Chapter 2 – Still Alive
Melody gradually awoke to the sound of muted voices outside of her darkened room. She slowly looked around the room, then down at her bandaged hands. God must have a sick sense of humor, burning the hands of a family of musicians.
A moment later, she was jumping out of bed in panic. She ran out of her room and grabbed the first nurse she encountered.
“What time is it? Is my sister…” she couldn’t finish the question.
“You’ve been asleep for six hours,” the slim young woman told her soothingly. She had dark-brown hair that was pulled back into a bun that contrasted beautifully with a pair of intelligent blue eyes. “Your sister is still hanging on. They’re operating on her right now.”
Melody let out a trembling sigh. “What about my mom?”
“She’s sleeping,” the nurse replied. “She is doing remarkably well, in spite of the severity of her burns.
“Thank you,” Melody said gratefully.
She looked around and realized a small crowd of people were watching her. A woman with lustrous red hair and pretty green eyes stood next to a man with a channel 5 news camera, both of them observing her intently. Her principal was there as well, along with her math teacher.
“When’s the last time you had something to eat?” the nurse asked gently.
“I’m not hungry,” Melody responded absently. “Will I be able to see Aria when they are finished operating on her?”
“Of course,” the nurse assured her. “You really should get something to eat. There is a cafeteria on the first floor. It will be at least another hour before they are finished operating on your sister.”
“I don’t have any money with me,” Melody admitted with a blush.
“Just tell them to charge it to Nurse Emily,” the woman said with an encouraging smile. “Now go get some food. You’re going to need your strength in the coming weeks.”
Melody remembered her sister’s final words. Take care of mommy.
“Okay,” Melody replied as her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you so much, Emily.”
Emily patted her shoulder comfortingly before turning and moving away.
As Melody began making her way toward the elevators, her math teacher, Ms. Olson, and the principal, Mr. West, joined her.
“I’m so sorry, Melody,” Ms. Olson told her softly, her blue eyes filled with compassion.
The soft words were enough to bring the reality of her situation crashing back into the forefront of her mind again. With a gasp, she fell into Ms. Olson’s slender arms and began sobbing brokenly. Ms. Olson gently stroked her dark hair soothingly, whispering to her comfortingly. As the elevator reached the ground floor, she let herself be led to one of the tables in the cafeteria.
“We were unable to find any of your extended family in your school records,” Mr. West said gently, after she had regained her composure. “Is there a father or grandparents whom we can notify of your circumstances?”
“My grandparents passed away last year,” Melody replied heavily. “My dad can rot in Hell, if he’s not already. He raped my mom when she was fifteen years old and left her to die.”
Ms. Olson blanched, and Melody heard a gasp behind her. She turned her head to see the reporter for Channel 5 standing several feet behind her. The woman’s green eyes were wide and filled with sympathy. Turning back to the principal, she let out another resigned sigh.
“My mom was an only child,” she continued. “We don’t have any other family.”
Mr. West nodded, looking awkward. “I’m sorry. We’ll speak with your mother later, but we wanted you to know that we’re here for you. We’ve cancelled school tomorrow and will be holding a candlelight vigil for your sister at 7pm in the gym.”
Melody nodded silently, unable to speak around the sudden lump in her throat as more tears leaked down her cheeks. She was going to need to rehydrate soon with all of this crying business draining her body of liquid.
Mr. West patted her shoulder comfortingly before leaving her with Ms. Olson. Wiping her tears away, she got up and went over to the salad bar. When she tried to charge the food to Nurse Emily, Ms. Olson insisted on paying for it. As she sat back down, she noticed one of the televisions mounted on a wall showing a picture of the paper factory on the screen as a news anchor gestured at the empty bay wrapped in police tape.
