Chapter 13

A Warning

September 27, 2021

I went back to the doctor’s today. I know he said to give it a month before my follow-up, but this was mostly unrelated. I almost drowned yesterday. Normally, I would just keep going, but with free healthcare, why not have them take a look just in case? Thankfully, there were no questionnaires to fill out this time. I guess they have my stuff on file or whatever. The only problem was that I wasn’t alone in the waiting room. I swear this was on purpose, because not ten seconds after I sit down, who shows up and sits right next to me but Sarah from the library?

“Oh, praise be to the King!” she cheered in that sickenly sweet Snow White voice of hers. “I was hoping we would run into each other. I guess the King was willing, huh?” She elbowed me in the ribs. “I hope you’re doing okay. That was quite the tumble at yesterday’s service.”

I shook my head. “I just misstepped, is all. I didn’t see whatever platform there was.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Platform? Oh, sweetie, you really do lack faith. You don’t need to be looking for a platform. Just keep your eyes on Pieman, have faith in him, and follow his will, and you can do anything.”

“Don’t you mean have faith in the King?”

Sarah laughed. “You’re new here. I understand you must still be learning. Pieman basically is the King as far as we’re concerned. It’s like…” she paused and massaged her temples. “The way they explained it in my small group is that Pieman’s the conduit for the King’s power. He’s his prophet and his emissary, not the King specifically, but without Pieman, the King wouldn’t be able to make this little slice of Heaven here.”

I nodded. My gut reaction was to dismiss everything she was saying as culty nonsense, but I’m trying to keep an open mind.

“So,” I said, trying to steer the conversation away from theology, “What brings you here? Did your hyporegivoluntitus come back?”

She laughed. “Oh, honey, once that’s cured, you’re cured for life. It’s impossible to stop serving the King once you start. There’s nothing in this world that’s powerful enough to separate you from the King’s love.” She smiled and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m here to check on my fertility.”

I leaned back in surprise, but did my best to recover and hide my reaction. Sure, she’s had a hysterectomy, but who am I to tell her that miracles aren’t possible? Fuck, who knows? Maybe if I had her optimism, we would still be together, Luke.

“So, uh, what’s the doctor been saying?”

Sarah giggled. “Oh, he says I’m right on track. I really hope I get chosen to have Heaven’s child.”

I chose not to ask her to elaborate. I’m just gonna assume it’s their way of talking about finding a husband or some shit. Like I said, I’m trying not to judge. Anyways, I got called back pretty soon after, so I was able to escape that awkward conversation. Dr. Hernandez was waiting for me in the room when I got there.

“I saw what happened yesterday,” he mumbled. “Quite the tumble. I’m assuming you’re here for thart?”

I sat down and nodded. The doctor paced back and forth without looking up from his clipboard.

“Hmm, yes, I see.”

“See what?” I asked.

“Don’t interrupt me,” he snapped, still avoiding eye contact. “I assume your dreams are still persisting?” I waited to speak in case he had more to say. He glared up at me. “Speak, woman.”

“I, uh, yeah. They’re more vivid and clear.”

“I see, I see,” Dr. Hernandez mumbled. He reached into his labcoat pocket and retrieved an unlabeled pill bottle. “Take one of these twice a day with food until it is finished.”

“I’m sorry,” I asked, “But what is that?”

“Who’s the doctor?” he replied. “Look, with your worsening symptoms, your fall, and your dreams telling you to leave…”

“I never told you what happened in my dreams,” I interrupted.

“Shut up, woman,” he snapped. “Stop interrupting me.” He threw the pill bottle into my lap. “You can either trust the man with the medical degree and take these, or you can trust yourself and die from your illness.”

I shot up in my seat. “I could die from this?”

“Correction: you will die from this if you do not take these pills. Look,” he said with a sigh, “I usually prefer more natural and homeopathic remedies mixed with faith and prayer, but, as they say, desperate times and all that.”

