. “We’re going to have to make a detour, it looks like the medical area wants to see you. There’s been some communication issues between base one and three so they don’t have your records. They want to do a blood test to make sure you don’t have anything that might be contagious. Not that we have to worry about that, but we don’t want to carry them around… Well just follow me then.”

I followed her around the place for a while, more people stared at us acting startled at first… not much else happened on the way to wherever we needed to go. Jessica and I didn’t bump into her this time, we walked into a waiting area. It was pretty much the same as the other one. They used a needle to take of my blood and put some weird circles on my chest back and sides of my head.

There was a doctor staring at a screen. “Hmm? Well she doesn’t seem to have any potential diseases but her heart rate is irregular…” He turned towards Jessica. “Well I’m sorry to interrupt your plans but I’m afraid I can’t allow her leave here until we check out what’s going on with her heart. We don’t need anyone to walking around base that might keel over any second.”

Jessica let out a sigh. “Aw man. Alright then, I’m going to get her paperwork from base three then. They might know what’s going on with that. Let me know if you find anything before I get back.” Just like that she walked out. She didn’t seem to be worried.

The doctor turned towards me. “Alright then Red, was it?” I nodded. “Alright I’m going to get you a gown, you’ll be stuck here for a few days. We want to take a cat scan of whatever’s going on inside that chest of yours.” He walked out, it was odd. He didn’t have the same type of teeth as me and the others. So then regular people work here to? He walked back in and sat a gown on the bed. Then he walked out and I had to change into it, I was getting tired of wearing hospital gowns as well.