“Police have confirmed the identity of the attacker through DNA evidence and are currently holding him without bail,” the blonde news anchor was saying. “The name of the victim was not released because she is a minor. Her mother and sister were also treated at the Harborview Burn Center after suffering from chemical burns from a diluted form of fluoroantimonic acid, which in concentrated form is one of the most powerful acids on Earth. There is no word on whether the victim is still alive, but chemical experts have made it clear that surviving a complete submersion in such a substance would be impossible, especially if any of the substance was swallowed, since it explodes when it comes into contact with water. Even the fumes from this deadly acid can be fatal. Police believe the attacker concocted the acid in his own lab, since the factory where it was found did not make use of the substance. They believe he used the acid in an effort to remove any trace of the victim’s body. It is still unknown how the mother and sister were able to find the victim in time to save her life.”
The news anchor paused for a moment before continuing.
“I’ve just been informed that it was actually her twin sister who found her, using the GPS beacon on her phone. Our news office was able to obtain the dispatch recording of the 911 call that was placed.”
Melody stared in horror as the screams of her sister were played from the dispatcher’s recording, forcing her to relive the moments immediately after finding her sister. The news anchor’s face paled as she listened to Aria’s pain-filled pleas for her mommy to stop the pain. She heard her sister’s final words one more time, before the television suddenly flickered off. She could see the outline of Ms. Olson through the blur of her tears as her math teacher stood trembling in front of the television.
Everyone in the cafeteria was staring at her now. She stood up unsteadily and lurched over to the bathroom. She barely made it to the toilet in time to empty the food she had just consumed. Ms. Olson knelt down next to her, pulling her hair behind her shoulders and stroking her back comfortingly.
“I’m so sorry you had to see that,” Ms. Olson said in a voice choked with emotion.
Melody spent several moments dry-heaving. She stared at the soiled porcelain in front of her, trying to make sense of how a world so full of cruelty could exist. Why would anyone voluntarily bring a child into this horrible place? I didn’t even get a chance to apologize to her!
She wasn’t sure how long she knelt there staring into emptiness. One thing was for sure; if her sister died, she wasn’t going to be left behind.
“You’re not leaving me behind,” Melody whispered to herself.
“Melody, please don’t talk like that,” Ms. Olson pleaded, sniffling tearfully.
Melody blinked, realizing she had spoken her last thought aloud. She turned her head to face Ms. Olson. “Give me a reason to stay. Give me one good reason to stay in this Hell.”
“Someone very dear to me once said that evil only triumphs when those with the capacity to do good give up,” Ms. Olson told her softly. “Don’t leave the other good people in this world behind who need your help.”
“Whoever said that was a naïve fool,” Melody muttered harshly.
“Aria is the person who told me that,” Ms. Olson replied, her voice catching.
Melody blinked. It was exactly the kind of thing Aria would say. “Why would she say something like that to you?”
“Your sister has an amazing gift of intuition,” Ms. Olson whispered almost inaudibly. “I’ve had many of my own struggles these past few months. After a very difficult day when I felt like giving up, your sister wrote a song for me and left those words at the bottom
of the page. She made me realize that focusing on helping others balances out the pain in my own life. She is wise far beyond her years.”
Melody nodded unconsciously, having thought the same thing many times. While she had been giving her sister the cold shoulder for not helping her cheat on a test, Aria had been pouring her heart out in song and deed to help other people in need. Her shoulders began shaking as she realized just how much this world would lose if Aria didn’t survive.
“Is everything okay?” a voice asked in concern.
Melody sniffed noisily, rising to her feet. Perhaps she could try and fill in part of the void if Aria left her behind. She had no illusions that she could fill her sister’s shoes, so to speak, but she could at least try. If there was some kind of afterlife where she would eventually meet her sister, she wanted to be able to tell her she had given it her all.
As she turned around, she found the young reporter from Channel 5 news studying her with sincere concern. She was so accustomed to the false and pretentious façade most reporters exuded that it was surprising to sense the sincerity in the woman’s gaze.
“I’ll be okay,” Melody replied shakily. “I just need to stay away from the television from now on.”
“That was really tacky,” the woman said disapprovingly. “Whoever approved that to be aired should be fired.”
