Sky and Aesthetic

The girl had been missing a few times before now—usually for further experimentation. But for all three of their free time breaks from observations and alterations meant only one thing.

She had to be in the Medical Bay.

He didn’t know much about the quiet girl, other than the fact that she had problems with her heart. There was always a big, white bandage over her chest that just peaked out over the neckline of her plain white gown, but he would never ask her questions about it. They only got to see each other during mealtime and free time, so discussing the things they were put through in between was something neither of them wanted to commit any time to. She didn’t want to talk about her heart as much as he didn’t want to talk about his eye.

In fact, they didn’t talk much at all. They just had a common denominator that seemed to draw them to each other.

Sylus had watched kids come and go from this place for a few years, hoping that one day it would be his turn to leave. That futile hope had been short lived, and it became clear that he wasn’t going anywhere when all the other kids around him dropped off like flies. 

When she came in with a new group of kids around a year ago, he thought nothing of it. She was just a face he’d forget after she would undoubtedly be released. But as those weeks turned to months—the few children she had arrived with long gone—her face had remained a constant for Sylus.

He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that she’d finally been freed today. The people in the lab coats were far too interested in her as of late, and she was starting to look more withdrawn each time he saw her. Much like he had when he woke from an operation he didn’t know he was having.

The more he thought about her condition, the more he hoped that she was in the Medical Bay—rather than somewhere more sinister.

He’d grown a bit of an attachment to the girl. She was the only friendly face that hadn’t left him. Even in their lack of conversation, he enjoyed her company. Felt comforted by her. They often read in silence side by side, always in whichever back corner of the Playroom was free of other kids. The less significant test subjects always delved straight into the toys and games, but the two of them had no interest in joining in.

Sometimes, if the lab coats had prodded around in his eye too much, the girl would quietly read aloud to him. He liked it when she read to him. So much so that he sometimes played on his eye problems just to hear her read for an hour.

He was used to her being absent for one or two of the three free hours they get, but this was too much for him. 

He had to get into the Medical Bay.

His head had purposely been rested against the electric heater beside the bookshelf for a few minutes as he made himself appear as clammy and feverish as possible. His cheeks burned as he pinched them repeatedly, and he put on his best nasally voice once he approached the Playroom supervisor with a little book tucked under his white t-shirt, rubbing his good eye for added effect.

“I feel sick,” he whined to the stone-faced woman in all-black clothing.

She barely threw down a glance at him, raising a lazy eyebrow. “You were fine during dinner.”

Damn.

Plan B came into quick effect. He rolled his eyes back a little, swaying where he stood. The hot skin of his forehead bumped against her hipbone as he stumbled forward dramatically, and she quickly bent down to his level, steadying him with her firm hands.

“Oh for goodness sake,” she mumbled, her frown deepening when she pressed the backs of her cold fingers against his head. She pulled out a little radio device that was tucked in the chest pocket of her shirt, speaking into it frankly with a push of its button. “Patient S013 is feeling unwell. Feverish. Permission to move from Room 11 to the Medical Bay?”

Sylus held his breath, willing whoever was on the other end of the radio call to grant the cold woman the permission he didn’t know she would need. He’d only ever been to the Medical Bay once before, and hadn’t ever wanted to return. Being examined and tested by strange scientists everyday was bad enough. He had no interest in spending time with the nurses who tended to him after his surprise surgery.

“Permission granted,” a male voice affirmed through the radio.

The stern lady grabbed suddenly at his shoulder, pushing him lightly out of the noisy room and down the silent halls. He liked when they were silent. He’d heard enough screams from children to haunt him for life.

The walk to the Medical Bay was short, and Sylus remembered to throw a few sniffles and pathetic coughs into the silent trek to keep up his charade. He must’ve still looked red faced and sickly, the nurse on duty handing him a gown to change into straight away upon his arrival.

He changed as quickly as he could behind a curtain that gave him only a sliver of privacy, tucking the book he’d smuggled from the Playroom into the inner fabric. The nurse checked his vital signs In the small triage room with nothing but a blank look on her face for comfort. Nobody around here tended to smile or show any true emotion towards the children. 

It didn’t affect Sylus at all. He didn’t know any different. Didn’t remember a time when someone smiled at him. Or when he had smiled at someone else. 

He wasn’t sure if he ever had.

The small, sterile Medical Bay was empty as he followed the nurse inside—save for the tuft of the girl's hair he could see peeking out above her blanket. He almost audibly sighed with relief to see her, but the fact that something was wrong enough for her to even be in the Medical Bay struck alarm bells in his head.

“Patient S113 isn’t feeling good, so try to be quiet,” the nurse told him. She pulled back the covers of the bed next to the girl, hurriedly ushering him to get in before giving him a syringe of medicine to take. “I’ll check on you in a few hours.”

He nodded, waiting for her to turn around before he took a look at the sickly girl a few feet away. The skin on her face was shiny and damp in the stark light of the strip lights above them. She didn’t look well at all, and had the thin, white blanket pulled right the way up to her chin.

The nurse administered a dose of something fluorescent yellow to her in another syringe, pressing her hand to the girl’s damp forehead with a tut. Sylus could’ve sworn that the nurse sighed a little in concern.

