Dream World Part 7: Doctor Anderson
A Sailor Moon fanfic by Mike Chenoweth [Ultrace@aol.com]
September, 1996
Amy stood at the halfway point in the hall and waited. Within less than a minute they would come busting through the door.
It had been eight years since she had given up her career as a simple pediatrician for that of an emergency-room surgeon. Amy enjoyed working with children and helping them, but it only took a short time of hospital work for her to discover that there was a greater responsibility for someone with her gifts.
Now, she was expected to perform miracles on a regular basis, and tonight would be no different. She could see alternating flashes of red light outside as the ambulance pulled up to the door.
Friends and family, for the most part, had disappeared from her life. For someone in her job, a social life was a contradiction in terms. Her work schedule was so erratic and demanding that it usually left her completely drained, both physically and mentally. Sometimes, like now, she couldn't even remember what her life had been like before this.
The doors burst open and three nurses rushed through, pushing a body-laden gurney. Amy hurried to catch up to them as they raced down the hall. "Bring me up to speed."
"Sixteen-year-old caucasian female," the black-haired and most senior nurse responded. "Stabbed herself in the chest, following a series of hallucinations."
The nurse proceeded to roll off a list of numbers and terms regarding the girl's condition--none of it very good news.
"Any idea what caused the hallucinations?" Amy asked, peeling back the eyelids and finding expectedly bad signs staring back at her. The eyes didn't seem to show any of the usual symptoms of hallucinogenic use, however.
"According to friends, they were due to sleep deprivation."
Amy shook her head, both at the chest wound and the stupidity of the girl. "We'll take her in Seven." She turned to one of the other nurses, a brunette. "Make sure they've got plenty of O Neg on hand. This is going to be messy." The brunette nodded and ran on ahead.
Half a minute later, Amy and the two nurses made it into room number seven, where a male nurse and the brunette were waiting for them. The third nurse who had arrived with the ambulance pulled out trays of silver instruments while Amy and the other three carefully moved the girl onto the table.
"Somebody crop the meatballs and get them out of the way," Amy snapped as she put on a pair of gloves. "We don't need four feet of hair in her chest."
Within another half-minute, the girl had been prepped; her shirt cut away to give complete access to the bloody wound in her chest. Fresh intravenous units had been set up, and an oxygen mask was placed over her mouth and nose.
Amy stepped forward to the girl, ready to begin. She reached over to the tray on her left and stopped. Every instrument on it was completely foreign to her; she didn't recognize any of them or have the faintest idea how they were supposed to be used. She looked to the tray on her right, and found the same thing.
She began to panic, and looked down at the girl in front of her, totally without a clue as to how to handle the gaping wound that continued to pump blood. Every scrap of medical knowledge in her head was gone.
"Doctor?" one of the nurses asked.
"Call another surgeon in here," Amy said, trying to keep calm.
"What?" the senior nurse questioned.
"Get another doctor in here! NOW!" Amy shouted, her patience at an end. She started to turn for the door.
The blond nurse grabbed her. "There are no other doctors!"
Amy looked back. The doors to the room had disappeared. They were in a one room hospital that didn't even have an exit. There was a girl in front of her, critically hurt. Amy was the only one who could help her, and she couldn't do a thing.
In the sickly dim light of the operating room, she watched the girl die.
------------------
Amy dazedly stumbled into the bathroom, almost drenched with a cold sweat that made her even more nauseous than her splitting headache and exhaustion.
She turned on the faucet and splashed her face with cool water, feeling much better for it. She let some of it get in her hair and on her shirt, as both were already wet from sweat anyway, and she was going to take a shower in just a few minutes. Perhaps that could help snap her out of this.
Steadying herself with both hands on the bathroom counter, she checked the mirror to see just how bad she was looking after the fifth night of this.
She screamed, and staggered herself back against the bathroom wall. Her face, hair and clothes were dripping with blood, not water. A continuous stream of it was flowing from the faucet, which was now attached to a counter that looked nothing like the one in her bathroom. In place of things like her toothbrush, soap and hairbrush were all manner of surgical tools, the silvery steel stained red from use. She wasn't wearing pajamas--she was outfitted in a surgical gown. Her hands were sticky and caked with half-dried blood.
Amy closed her eyes tightly and realized with horror that she was going insane.
It took several beeps of her communicator for Rei to emerge from her meditative trance. With a grumble, she turned it on, and saw Amy on the other end.
"Rei, I need your help. I need... I need to come to the temple." Amy's voice was confused and scared.
"Are you okay, Amy?" Rei asked.
"No. I need to stay at the temple tonight."
"No problem. Can you make it okay?"
"It's not that far," Amy said. "I think I'll be alright... Thanks."
