I tried not to panic. Where was I?
I tentatively reached up and touched the low metal ceiling. It felt flimsy. My hands followed the ceiling’s contours and quickly hit the edge of what appeared to be a metal box.
I felt around with my feet as my pulse spiked, now frantic to figure out where I was. As I moved, a piece of paper attached to my big toe brushed my skin. I sucked in my breath.
Oh. No.
I remembered from CourtTV. There was only one place where tags were placed on toes. The morgue. Somehow I had ended up in the morgue.
I let loose a bloodcurdling scream and began kicking the metal wall beyond my feet. To my shock, as I kicked the wall, the metal gave in. It groaned as each successive blow dented it outwards.
On the other side of the metal I heard someone cursing.
“Help! Please!” I shouted.
I heard someone swear. “What in the world—”
Suddenly I was rolled out from my metal prison. I sat up, belatedly realizing that only a thin paper blanket covered me. I clutched it to myself and squinted up at a young man in scrubs. His face was pale and his eyes were huge as he stared at my lively appearance.
He began to back up. “I-I’ll go get …” He turned on his foot and sprinted out of the morgue.
I sat there, stunned by my surroundings. Had I—died? I tried to recall my last memories. I remembered wearing the white robe and being led into a dark room. Women dressed in shimmering garments gave me something to drink. Then it all went fuzzy.
For a moment that was all I could recall. Then a dizzying series of images came flooding back. There had been blood everywhere—and the awful convulsions. I put a hand to my mouth when I remembered the sharp, lacerating pain where my gums split open.
What had happened to me?
Distantly I heard a series of footsteps slapping against the linoleum along with the sound of rickety wheels.
The doors burst open, and a group of doctors and nurses came in, wheeling in a gurney. They placed me on it and began strapping various medical instruments to my body. Then the questions began.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Five minutes?”
“Are you experiencing nausea?”
“No.”
“Does anything hurt?”
“Not particularly.”
“How do you feel?”
I thought about this last question as they rolled me down the hall.
“I feel good.” I paused. “Actually, I feel really good.”
In fact, my senses were sharper than they’d ever been. I could see clearly all the way down the hall. And I could smell everything, from the chemical scent of disinfectant, to the underlying smell of bodily fluids—sweat, vomit, urine, blood.
I asked aloud the question that plagued me. “Why was I in the morgue?”
The doctor nearest me looked over. “Last night you were proclaimed legally dead.”
Chapter 7
All the tests indicated that nothing was wrong. My death and later resuscitation were inexplicable.
I lay for hours in the hospital bed as doctors monitored my vitals and analyzed my blood work. It was only once I tipped them off about my excellent eyesight and sense of smell that weird results began to appear.
I was able to read the entire eye chart down a hundred foot hallway. I could hear conversations through closed doors. I could pick up emotions by scent. And I had gained immense physical strength, as the mangled drawer in the morgue illustrated.
Even with this information, doctors had no idea what I was. Correction, supernatural doctors had no idea what I was. There was no name for what I had become, and no one had ever heard of a student Awakening only to die. So again, they put me in a hospital bed while they began analyzing my test results.
I was imagining shapes in the abstract wallpaper when there was a knock on my door. A doctor came in, followed by Professor Blackmore and a middle-aged woman in a conservative business suit.
The doctor addressed me. “Gabrielle, you probably know Dr. Blackmore.” I nodded, smiling at the quirky professor. He gave me a smile and a wink. “He’s been researching your case since it was reported last night. After your results were inconclusive, he suggested we use ulterior means to figure out what you are.
“This is Madame Levine,” the doctor said, introducing the woman. “She is a seer, and we brought her in to look into your future. We think she might be able to shed some light on what happened to you and what was Awakened in you last night.”
A seer? Someone was going to look into my future? This was beyond strange. Then again, compared to how I spent the last twenty-four hours …
Madame Levine came over and sat on the edge of my bed. “Have you ever had a reading?” I shook my head. “I’m going to take your hand to establish a connection,” she told me. “Then I will look into your future to see if we can figure out what you are. This should take no more than a minute or two.”