The Blind Diviner

Cosima slowly came to wake, feeling startled as she took in the unfamiliar surroundings. Her arms hurt, she couldn’t close her hands. She looked down to see that they were bandaged securely and that she had a cocktail of I.V.s hooked up to her. There was a tube up her nose and she wanted nothing more than to pull it out. She looked around and saw a remote with a help button on it. She hit it repeatedly. Not a minute later, a nurse rushed in, surprised to see her awake.

“It nice to see you up, Cosima.” The nurse talked to her like she knew her.

Cosima wanted to breathe on her own desperately and the nurse was already paging for a doctor. She insisted that the tube will be taken out momentarily and just to relax. Cosima couldn’t though because last she remembered she had that voice in her head again. It showed her things. Things that made her bones shake in their sockets from fear and disgust. It took her breath away like it had back in the fire and choked her until the eyes rolled in the back of her head.

“Ms. Hearst,” a voice greeted her, walking into the room. “We hadn’t expected you to be waking up for a few more days. I’m glad we were wrong. Let’s get that tube out, shall we?”

The nurse removed the tape over the tube. “You’ll feel some discomfort, dear. You will also be short of breath when it is taken out, we’ll give you some oxygen immediately after.”

The doctor carefully tugged the tube and Cosima gagged as it brushed up her throat. She coughed repeatedly as she breathed in deeply but an oxygen mask was placed over her nose and she gratefully took it for a minute. Once she felt okay, she handed it back to the nurse.
“I’ll have the respiratory therapist come in and see if any mucus needs to be drained from your lungs and to make sure everything looks as it should. I’ll then come back and we’ll talk about what’s been going on with you, okay? I’m also going to have an electrophysiologist come and see if we need to implant and ICD. But for now I just want you to try and relax.”

Cosima nodded, seeing the nurse handing her a box of tissues. She blowed her nose multiple times before the thin tissues started to irritate the tip of her nose. The nurse took her vitals, adding something through her I.V. Cosmia looked out the window, feeling tired although she’d been out for who knows how long.

“How long was I unconscious?” Cosima asked the nurse before she left.

“Well, I’d say a week. You gave everybody quite a scare.” Cosima heard her mind, ‘I prayed like hell for this girl.’

Even though Cosima wasn’t particularly religious, she appreciated the sentiment. The nurse left her door open a little and she had a whirlwind of questions. Mostly though, she wondered if she had gone crazy. That voice and the invisible force trying to kill her? Maybe there were stranger forces at work on Earth than her being able to read people’s minds. That thought scared her deeply.

Reed was sitting at his desk, going over the pictures taken from the fire at Cosima’s shop. It was ruled that it wasn’t arson, although the investigator found it strange that he found no cause or accelerate involved at all. Like the place had spontaneously combusted. There weren’t any patterns that raised any red flags.

They had yet to see the pictures of her injuries. Reed however looked at the pictures of glasses pulled from her and felt sick to his stomach when he heard that some tendons were severed in her left hand and arm. She would need physical therapy to use it again, but it still could be weak for the rest of her life.

He tossed the pictures back down on his desk, leaning back in his chair. He had been beating himself up all week. The department looked through everything. There was a security camera across the street. When zoomed in and cleaned up, you could see into her shop. Reed would be lying if he didn’t think that she was acting funking before that place went up in flames. The whole thing was rubbing him the wrong way, he felt it in his gut.

His thoughts disappeared when his phone rang. “This is Detective Reed.”

“Reed? This is Dr. Hughes from St. Ann’s. I’m calling to tell you that Cosima is awake and will be available for visitors in a few hours.” Reed caught himself smile a little but cleared his throat.

“Thanks, doc. I’ll pay a visit then.” He hung up the phone and went to Scad’s office.

He knocked on the door, leaning in. “What can I do for you, Reed?”

Scad’s looked at him and set down the file of papers he was holding. “Got a call that Cosima Hearst woke up. Doctor said she’ll be ready for visitors in a few hours.”

“Good,” he nodded, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t know if she was going to make it for awhile, good on her.”

“Yeah, me too.” Reed paused, “did you want to be the one to visit her or could I possibly do it? She may feel more comfortable with me present.”

“I’ll think about it.” Scad’s looked back down to his paperwork, dismissing Reed.

As he was walking back to his desk, his phone on him started to vibrate. He saw an unknown number, answering it. “This is Hunter, who’s this?”

“Hunter? Detective Reed?” He heard a hoarse voice on the other end, it sounded like Cosima.

“Cosima?” He stopped walking, shocked to be hearing from her and that she even remember his number.

“I’m going to assume that you or someone is going to come and talk to me but I want you to stop investigating whatever happened.” He didn’t know how afraid Cosima was, she just sounded weak.

“I, uh, that’s not up to me, Cosima. Do you want to tell me why you’re saying this?” Reed really wanted to be there to ask what had happened to her.

“I’m just telling you, that in the best interest in everyone involved, don’t pursue my case any further.” Reed then detected the fear in her voice.

“Is someone making you say this, Cosima? Did the person that did this to you threaten you?” Reed made his way back to his desk, typing on his computer to look at the security footage again.

“No,” Cosima insisted. “It is just me requesting this. Drop the case and forget about it, okay?”

The line went dead and Reed looked at his phone with a bewildered expression. That didn’t seem like Cosima. The girl who was so adamant that someone was breaking into her shop just last week. Her pleas to not investigate only made him want to investigate more. Reed decided then he wouldn’t wait the few hours, he would go the hospital then, Scad’s approval or not.

Cosima had hung up the phone just as Dr. Hughes walked in. “So it looks like you won’t be needing a ICD. You cardiac arrest was caused by the seizure you were experiencing just before it happened. But we are going to closely monitor your heart while you’re here and for a few months after you’re released just to be safe.”

“That’s absolutely fine.” Cosima smiled a little too hard, trying to seem like she was becoming okay.

“As for the injuries you sustained,” Dr. Hughes sat in the chair next to her bed. “The glass that was removed from your hands, arms, and shoulders, left some mess and required some fixing up. Two of the shards though severed a tendon in your left hand and forearm. After you were stable enough, we went into surgery and repaired it. You also have some burns on your feet and around your ankles. Luckily, they’re all pretty minor second degree so you were out for some of that pain. There was some odd discoloration and broken capillaries around your neck. We aren’t quite sure where you got that from but that should heal soon on its own.”

Cosima looked down at her lap, sighing. “I’m just all sorts of screwed up, aren’t I?”

Dr. Hughes’s smiled and rose to his feet, “compared to where you were your first night here, you’re golden.”

“Thank you, Dr. Hughes.” Cosima sincerely told him as he peeked at the files in a slot on her door.

“Don’t mention it, Cosima. You get some rest. A nurse will come and check on you in awhile.” She smiled again but it faded as soon as he left.

Cosima looked out the window again, her veins feeling like ice as the last thing she saw before she went unconscious flashed in her head. The blood and the open gashes that were still bleeding freely. A talon clad hand ripped a throat out by its roots, tossing it to the ground like slop, bone crunching under the step of the perpetrator step like gravel.. A sharp blade glinting as it cut a torso open, the guts dispersing from their packed spots as if it were molten lava.. Lastly, the carving work it did over the open eyes. X’s over each one like they had been canceled out, blood pooling into the dead eyes. All of it was disturbing but it didn’t touch who see saw the monstrosity being performed on. It was herself.