AEGIS Seal

Official Report
Alameda General Hospital
Alameda, Idaho

Serena slipped into a chair and emitted a long sigh. She reached out snatching her mug from the tabletop and cupped it in both hands. She inhaled, taking in the rich scent of the coffee before taking a sip. Glancing sideways at the pair of doctors seated two tables away, she bit her lip.
 
The kitchen was closed after dinner time, and it was a little unusual to see anyone lurking about the cafeteria this late at night. It was one of the main reasons she took her breaks there when she worked nights instead of the employee lounge. Most nights she would have ignored them, but when she heard them speak it piqued her interest and for good reason.
 
“I tell you Phil, the girl is a nutcase. She was rambling on about some sorceress and a sword before attacking me with the IV stand. Thank God that orderly caught her. Who knows what she would have done?”
 
Sorceress? Serena blinked and set her coffee down, the girl with the sword said something about a sorceress.
 
She cleared her throat and leveled her gaze on Dr. Cadby, the one who’d been speaking. “Uh, doctor is that the girl in twenty-two? The Jane Doe?”
 
“Yeah,” Cadby nodded jerking around to regard her with saucer-wide eyes. “That’s the one, she’s a real freak show if you ask me.”
 
Without uttering a single word, Serena rose to her feet and moved away with quick yet furtive steps her coffee forgotten. She hadn’t heard of the girl’s awakening or the incident with the doctor. That surprised her, considering news like that traveled fast. Then again, she’d been in a funk most of the night and aside from interactions with patients she kept more or less to herself.
 
She sighed, moving through the hallway toward room twenty-two. Alameda General was a small hospital, which serviced Alameda, and its neighboring town Tondzaosha. It comprised a single floor and housed over three dozens bed. Yet, somehow when she traversed the corridors, the place seemed massive. Why would that be?
 
When she reached the room in question, Serena stopped outside the doorway, and cracked the door open. The room was cast in shadows and she could detect no signs of movement. The soft beep of the heart monitor coupled with the quiet whirr of the air conditioner were the only sounds her ears picked up. Not surprising, if what Dr. Cadby said had been true they would have sedated her.
 
“Hey!” A voice called out and Serena turned in time to see Aaron Callow, one of the hospital’s security guards, come running up to her.
 
“Step away for one minute,” he said, muttering curses under his breath, snaked his arm out, clasped the doorknob, and slammed the door shut in her face. “How the hell did this door get unlocked?!”
 
Serena pursed her lips and regarded the man arms folded across her chest and arched an eyebrow. She’d never liked Callow, he’d always been a little too terse for her tastes.
 
“The girl’s off limits unless your name is on this list,” he muttered jabbing a finger at a paper affixed to the door.
 
Serena sighed and nodded then turned away making her way toward the nurses station. She might as well return to work, her break would be over in a few minutes, anyway. As she moved, her thoughts turned to her oldest child as they frequently did since finding the girl. She hadn’t seen Andy in years, not since her then husband, Lucas, beat the child half to death.
 
The two bore no physical resemblance to one another and despite the girl’s small stature, she was an adult when Serena found her. It was the girl’s injuries that brought unpleasant memories to the forefront, and it was all she could do to keep herself from weeping when she thought of it.
 
Andy insisted from a very young age that she was a girl and neither parent had any idea what to do with her. Though Serena urged patience at first, Lucas had other ideas. He would not raise a sissy freak. What would the neighbors think? Worse still Andy possessed a strange ability to see into the past.
 
Lucas already threatened by Andy’s powers met her declarations of femininity with open hostility. He convinced Serena, that they need only dole out ‘tough love’ to rid Andy of such ‘ridiculous’ ideas. To her shame she’d gone along with it, and all the yelling and screaming that followed. If Andy said or did anything that Lucas construed as girly, Lucas flew into a rage. When his tough love approach failed, he came up with the bright idea to beat the child, Serena should have stepped in and put an end to it, but by then she had committed herself. Maybe it was for the best she told herself, but doubts began to surface.
 
It wasn’t until that fateful confrontation on the front lawn when Lucas beat Andy to within an inch of her life, Serena admitted the truth to herself, but by then it was too late. Child protective services stepped in and took away their children.
 
It left Serena an empty husk bereft of hope, wallowing in her own self-pity. Her marriage was a facade and had been for a long time. Eventually, she divorced Lucas, and started to pick up the pieces of her broken life. She enrolled in nursing school at the local community college, fought for custody of her children, and managed to get them back save Andy who was by then an adult.
 
Though the whole thing left a hole in her heart, she thought perhaps it was for the best. There were too many hard feelings and she doubted that Andy would ever forgive Serena for her part in that mess.
 
It was funny, she knew her child was living as a woman, but she had no idea what she was calling herself these days. What little she knew she gleaned from the handful of letters sent to her by her sister. After their parents died, a rift formed between the two sisters and when Andy went to live with Laura that rift became a chasm. Laura passed away before she had a chance to reconcile. Had it not been for her two remaining children and the forgiveness they granted her she would be a mess.
 
With a sigh, Serena returned to work, trying and failing to keep thoughts of her past out of mind.