Polar Sights

by Alexis in

            The car pulled over with a sudden jerk on the side of the road. The brakes screeched in protest to stopping so quickly and from such a high, crazed speed. A girl stumbled out. She was dirty, ragged, and a haunted look clouded her face. She looked like she had been pulled from the wreckage of a building. Though that was close to what had happened. She threw a fast glance over her shoulder before running off. It was such an uneven run you would ask if she had a broken limb, or was drunk.

Another person yanked the passenger’s door open and ran after the girl in a rage. She was in a similar state as the girl, but not in such distress or nearly as beat up. The woman didn’t run in a straight line either. She only ran on the shadows and slowed down tremendously when she was in the sunlight. It was as if she lost her power then. The young girl stumbled on, and at some points was reduced to crawling before she could get up.

Though to the girl’s advantage the field was very well lit. The bad part that slowed her down was that it was rough and uneven, and in some places muddy. The girl ran in such a crazed state that her only thought was to keep moving and don’t get killed.

The woman following her was in a rampage seeing nothing but the light and dark of the landscape and the girl. She looked poised to kill. She slowly lost ground to the girl because of the location. Although, to her advantage the sun was getting ready to set soon and the night would be hers. She sneered, victory looked close to her reach. The girl was so badly injured she couldn’t possibly keep moving for much longer, nor could she still put up a fight when night fell. Worry slid into her mind only slightly, she could no longer see the girl.

Seriah kept running for her life. She had encountered all different types of Darks, but never one so persistent. Her eyes sagged. ‘No! I need to stay awake. I need to keep-‘

A man was walking out of the building where he worked. The place was to stressful. Each day was flooded with people in need and it hurt him to work in that environment. Sometimes he just needed some air. He slowly lowered himself onto the bench near the edge of the property. He scanned the field to his right. The sun was setting. He would need to pack up soon and get into one of the guarded “bright light” which was just a nickname for a car with many lights that transported people around who worked for large companies. Here in the city there was no need for that much light because the Darks rarely came this close to the cities. They stayed in older places, not like the city. Also they weren’t as bad as some people thought people didn’t really know what a Dark truly was. They were complex.

The man cleared his head and let his mind wander to happier thoughts, other than work. He looked at the sun getting lower and lower in the sky. His eyes followed one by one the rays down. His eyes landed on a silent unmoving figure. He quickly stood up and walked over.

It was clearly a girl. She was unconscious and had many wounds. He pulled out his staff radio and called the crisis center. “Radio in. We have a young girl, she is unconscious with many deep wounds. She is bleeding heavily. We need help. Radio out.”

He started to lift her up then thought better of it. He had a deep gut feeling that something was very wrong. It wasn’t like she’d gotten into a gang fight, or jumped. It looked like she was attacked and beaten. He surveyed the scene. Something made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Who ever said that as humans we only have five senses was wrong. We have six; smell, taste, touch, hearing, sight, and that mysterious sixth, the one that warns you of danger. The one that tells you that someone is looking at you from behind. When you have a dream that warns you of something, when you have déjà vu even though you really haven’t had the event happen to you before. The one that senses the tension in a room, the sixth sense of just knowing.

“Radio in. We are sending a team of emergency doctors. They will take the injured person to doctor Maven. Where are you?”

“Radio in. I’m in the south field.”

“Radio in. What is the patient’s condition?”

“Radio in. Critical.”

Silence.

Silence.

The doors are flung open from the north side of the hospital. A group of doctors comes rushing out with a stretcher and medical supplies. The man looks at the girl to check her breathing. In the corner of his eye he sees it. He whips his head up. Nothing. Apprehension builds in his mind, tension in his body. A moment later he sees it on the edge of the horizon near the trees that line the field. He knows that there could be a thousand reasons as to the appearance of a Dark, if it is a Dark. He knows that he shouldn’t judge, much isn’t known of them. He knows they can be sinister, a different kind of people. Some won’t call them people, some call them things, creature’s, monsters. Though they share the same anatomy as humans. He can’t seem to separate the connection his mind is making of the wounded girl and the Dark.

The medical team arrives. And gets the girl, rather roughly, onto the stretcher. This concerns the man. She is hurt and they don’t seem to know how to handle a person gently. He grimaces. Following the team into the hospital the man glances back to the field. The Dark is no longer there, probably lost interest, gone to chase new game.

