I'm more comfortable when I'm asleep. I can't explain it. It just feels...natural, you know? I'm suspended in a temporary parallel universe. I'm free from everything; the daily strife, the personal woes of being a human being. I feel weightless.
...It's perfect. A paradise. That thing they call 'Heaven.' My own little slice of Nirvana.
I could stay here forever, but when I wake...
"Urgh! I'm still here!"
"Well of course you are."
"Urgh! You're still here!"
"Again, of course we are. What do you think this is a dream? You're real. I'm real. These walls are real. The patients around you are real. The bed you're laying on his real. The doctors around you are real. the thing in your arm is real; wake up Alice, you're not in Wonderland anym--" "Yeah sillyhead. What did you think this is? A dream?"
The time was 9:31 AM. Approximately five minutes ago Marina was pulled away from one of her beloved bacon and almond butter crostinis--her usual breakfast--that she washed down with a Triple Chocolate Mocha from an out-of-town Dunkin Donuts. It was akin to her 'Wonderland,' and also most likely the reason she hadn't been able to lose her Freshman 15 and get back into her High School body.
Her mood: extremely irritable. Her mental state: approach with caution. Her tolerance for Isaiah's constant disrespect and idiocy: excruciatingly low and quickly dwindling.
She had begrudgingly drug herself away from the table in the breakroom, snatched her clipboard off of where she had left it, stomped into the storeroom, yanked a spare bag of saline solution off the rack, discretely [non-aggressively] slammed the door, straightened out the wrinkles in her uniform, pulled it down off her hips for the five-hundredth time this morning, and came out to meet her bright-and-cheery partner who had just thrown away the remnants of an apple. Then came their stroll down the halls, where I'm sure Marina may or may not have shoved several chatty 'Oh, I'm on break' college interns and inpatient parents that were clogging up the waiting room out of her way. She wanted more than anything to be done and over with the Hell that was dealing with room 629 and all the psychical and mental agony it brought on. And that's all Isaiah was to her-- a patient. She wasn't one for teenagers, didn't like them in the least, even if they did need her help; though Isaiah would rightfully swear that he could help himself in 99.9% of his situations, some of them being quite comical. In fact, I'm fairly certain that the sight of his face made her sick. Scratch that, I'm willing to bet my next paycheck that it did, the same probably being true for Isaiah.
"Are you going to give us some speech about how you're "done"? Break anything? Yell at any of the nurses? Make me almost send a syringe flying out the window toward some innocent bystander when I try to get a blood sample?"
"Those are all your problems."
"How are they my problems? You're the one that done them!"
"Did them."
"Did, done...whatever! You will stop trying to correct me!"
"I'll stop correcting you when you act your age and stop talking like a moron."
"A moron!? Kid, do you even listen to yourself? You're the moron here. You need to stop acting like you're the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and get off your high horse. What would your mother do if she saw you talking to an adult this way!?"
"A: I don't ride horses, let alone 'high' ones. B: I don't think your God would appreciate you comparing him to me; I'm a horrible person. And C: My mother was even more of an idiot than you are. She was constantly out for dates with strangers, a raging alcoholic, and I'm pretty sure she had a drug habit to match that. If I had a chance to talk to her then yes, I would talk to her "this way." I would tell her to open her eyes, pull herself together, and learn how to keep her child in check so he doesn't end up on the streets and in a freaking hospital while someone he really cares about is mad at him, are you happy now!"
Marina paused. It was then that had realized something -- that Isaiah wasn't as much as a brat as he put off, that he did have sentience, that he didn't think he was immune to everything, that maybe, just maybe, she could form a temporary bond with him if she could break through his outer shell. But it would be tough, more than tough. It wasn't one wall; it was more like three. He was Shiganshina and she was the colossal Titan, setting out on her mission to break through the inner walls.
She felt a sharp pain in her heart. Marina was a mother of two beautiful and bright little girls, she couldn't imagine abandoning them and having them spiral into whatever kind of life this kid had.
"It must've been hard for you. ...I'm really sorry."
"It doesn't matter, you can't take back what was said."
Those words. Those six words.
They danced around in his head. Pirouetted through his frontal lobe. Did a foxtrot through his amygdala. Settled down into a waltz within his hippocampus. You can't take back what was said. He couldn't take back anything. The memories, the emotions, the things he said to her--God he wished he could remember, everything from the past days was a blur, save for what Kacey had said to him.
He wanted to take it all back. Make it all right. Find some magical device that wish just the push of a button would allow him to do it all over, but more than anything he wanted to see..."
There was a sudden knock and the door had creaked open.
"Kacey..."
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