Less than twenty minutes later, Amy arrived and met Rei in the yard of the temple. She looked terrible. Her eyes were only half-open, and their expression told Rei that it was only terror that kept them from closing. Her hair was wet and completely disheveled. She had the sense to put on shoes but had walked to the temple still in her pajamas, which were also soaked.
Rei took the bag that Amy was barely carrying from her with one arm and helped to support her with the other.
"I need an empty room," Amy said.
"Sure," Rei said, and guided her toward one of the many spare rooms they had available. She chose one that was near the sacred flame. Along the way, Amy muttered several things to herself, only a few of which Rei heard--and most of that she wished she hadn't. Amy made a partially successful attempt at telling her what had happened to her in the bathroom, which was enough to send a chill through Rei. When she heard Amy mention her mother, Rei asked if she was alright.
"I was lucky. She had the night shift," Amy said. "I could have hurt her. I don't want to hurt anyone..."
Rei didn't need to hear any more to know why Amy wanted to come to the temple. She could have gone to any of the Scouts' homes to stay, but this was the only place where she could be out of the way of people and not be a risk. Rei was expecting what came next.
"I need to be alone... If I'm near you..." Amy started and trailed off.
"Are you sure?" Rei asked. She was not keen on the idea of leaving Amy alone in this condition. Usually, Amy was smart enough to know what she was doing, but there wasn't any way to be sure right now.
Amy nodded, which made her head hurt even more. She then fished out her power stick and handed it to Rei. "If I hallucinate again, I could transform, and... Even if I can't hurt you, I could hurt your grandfather, or Chad..."
Rei accepted the stick without any further convincing, and, reluctantly, shut the door of the room leaving Amy to herself. She had every intention, however, of checking up on Amy to make sure she was okay.
Amy spent the next hour in her isolation trying desperately to solve their problem. She found herself even less capable of using her computer today than the day before and had thrown it aside in disgust, fortunate enough not to break it. A notebook and pen were what she was reduced to trying to work it out with, and even so, her handwriting was a terrible, unorganized mess.
She experienced several bouts of hallucination again, though none of them were quite as terrifying as the episode in her bathroom. Regardless of how real they appeared, there seemed to be some aspect of them that enabled her to, with difficulty, see them for what they were, as though her mind were working to fight off this ill-effect. Although twice they were convincing enough that she had to open the door to her room and look outside to verify that what she was hearing wasn't real.
One trick of her mind took her completely off-guard, however. The senior nurse from her nightmare opened the door and walked into the room, carrying a tray. On the tray was a shining silver dagger, at least a foot long. Amy gaped at her, wide-eyed, before she stumbled to the back of the room. There was a malevolent smile on the nurse's face that told Amy what she was there for.
"You're not going to kill me," Amy growled. She reached into her pocket to get her power stick and found it was gone. Then she remembered--Rei had it. Why had she stupidly given it to Rei?
"I'm not here to kill you, Amy," the nurse said, calmly.
"What's the knife for, then?" Amy snapped, pointing at the tray. She got to her feet--even if she couldn't change into Sailor Mercury, she was prepared to fight this.
The nurse held the tray out to Amy, who was ten feet away. She smiled, which only made Amy more cautious. "Look, I brought you some herbal tea. It's not a knife, Amy. I promise." She set the tray down on the floor and backed away toward the door.
Amy wasn't about to be tricked. `If it really is tea...' she thought with a knowing smile, and reached up to her earring. The blue visor instantly appeared over her eyes, and she took a good look at the tray. She blinked. She could see the knife, but the visor was showing a large amount of infrared heat near it, while the knife itself didn't even register.
Amy looked back up at the nurse, and realized that without the medical gown, she looked just like Rei. Amy closed her eyes and touched her earring again to dispel the visor. "I'm sorry, Rei," she said with a heavy sigh. When she looked back down at the tray, a steaming cup of tea was waiting for her, with no bladed weapons in sight.
Rei waited a few seconds before pulling a smile. "It's okay, I understand... I thought you might be thirsty. We don't keep coffee around here, but the herbs in this tea do have a bit of a stimulant effect, so they can help you stay awake."
Amy had already been bringing the cup to her lips, but she suddenly threw it down on the floor like it was poison. Her eyes went wide. "That's it..." she said, almost breathlessly.
"What?" Rei asked, backing up a little defensively. It worried her that Amy had so quickly become unstable again.
Amy didn't answer her, as she didn't hear her. She was concentrating on remembering what the nurse--Rei--had said in her nightmare.
"...According to friends, they were due to sleep deprivation."
`Not dream deprivation,' Amy thought. `Sleep deprivation.'
"It's not the nightmares that are causing the problem," she said, "It's that we can't sleep afterwards. Of course."