The girl is lifted onto a fresh hospital bed once they are inside the hospital. She is in a very poor state. They reach the top level of the north wing and guide the bed to doctor Maven. He is in his office filing some papers. He obviously didn’t hear the call for his help to the young girl.

Sariah opened her eyes and saw white, the sky? She sat up with a jolt and started to swing her legs over the railing of the bed. The medical crew saw her leaving the bed and made a great effort to put her back. She was clearly panicking. Doctor Maven yelled above the crowd, “Careful! Not so rough! She is in critical condition! Don’t touch her wounds.”

The team got her back into the bed. The man who found her told her, “Don’t be scared. You are in the hands of good doctor’s. You are in a hospital. We will take care of you. Nothing will hurt you here.” After a moment she stopped struggling, but the wild look in her eyes never left. She was still ready for fight or flight, even when she was so badly hurt.

Doctor Maven looked at the girl carefully from behind the crowd. She had many puncture wounds to her right arm as if she was repeatedly getting attacked there. Her knee had a terrible wound. It was as large as a hand and it was all the wrong colors. She had a deep scratch down her neck, on the back. Worst of all was a deep wound to her stomach. He needed to tend to it fast because it was bleeding so much, dangerous. The worst part that made all of the wounds even worse was that the girl was filthy. There were bits of stones, dirt and grass in her wounds. This would make the infection hard to fight. He moved into the crowd and ordered them away. There was a shortage of doctor’s these days and the hospital was a new one. These men were trained to handle minor patients, but really they knew next to nothing in the medical field except how to treat minor wounds.

Sariah looked at the doctor. He was decent looking. He had on a crisp white jacket and a neat appearance. His face looked kind enough. As she was surveying him she happened to glance down at his shoes.

She jumped out of the hospital bed and bolted out of the room. A huge mod of large men grabbed her and roughly hauled her back into the room. ‘No!’ she thought, ‘No, they don’t understand. He will kill me! He will kill me! He’s a Dark! Don’t they know? How can he be in here? If a hospital isn’t safe, where is?’ She was panicked. She struggled as much as she possibly could. Her wounds slowed her down and at one point she got away for a split second only to fall over on the floor as pain took her off her feet. She got into the bed and three people held her there.

The doctor’s shadow stretched behind him, but he was in the shade. He was a Dark. People had a shadow in the light; Dark’s had them when there was no light.

“Dark, Dark! Get away from me! What do you want from me?” she said to the doctor. Then she addressed the men holding her down, “Don’t you see? He’s going to kill me! He’s not a doctor! Get me a doctor! I need a doctor.”

“Girl, he is a doctor.”

“No he’s not! Get me a doctor! Let me run.”

The men struggled to hold her down while she shouted in a panic. He’d never once in his life had someone react to him as strongly. She feared for her life. Most people he saw got scared, but when he explained to them that he was good, and someone else backed him up, they calmed down. It usually took people only till after he had helped to bring them back to health before they trusted him. A lot of people feared him because he was a Dark, but they don’t know what a Dark really is. He was reformed and he was good. This would be hard to get across to this girl. He was genuinely worried because she was losing so much blood. Also in her struggling she was hurting herself even more. He needed to get her into surgery and help her. He just didn’t know how to do this.

He wished that there were another doctor who knew enough to take this case because he seemed to make it worse. The nearest able doctor would get here in a half an hour, that was too much time.

The doctor walked up to Sariah. This caused her to struggle more, which made the doctor pause. He looked worried. Sariah quickly pushed the thought out of her head, that isn’t possible. She paused in her struggle as she thought this. The men paused to. It was like a movie when you hit the pause button and everyone in the scene freezes. Then Sariah jumped up and pulled herself free of the men holding her down. The moment of shock made the men still freeze. Only two seconds later they all ran down the hall after her. She actually made good time considering her wounds.

A roll of pain collapsed Sariah and the men gained ground. She hauled herself up and kept going. It was too late. They grabbed her. She shouted and twisted. Then it was black.

Doctor Maven ran in the group of people to the girl, she needed to calm down. He pulled out a needle and stuck it into her leg. She stopped moving and went limp in the man’s hands that were holding her.