”Go away,” Madeline groaned, waking up in the firm hospital bed with stars clouding her vision. Everything hurt. Muscles she didn’t know she had ached in rebellion, protesting the kinetic energy expenditure from last night. She blinked hard, clearing her vision of the specks and focusing her ire on the source of the commotion: two nurses wearing all grey medical uniforms including grey trapezoidal hats tending their charges.

  “Shut up,” she tried to say but her mouth just opened and closed silently.

  Spending a short second lamenting both the lack of comfort of the hard mattress - if such a thing could be referred to as a mattress - and the ease with which she’d gotten used to her plush dorm room bed, she tried to move. The sensation she’d received from her elbow as she tried to push up with it to sit up told her in no uncertain terms she’d died. She was now a dead person. Nobody could feel like this and still be alive for such things were completely outside the realm of all possibility.

  She groaned again, saliva not doing nearly enough to stop her vocal chords from crying out with every word. “Shut up, stop talking, it's hurting my brain,” but the bubbly nurses either heard and refused to obey her grouchy demand or they heard nothing.

  Madeline groaned louder this time and one of the nurses, the dark skinned, auburn hair one with narrow eyes came to her side.

  “Well, good morning sweetie, I sure was hoping today would be the day we’d see you awake. Any longer and your bestie might have shaken you,” the nurse laughed. “Sure don’t mind seeing the Quinn boy come ‘round here though, oh lord is he a cute one,” she laughed again, a high pitched infectious sound that only served to enhance Madeline’s headache.

  “What are you talking about?“ Madeline said, finally admitting defeat in her battle to sit up. “I want to sit up.”

  The nurse raised an eyebrow.

  “Please,“ Madeline added hastily.

  ”Well now that you mention it, sweet thing, I think I can help with that,” the nurse smiled broadly revealing perfectly straight pearly whites and then ducked behind her patient’s head, fumbling with the lever underneath the bed until she pushed up and like magic, Madeline’s position adjusted.

  The uncomfortable movement did nothing to improve her mood and she had to physically force her jaw closed to resist lashing out at the helpful nurse.

  “Thank you,” Madeline said instead.

  “That better, sweetie?”

  “Yes.” “Uh, what were you saying about my friend? And Florian?” She asked, fighting off a blush when she mentioned his name, another fight she lost in short order.

  “Well, that pretty dark haired girl with big eyes has come ‘round here every day twice a day since you’ve been in our care and she brought two others with her who she said you knew. The Quinn boy came with his two friends, the round one and the one with the scars on his neck - he’s a dangerous looking boy isn’t he? - they’re ever so polite but they’ve come to check on you. Those flowers there are from the pretty one.”

  Madeline turned her torso to look at the location the nurse pointed out. On a small side table next to her bed a vase overflowed with the purple flowers she’d liked so much. A tear welled in her eye, one that she quickly dismissed. Logically, she knew that people did nice things for others but an entire world existed between Madeline and one where people brought her flowers to cheer her up.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “They’re very nice,” Madeline said, voice as steady as she could make it.

  “Sure are, sweet thing,” the nurse responded, fluffing the pillow behind Madeline’s neck. She stepped away from the bed, waved at another patient, motioned over a short blonde assistant, whispered something to her and watched as she darted away. “So, my love, any more questions?”

  The other two with Talia must have been Willow and Hayden. Okay. So she had visitors, an unexpected development given her history of being a loner, but she needed the basics before anything else.

  “How long have I been here?” That question seemed as good as any.

  “This is day three.”

  Day three? It couldn’t be.

  “Impossible.”

  The nurse roared with laughter, mouth wide open, eyes nearly closed. “Sweetie, if that was impossible then I’d like to get all that time I spent changing your sheets back. Little thing like you has quite a bladder,” she laughed again, wiping a tear from her eye for a completely different reason.

  For the first time, Madeline noticed her attire. The sweats she’d worn to detention had been removed, replaced by a sterile apron that hooked around her neck, open backed but tied around her waist. Just tremendous.

  “You almost died,” the nurse said, returning to seriousness. “Never seen anything like what happened to you. Still don’t believe it to tell you the truth, I saw it with my own two eyes and you can’t convince me everything I saw actually happened. Lucky for Professor Taran being here, sweetie, she might be the only one in the whole castle who’s deep enough into the histories to identify and then fix ya right away. Lucky for you Professor Hutton found you and the Quinn boy in the hallway practically dragging you here, might not have made it if he didn’t float you down. Whole lot of luck your way that night.”

  “I don’t feel lucky,” Madeline grumbled, muscles continuing to protest her every twitch.

  “Well, ya are. Best accept it and maybe enter your name in the school fifty/fifty draw,” she said, laughing again.

  Madeline used the lull in the conversation to take stock of her surroundings. The smell of antiseptic lingered but didn’t overpower everything else, but then the beds were mostly empty this early into term. Her case also seemed to be the most serious by a good distance, the only other patient in the cavernous room with blood anywhere in sight gingerly took care of a nosebleed.

  “What happened to me?” Madeline asked the nurse.

  “Ah, that’s not for me to tell ya, sweet thing, that’s for someone like-,” she stopped speaking mid-sentence, and smiled. “Someone like Professor Taran. Say her name and she shall appear.”

  The motherly Maybel Taran had indeed entered the room, gray hair tied in a bun the same way she’d styled it the last time Madeline had seen her and the same way she’d styled it the time before that. Her energy seemed to have faded a little, the wrinkles in her face more pronounced. Still, her demeanor remained commanding.

  “Ah, yes, excellent to see you awake, dear,” Professor Taran greeted Madeline with a warm smile and a hand gently squeezing Madeline’s forearm. “I feared we might not have the chance to speak again.”

  “Professor, what happened to me?”

  “Could you bring me a stool, dear? I’ve been on my feet for nearly twenty-four full hours now and I’m not quite as young as I once was,” Taran asked the nurse who nodded, exited, and brought back a stool. Taran sat. “Forgive me. I’m getting the sense this is not going to be a short conversation, though I am going to cut you off and order your rest if you get excited. Fair?”

  “Fair, Professor. Please, what happened?”

  “Ah, these are such lovely flowers,” Professor Taran sighed. “They look so similar to the ones lining the walkway at the front entrance, don’t they? If I didn’t know better, I’d say whomever gave them to you handpicked the bunch, but that couldn’t be right as that person would be at risk of a punishment if caught and nobody would be empty-headed enough to risk punishment over flowers. That person would also have run afoul of the groundskeeper and that fate might be worse than the detention they’d surely receive. Ah well, I’m sure it’s impossible to catch them now.”

  Could the Professor be stalling? Madeline asked a very direct question two times in a row and yet she spoke about the flowers.

  “Professor, please,” Madeline repeated, a hint of desperation in her voice.

  Taran grimaced. “You died, Madeline,” the aged Professor said simply.

  Madeline cocked her head to the left and frowned. “Huh?”

  “You didn’t just die, you die. Rest in peace, Madeline Le Torneau. For a full minute, anyway.”

  “So I’m dead? This is what? The afterlife?”

  Taran smiled. “No, you’re alive, dear. It’s-,” Taran stopped herself, looking pained. “The texts don’t cover this part,” Taran sighed. “Remember what I said about ending the conversation and leaving if you get too excited?”

  “Yes, Professor, I remember.”

  With a deep inhalation and a subsequently deep exhalation, Professor Taran spoke. “Well, I suppose you have every right to know.”