"What are you talking about?" Rei asked, bewildered. Amy was getting far too excited for someone in her state of mind.
Amy went over to her. "Rei, you study Shinto, right?" she asked, then shook her head. "Stupid question. You meditate and learn... Spiritual healing and mental calm..." She was practically blabbering to get the thoughts out of her head before she could forget them or become distracted.
Rei nodded, warily. "Yeah..."
"Then you know how to pass that calm along to others, right?" Rei nodded again, not sure about where this was going. "You can help me go to sleep even after the nightmare," Amy said.
Rei stared at her blankly. Even though she wasn't nearly in such bad shape as Amy, she wasn't mentally on top of things herself, and she wasn't even sure she would understand on a good day what Amy was saying.
Amy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "All our problems are due to not getting enough sleep... Sylvite may be able to control dreams, but he can't prevent them, or he just would have done that. So to prevent us from dreaming, he's keeping us up through the nightmares... But if we can go back to sleep after the nightmares, maybe several times... Then we might be able to get enough sleep to counter this..."
Rei still stared at her blankly. Then it registered. "You want me to help you go through that nightmare over and over again?" she asked, horrified. Amy really had flipped. There was no doubt about it. "No way, I'm not going to do that to you," she said, backing up and getting ready to call the others. Amy looked like she was about to go berserk at any moment.
Amy suddenly grabbed her arms, and Rei found herself slammed back against the wall with surprising force. There was a wave of fear that went through Rei as she tried to move her arms but couldn't budge them at all. Amy's blue eyes were blazing. "You WILL do it!" she growled at Rei. Suddenly, she noticed what she had just done, and, mortified, let go of Rei's. Amy looked away in shame.
"Please..."
Rei could see--and feel--that this was a sane, if very tired and upset, Amy. "Are you sure?" she asked, rubbing her back.
Amy shook her head. She was almost in tears. "No. But I've got to try. I... I can't take this anymore..."
The next five hours were the first opportunity that Rei had to put several techniques she had studied and practiced to the test. Amy wanted to be relaxed to the point of sleep in spite of her anxiety about the nightmare. Rei felt she could accomplish it, but her method differed considerably from the one that Amy had used on Darian days earlier.
Amy lay on a soft mattress that Rei spread on the floor. After a few calming words, Rei had proceeded to massage several points in Amy's body, especially the shoulders, which she found to be like iron. When Rei was satisfied with the result, she sat down next to Amy and began her own meditation, focusing on passing the peace and calm that was building in her own thoughts into Amy's.
The most difficult problem was Amy's state of mind. She was extremely paranoid and tense, especially when Rei made her close her eyes. It took three attempts before she could remain still and trust Rei. Once she did, however, the treatment worked like a charm. Amy finally lapsed into a sleep, although it was not exactly peaceful.
Rei remained by her every moment, in case she should awaken in a fit or something else went wrong. After about fifteen minutes, Amy's body came to an almost complete rest.
Rei watched her lie there peacefully for a few minutes before beginning to get anxious. She wasn't about to fall asleep herself, but she did need something to occupy her mind, and to keep it from wondering how long it would be before she wound up like Amy. She had some of the symptoms--a headache, some dizziness earlier on in the day, but she didn't have too much trouble thinking. How long before she lost that ability, before she started seeing things too? It was a blessing that she was able to get some form of rest from her meditation without necessarily having to dream, but it would catch up with her sooner or later.
The notebook in which Amy had been writing was on the floor, and out of sheer curiosity, Rei picked it up. If it was personal, she could find something else to read.
Determining whether what Amy had written was intended to be private or not turned out to be difficult. Rei was completely baffled by most of the scribbling in the notebook--much of it was too sloppy to make out and some of it plainly didn't make any sense. If she hadn't been seen working on it earlier, Rei would never have believed that Amy had written it.
Rei flipped through the pages, almost two dozen of them, and found only snippets here and there that were legible. Apparently, though, Amy must have improved slightly at some point during the hour she had spent alone. Almost five pages were distinguishable, sensible--and interesting.
Stripped of her computer, and perhaps her reliable memory as well, Amy had compiled a list of the details they knew--everything about Sylvite, the monsters' attacks, the dreams the girls had gone through. There were little squiggles, and arrows that connected one fact to another, as though Amy was trying to piece it together.
What was really fascinating, though, was what must have been Amy's attempt at drawing up a plan. Sylvite's plan. Everything they believed Sylvite to have done was there, some of it accompanied by a logical explanation of Amy's. Rei, intrigued, waded through the unusually poor grammar.