I stared at the pill bottle as I turned it over in my hand. The pills moved as one clump without rattling. I opened the bottle. The pills were yellowish-white with strange, irregular shapes. I grabbed one. It was soft, squishy, and moist. I’ve never seen any pills like it. Must be some sort of gummy or some shit. At the end of the day, though, he was right; he was a doctor and I was not. I’ve eaten literal garbage, too, so its not like these pills would even be the strangest thing I’ve put in my body.

He shooed me away like I was some bratty kid. As I brushed past him, I definitely heard him say, “Fucking slut.”

I spun around to face him with my hands on my hips. “Woah, what the fuck?”

He tilted his head without looking up from his clipboard. “Language, please. This is a holy place.”

“You just called me a fucking slut.”

He clicked his pen and wrote something down. “I’ll add auditory hallucinations to your symptoms.” He raised his eyes to stare into mine. “Look, if that’s what you think you heard, maybe there’s a reason for that. I would suggest confessing your sins to Pieman to get that weight off your chest.” He went back to scribbling notes down. “Now, off you go.”

Sarah was thankfully gone from the waiting room by the time I got back. I figured I should go get some breakfast or something from the cafeteria, but I got lost on my way. It was really fucking weird. Remember, I never get lost here. The place has always been so intuitive that I always wind up where I’m trying to get pretty fast. It’s strange. It was like I would be heading down halls I knew, that I’d gone down before, then when I turned, I was in a new hall, then I would hit a dead end, then back to the path I knew, then another dead end, and so on. It’s like this place was fighting itself. I know its probably just symptoms of hyporevivoluntitus, but I swear to King this place was rearranging itself.

After maybe ten minutes of this bullshit, I wound up outside in a place I hadn’t seen yet. There was just a patch of overgrown grass and a barbed-wire fence. It felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there. It was too simple and too unkempt for this place. It was bright and sunny, and it felt unusually warm for how high up in the mountains we were. On the other side of the fence, though, were Gabe and his mutt Mikey. Gabe looked to be in even worse shape than normal. He was covered in cuts and bruises, and he was drenched in sweat. The dog was fine, I guess, not that I give a shit.

“Oh,” Gabe called, “You made it.”

“What do you mean I made it?” I asked. I approached the fence. Look, I know I should have backed off since the stalker had literally followed me to the top of a mountain, but he did save me from Mr. Coexist. I thought maybe I could help him back. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Are you joining them too?”

Gabe coughed and spit some thick mucus onto the ground. “What? No, never. These people are evil.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I don’t know about that, Gabe. Look, I don’t agree with everything they do here, but they’re good people. They could help you like they helped me. They could at least get you some medical care. What happened to you, anyways?”

Mikey stuck his nose through the fence and sniffed at me. I took a step back in case he was thinking of biting. The dog took several deep sniffs before sneezing and whimpering. Gabe’s face went pale and his eyes went wide.

“You’ve been eating their food?” Gabe asked. His voice was shaky. “Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he cursed to himself, kicking the ground with each word. “No, no, it’s still okay. You made it here. It’s not too late. You haven’t taken communion.”

“Look, man,” I said. “I don’t know what your problem is with these people.”

As I said this, clouds rolled in, covering up the sun. It cooled off almost immediately. Mikey started growling at the sky.

“These people are just broken, struggling people trying to make the world a better place.”

Mikey’s growls progressed to barking.

“I don’t know how you got up here or how we bumped into each other, but you have to stop following me.”

Mikey’s barking grew overwhelming.

“And can you please shut that mutt up?”

I looked at Gabe and realized he wasn’t even paying attention. He was staring at the sky too.

“We can’t stay,” he suddenly said. “We have to go.” He grabbed the fence and rattled it hard, making me take a step back. “You have to get out of here before it’s too late. I promised I would keep you safe, ma’am. I promised…”

He was interrupted by Mikey howling like a wolf at the moon. Both of them turned and ran. I wasn’t about to hop a barbed wire fence and follow them even if I did trust that hobo, which I don’t. Whatever weird shit had brought me there was fixed, or my symptoms subsided, or whatever. Once I went back inside, it took barely a minute for me to make it to the cafeteria.I wasn’t sure if it was too early or not, but maybe I just wanted to spite that creepy old man and his ugly dog. I took my first pill. Let’s hope to King I start feeling better soon.

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