“That’s for sure,” Ms. Olson agreed darkly, walking over to the sink and washing her face.
“I wanted to warn you that there is a mob of reporters outside trying to track you down,” the woman told her, nodding toward the door. “I’ll try and run interference if you want to make a run for the elevator. The hospital security has banned any press from going up to the ICU floor.”
“Aren’t you with the press?” Melody asked doubtfully.
“I was here doing a story on the dedication of the burn center staff before you arrived,” she replied with a slight smile. “I would never stoop to the level of sensational nonsense that these goons go for. They make a mockery of journalism.”
Melody smiled, instantly warming to the woman. “I appreciate the offer. How did you intend to run interference?”
“I’ll just march off in the other direction and pretend like I’ve found you somewhere else,” she said with a mischievous grin. “They won’t want to risk the chance that I really do know where you are, so they’ll follow me.”
Melody looked at her name tag. Rhapsody. How fitting.
“Thank you, Rhapsody,” Melody said warmly.
“No problem, Melody,” Rhapsody replied with another mischievous smile.
“How unusual,” Ms. Olson remarked as they waited a minute before making a run for the elevator.
“Truly,” Melody agreed, feeling the first sense of warmth in her chest since the day began.
As they reached the elevator, she noticed there was, indeed, a security guard monitoring who entered. The security guard nodded at her as she entered with Ms. Olson.
When they reached the top, her mother was just exiting one of the patient rooms. She hurried over and wrapped her daughter in a tight embrace. Her mother grimaced in pain as the contact from the burns on her arms were aggravated by the physical contact.
“How are you doing?” her mother asked.
“Terrified,” Melody answered honestly. “How are your arms?”
“Very sore,” she replied with another grimace.
“Have you heard anything else about Aria?” Melody asked anxiously.
“She’s still being operated on,” her mother replied with a deep sigh. “Have you learned anything about her condition? The last update I heard was over eight hours ago.”
Melody stared at her mother, unable to repeat what she had heard from the nurse or the television. Her mother must have seen it in her expression, because her eyes began filling with tears. Before she could say anything, a doctor came out of the operating room and began walking toward them.
“What news?” her mother asked in a trembling voice.
“Well, there’s both good and bad news,” the doctor replied, looking perturbed. “First, we were able to remove all traces of the acid from her lungs and stomach. She is currently stable, which I will admit doesn’t make any sense. She should have died before we could even begin operating on her. As impossible as it seems, her tissue appears to be undergoing some kind of regenerative process. Her lungs are almost up to fifty percent capacity and the damage to her stomach and throat has begun repairing itself at an accelerated rate. I’ve never seen anything like it. We had a team collect samples of the acid from the site of the incident and it is so potent that it burned right through a sheet of glass. If her cells continue regenerating at this rate, her body might actually survive.”
“And the bad news?” her mother asked hesitantly.
“Her brain activity has flat-lined,” he replied with a sigh. “In coma patients, that indicates a vegetative state, with little possibility of recovery. I would say there is no hope of recovery; except that her body is already doing things I would have said were impossible before today. We have a team of neurologists who will be arriving in the morning to study her brain activity for any indication that the cellular regeneration process will spread to that portion of her body as well.”
“Wait a minute,” her mother said with a frown. “I thought humans weren’t capable of cellular regeneration without some kind of stem cell implant?”
“They aren’t,” the doctor agreed with a slightly baffled look. “Right now, we only have a few theories on how this could be happening. The most plausible is that the acid triggered a reaction similar to what occurs in a fetus when it begins the gestation process, activating her stem cells. Since she doesn’t need to re-grow external limbs, the process wouldn’t require her body to be submerged in amniotic fluid, the way a fetus does. I’ll admit that this is stretching the limits of credulity, but this kind of regeneration is unprecedented. If she remains stable, we will have time to study the process in more depth. In time, this could lead to completely new breakthroughs in our understanding of stem cells.”
“She’s still alive,” her mother said after a thoughtful silence. “That’s all that’s important, for now.”