Part Seven
“Where am I?” Sofia murmurs. She feels like she is waking from a week’s slumber.
“You’re in Deluvia. You had a nasty fall. It left you in a coma.”
Sofia opens her eyes and sees a nurse in a white outfit. Strange metallic smells surround her. “Deluvia?”
“Yes. You were found on a road out by the fork. You’re very lucky, Sofia.”
"How do you know my name -- " Sofia says.
The nurse only smiles at her.
“Ryan -- did you find Ryan?”
The nurse frowns. “There was nobody with you.”
“The village …”
“There’s no other village around Deluvia for fifty kilometers.” The nurse wipes Sofia’s forehead. “My dear, you were alone in the wilderness.”
Sofia feels a pain in her stomach. She screams. Several nurses enter the room. Lights flash on.
“What’s wrong?” they begin shouting.
“My baby!” Tears stream down Sofia’s cheeks.
“Sofia, please remain calm, Sofia.”
“I lost my baby!”
“Sofia, there is no baby -- ”
A nurse tranquilizes her. “Poor girl. There never was one.”
Sofia sits in a wheelchair on the balcony of a large building.
The sunlight feels soothing against her face. A doctor sits beside her.
“Do you know who I am?”
"You’re the man in my locket."
The doctor looks at the heart-shaped locket on her neckline. He squeezes it open and observes it for a moment. A puzzled look crosses his face. He shrugs. “It’s good to be reunited with you, Sofia. I am Dr. Wilson, and you were my patient for several years, when you were a small child and your mother was still alive.”
Sofia notices how his bushy mustache seems to dance along his upper lip when he speaks.
“Do you know where you are?” he asks.
“Deluvia, the farm city.”
The doctor smiles. “Deluvia, yes. A farm city, no. Deluvia is a pharma-city. A medical city.”
Sofia gazes along the expanse. Below her, tall buildings are accompanied by squat one-story structures for miles. Then a stone wall. Only nature exists beyond the wall.
“Do you know why you are here?”
Sofia shrugs. “To escape from the Noh.”
“Yes, in a way,” the doctor says. “NOH stands for Nocturnal Oculauditory Hallucination. It’s a symptom of your parent disease, otherwise known as Nocterminus. Other symptoms include lack of sleep, lack of hunger, restlessness, and excessive running.”
Sofia looks down at her lap.
“We cleared your current symptoms with medication, but Nocterminus is what they call a virulopathic retro fungus. A fungus enters your blood and when a retro virus invades you, the fungus takes the virus over, using the virus to insert its DNA into your own DNA. It’s a retro virus, really, but called a retro fungus because the DNA is fungal in nature.” He pauses. “Are you understanding your sickness yet Sofia?”
Sofia closes her eyes. She understands that she may never find another Ryan. She understands she lost her child.
“Sofia, you are lucky to be here. You’ll have to take medication for the rest of your life to keep the free Nocterminus out of your blood. Without medication, the NOH will return within 24 hours.” The doctor places a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to run anymore.”
Ryan enters her vision, yet her eyes are still closed. She smiles.
Satisfied, the doctor ends the appointment.
Read the poem about Sofia as she gazes from her hospital window
Read the final chapter:
Part Eight
Start at the beginning:
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six
"Escape from the Noh" is a short-story that is a combination of sci-fi and horror. As a writer, I enjoy deconstructing genres to see where I can mix them for a synergistic effect. I welcome feedback and will be publishing my 300,000 word epic novel "The Messiah" on Steemit in 2017.
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