“That medicine should make you feel a bit better soon. Try to sleep,” she murmured to the girl quietly, moving the strands of hair that were stuck to her skin before leaving the room. 

He didn’t know what to do once the nurse closed the door behind her. The quiet girl looked so…deathly. Her colouring was a good few shades lighter than it usually was, and there was a greyish tinge to it too. Whatever was going on with her, it didn’t look good.

“What happened?” he blurted quietly.

She slowly turned her head towards him, blinking a few times to focus her eyes. They widened a little when she realised it was him.

“Hi,” she whispered, her voice small and croaky.

The sound hurt something in Sylus’s chest. “What happened?” he repeated again, sitting up a little further in the bed to get a good look at her.

The girl lifted a shaky hand, pointing straight to where her heart was. “I think it’s broken,” she replied.

Sylus frowned a little. He didn’t know that hearts could break. Bones could break, he knew that much. He’d seen broken bones quite often in this place. Her heart wasn’t like most people’s—he knew that too. 

But it couldn’t break. Right?

“Are they going to make it better?”

She blinked at him a few times, and he really studied her. This was the most they’d ever said to each other in conversation, but it didn’t feel strange or wrong like he thought it might. It felt natural. Almost like they were both still here in the wake of so many other young patients’ departures for a specific reason. 

He found himself wanting to know more. He wanted to know everything about her heart—including how to fix it.

Her weary eyes glanced around the room for any listening ears, and she shifted the blanket down from her chin so she could see over it. She eventually whispered back to him, “I’m not sure that they’re even trying to fix it.” She took a shuddering breath in, wincing a little bit. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

That’s when he noticed it.

In the absence of the blanket, he saw the gnarly tail end of a stitched up incision where he would usually see a bit of the bandage she always donned on her chest. He may have been young, but he knew without having to ask what the lab coats had done to her. They’d done the same thing to him once before. Put him to sleep without warning to poke and prod into the innards of his most interesting body part—his right eye. He had no idea why they were so interested in it, or why they were equally as interested in her heart. But whatever the reason, it was mutually exclusive to the two of them.

“They’ve done that to me, too,” he reassured her quietly, trying to shift that anxious look from her tired face. She didn’t know what was going on, so he felt a duty to soothe any worries on her mind. “I woke up in here with a big bandage over my eye before you came to live here. Couldn’t see properly for a few weeks, but it got better. Like your heart will.”

The girl looked apprehensive, but seemed a little bit more settled to know that he’d been in the same situation previously. They fell into a comfortable silence for a moment before she spoke. “You’ve been here for a long time.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but he answered like it was. He didn’t want to stop talking with her, hoping it was bringing her some semblance of peace. “I have,” he confirmed with a nod. “Me and twelve other kids were the first here. That’s why I’m patient S013.”

“Thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number,” she whispered.

Sylus cocked his head to the side, wondering if she was kidding. He’d never heard of that before, but if she was right, it would make perfect sense. Patients S013 and S113 being the two most focused on subjects in the lab coats’ top secret experiments did seem a bit too coincidental in his mind.

He sure did have a lot of time on his hands to think about things like that, too. She was the one hundredth kid after him to arrive, and ended up stuck here with him for the foreseeable. Maybe whichever newcomer unlucky enough to be patient S213 would end up in their same predicament.

“We’ll find our luck one day,” he finally responded, exuding all of his confidence into that one sentence. He was determined that he’d fight his way out of here one day, and that he’d be able to bring her with him. He wasn’t strong enough—not yet. But whatever they were doing to him here, he’d use it to his own advantage once he got a good understanding of it. “Maybe we’ll both get out of here, and we can see what the world is like.”

The girl smiled. Smiled at him, even in her state. It wouldn’t have been possible to not smile back, no matter how unnatural it felt for the corners of his lips to curl.

“Yeah,” she whispered. Her blinks were slowing down, and she looked sleepy. “That would be nice. I’d like to see the ocean one day, like I’ve read about in books.”

Sylus suddenly remembered the book he’d smuggled in, still resting coldly against his stomach beneath his gown. He quickly reached down into the neckline, grabbing it out and waving it up for her to see it.

“I could read to you, if you want? While you fall asleep.” He wasn’t sure if it would help her in any way, but the familiarity of a book seemed like the best form of comfort he could think of for her.

Her tired eyes lit up a little, and her smile widened. It struck something in Sylus’s heart, and for a moment, he wondered if he had a heart problem. He’d never felt such a feeling, but he liked it. It felt like a real feeling. Not just the horrible physical feelings of aches and pains.

It was a mental feeling. A caring feeling.

He settled himself back against the plump pillow behind him, opening up the book. It was a children’s fable that they’d read many times before, and the one book he enjoyed hearing her read. He checked on her once more, making sure she was still awake and eager to hear him read.

The idea of a book seemed to wake her up a bit from her fatigue, but even so, Sylus would read the book over and over until it lulled her into a peaceful sleep.

He quietly cleared his throat reading the title aloud the way she always does.

“The Kitten Who Met The Crow…”