Chapter 6 (post five)

Pre-note: So I edited my story a bit last week, but ended up changing the chapters. So I will try to keep posting in a logical fashion, but it's going to be really confusing for me now! :S Anyways, this is the next section of the chapter. I think it needs work but have been too busy and lazy to change it, so this is how it's going to be posted. lol. PS -- Thanks Gremikin for all your great comments :)

Chapter six, section five:

The floor was freezing at night; when there wasn’t sunlight streaming in the huge windows to warm it even a little. It was my last night in the hospital, my last night before I was sent off to school, and my last night in a place with a folder about me just down the hall. Maybe they’d transfer it to my school, but I highly doubted it, so I told myself it was my last chance again and again as I snuck down the hall.

Once I’d grown bored of the West End Secondary School’s website, I’d devised a new plan. At night, there was only the occasional janitor who passed down the halls, so I knew getting caught would be easy to avoid, but I had a much harder time figuring out how to get the keys. I’d figured it out when a janitor was walking down the hall, his keys sitting on top of the rim of a plastic bin full of garbage bags. I snatched the keys when he was emptying something, but was disappointed to find that it didn’t hold the gold key to that door I needed behind. Instead, I ended up switching the janitor’s keys with the head nurses keys. It was easy, as all the staff kept their keys on the same hospital-logo keychain.

I needed to know what was written down about me. I knew that they knew my size and that I was vegetarian, but what else did they know? What enticed me even more, though, was the fact it was labelled “McCalden, Annika” instead of “New Wings” or my new wings number (687 453 899)? The fact was I had been the only person to say my name since I arrived here.

It was late, even without a clock I knew it. I had packed the keys a sock so they wouldn’t jingle as I suck down the hall. When I got to the door, the only gold key fit perfectly. I found the light switch, the room was revealed to be skinny and long, lined on each side with filing cabinets. I closed the door silently behind me and entered what I deemed The Room of Names. Each filing cabinet held folders labelled with names upon names upon names. They were ordered alphabetically by last name, and I quickly scanned the filing cabinets. M for McCalden, A for Annika.

The file was piled high with papers. I sat down on the floor and began to lay them all out in front of me. There were a lot of hospital papers, but there were also a lot more. I found a photocopy of my health card, my birth certificate, my class pictures, forms and hand-written notes. Emails were printed out, letters were folded neatly.

I skimmed through the hospital and health files first. They had everything, health records from the day I was born to this day. I skipped the ones from when I was alive and began to read the ones from this hospital. They described drugs, tests and a surgery. I guess I arrived in Heaven the broken bloody mess that I was on the ground below the window on earth, a whole two weeks before I even woke up. They gave me drugs, set my bones, sewed me up and fixed my insides. Then they put me on bed-rest, which apparently I needed, as I slept for nearly two weeks. They had the results of all those basic skill tests they had me do those first couple days I was awake too, all perfect and with notes such as, “Keen, intellectual, able to focus and perform tasks.”

The pages afterward were jumbled, perhaps disorganized by the nurse who dropped them on the floor earlier that day. There was a whole page devoted only to my physical appearance, which included the location of my birth mark as well as all my measurements, explaining the perfectly fitting clothing that first day.

I found pages on my education. They had all my grades, teachers and schools from pre-kindergarten to the day I died on earth, but also odder things, such as my favourite class each year and my favourite project from each class.

My work history was short. Babysitting, a summer job cleaning, my volunteer hours for school earned at the local hospital.

There were pages devoted my family. There were write-ups on my parents, my siblings and even my pets and past-pets. There were notes on my feelings towards each one, as well, and similarities and other odd things. My pet hamster which I’d owned between the ages of four and eight got half a page. There was even a little picture of poor Fluffster.

There were a pile of papers of all the places I’d been, from simple school trips to the one vacation down to Cuba, as well as on all the different places I’d lived. The apartment I lived in with my parents until I was one, the little house my parents bought together and Noel was born in, the apartments my parents moved into when they divorced, the little house my mom bought, the larger house my mom bought, the city my dad moved to. My last house even included a page of pictures, one of which was my room. It had been messy that day, with clothes on the ground and a pile of homework on my desk. The picture I recognized as my little sister had taken the last week before school ended last year. I had been annoyed with Izzie, because she’d been running around the house taking pictures of random things as I tried to study for my Science exam. She’s gotten one of my empty room before I’d snatched the camera from her and told her to leave me alone.

The idea brought tears to my eyes, so I stuck those pages under some others and moved on.

A bunch of papers went on only about my friends, from the time I was only two. I found Kate, Diana and as I paused, Beth. I found pages on my personality, such as my favourite foods, my likes and dislikes, and even career quizzes I’d done. There were pages on everything about me, absolutely everything. My first period. My first crush. My first kiss. My virginity. As I read the last sheet, where my love life (or lack thereof) was printed, I paused. Had Jake seen this?

I should’ve seen the signs right then, I should’ve guessed something wasn’t right, but it hardly occurred to me. All I could think was, “How much has Jake read?”