From what Rei could make out, and according to Amy's predictions, the two of them had been prime targets of Sylvite, due to Rei's spiritual awareness and Amy's intelligence. Molly and Serena had been the other two targets, Molly to be used as blackmail against Neflyte, and Serena because she had the Silver Crystal. Next to Darian, Lita and Mina were big question marks, although Amy did add "Serena distraction?" next to Darian's name.
At the end of the list of places where the monsters had attacked was an even larger question mark, and "No connection." And where Amy had drawn a spot labelled "Conclusion" there was nothing but a blank. Rei wasn't surprised. Even with all these facts in front of her, there was seemingly no way to make sense of it. Amy knew it too.
The few pages after Amy's incomplete plan were filled with unanswered questions, mostly unimportant, but ones that Amy probably thought could provide her with the details she needed. How did Sylvite know Beryl wanted him killed? Why didn't Sylvite strike at Serena first? Who was protecting Mina? Where were the monsters coming from? Why--
Rei looked back. "`Protecting Mina?'" she echoed aloud, puzzled.
For the past half hour, unnoticed by Rei, Amy had slowly returned to a state of activity in her sleep, and now interrupted Rei's reading of the notebook by snapping awake with a wide-eyed gasp. She jumped back when she saw Rei, but the fear only lasted a few seconds, and she relaxed.
After two minutes, Amy had calmed down greatly from her nightmare. Rei helped her sleep again...and again, and again. Rei continued to look over the notebook until she had seen everything that could be understood in detail. She was now relatively sure that Amy would have no difficulty in sleeping or in rousing Rei when she woke, so she set to meditating after each time Amy went to sleep, hoping to get some rest out of the evening.
By the time the dim light of sunrise was beginning to show through the thin walls of the room, Amy felt like a new person. She knew she wasn't anywhere near her peak performance physically or mentally, but compared to the wreck she had been only a few hours earlier, she felt wonderful. The details of the night before were a jumble, but one thing she remembered with clarity was that she had not enjoyed it one bit. Not being able to trust her own mind was a terrible experience she never wanted to relive.
She was cheered by the success of her idea, the first breakthrough against their enemy. She could almost easily push the haunting images of the nightmare away from her thoughts, something she hadn't been able to do in days. She was hungry, which was also a good sign; she had been unable to eat since the previous morning.
Her spirits were dampened a little when she saw Rei, who was looking exhausted. Amy realized that Rei couldn't use the technique on herself, nor would she probably be perform much of it for the others in her condition now.
The solution hadn't bought them much time, after all.
Amy opened the door and took a look out into the temple yard. Judging from the sun's position, it was probably close to six o'clock, plenty of time to get ready for school, as Amy had decided to go in spite of how she felt.
Rei was also hungry. Her grandfather and Chad were both still asleep, so after the two girls changed into fresh clothes, they had breakfast alone.
"Rei..." Amy started, "Thanks for--for--"
"--looking after you?" Rei finished, with a smile that seemed to wipe away Amy's embarrassment. "Don't worry about it. Besides, you might have to do the same for me before this is over."
"I hope you don't have to go through that," Amy said, grimly.
"Yeah, me too," Rei said, her mind turning to worry again and she quickly shifted her attention to the notebook. She handed it to Amy, who was in the middle of eating her toast. "I was looking over all that stuff you wrote down last night. I hope you don't mind."
"What stuff?" Amy asked, through half a mouthful of food. She looked down at the notebook, and her chewing slowly ground to a halt. She swallowed, hard. "This... Doesn't make any sense," she said.
"I was hoping you would be able to tell me what some of it meant. You don't remember writing it?"
Amy made a face as she flipped through the notebook. "A little, but it was nothing like this."
"Actually, some of it's pretty brilliant," Rei said, turning to the pages where Amy had tried to outline Sylvite's plan. "You're a genius even when you're crazy, Amy."
"Based on last night, if this theory is correct, then Sylvite does have reason to regard you and I as a threat..." Amy agreed with herself. "But why would he need Darian to distract Serena if he was going to use nightmares against her anyway?" She smiled. "I wasn't thinking very straight, certainly."
"What about this?" Rei asked, again turning the pages, this time to the unanswered questions that Amy had compiled. Before Rei had put the notebook away for the night, she had circled the question that grabbed her attention, so it now caught Amy's.
"But nobody was protecting Mina," Amy said, looking up from the notebook, a curious expression on her face.
"That's what I thought, but you must have had a reason for putting it there last night," Rei said. "All the other questions make sense."
Amy thought about it, perplexed that something she could understand while insane would now elude her. She looked back at the question, and suddenly the missing piece of the puzzle fell into place. It all made sense.
`But if that's so--'
Their communicators beeped, and a sliver of fear ran through Amy as it occurred to her that she was too late.
