Chapter 4

The fourth chapter.

“Hannah. You aren’t supposed to be here yet” She knew my name, even though I had never told it to her. She still had her hands on my mums shoulders. My mum’s eyes were completely blank. Her arms and legs didn’t even hold her up in her chair properly anymore. It was like her spirit had fled to the deepest corner of her mind, or maybe it was gone altogether.

“I knew something wasn’t right with you… Whatever you are!” humans don’t change eye colours like that, and whatever Nurse Avery had done to my mother, they weren’t capable of that.

“Did you really? Or did someone tell you? Surely you aren’t knowledgeable enough to know what a Mimic is” I didn’t. I’d never heard of a Mimic, but all I cared about was my mother and my sister.

“I don’t care what you are! Just leave my family alone” weren’t we going through enough already? Wasn’t it bad enough that my sister was in a Coma?

“Why should I? I need energy to stay in this form. Clearly Stacy hasn’t learned anything since she escaped me!” the doll was in my backpack. I took her out and looked at her. This lady knew the name of my sister’s toy?

“She was supposed to die and I was going to take her energy. Her brother was dying of Cancer and she was at the hospital with him. So I could access her easily” Nurse Avery sneered at Stacy and I, and it looked out of place on a Nurse.

“The child sensed what I was trying to do to her, she noticed the sign of a Mimic in the area… The slow disintegration of the flesh on your left hand” I looked at my bandaged left hand and at the deformity on Stacy’s woollen doll hand.

“Somehow the girl knew what I was, and she… When I tried to take her for myself, her spirit, desperate to escape jumped into the first object that she could. A doll her parents had bought her” she patted my mother’s arm gently, almost lovingly. It made me want to scream.

“Stacy is now believed dead or stolen by her parents, luckily your mother put up far less of a fight. Grief does that to someone” she heaved a satisfied sigh and smiled that deceptively warm smile at me.

“That’s why I love my job” my hands shook and I held Stacy so tightly that I was glad even sentient dolls feel no pain. She was taking my mother from me. Her energy, her life that she needed for Ellie.

“give me back my mother! You give her back!” hospitals are generally quiet places, yet no one seemed to hear our conversation. Not even when I yelled.

Probably the Mimic’s doing, to give her enough alone time in this room to do what she needed without being caught.

“I can’t do that, she’s already given me what I need. Besides you know what I am now…” Nurse Avery drew a needle from her pocket. The long sharp point glistening under the fluorescent lights. I’ve never liked needles, ever.

Nurse Avery laughed and went to do something to my sister, I don’t know if she was going to stab her with the needle, or maybe pierce the tubes that were keeping her alive.

I reacted before I even had time to think about it, I ran and wrapped my arms around Nurse Avery. Screw her energy sucking, or my own safety. None of that mattered. I wasn’t there to catch Ellie when she fell, but I hugged the Nurse and her needle to me, because I could save her from this.