Karen felt like she was no longer Karen. Even her face, with its now-permanent frown, didn’t feel like her face anymore.
Her new roommate started screaming again.
“Shut the fuck up, Lydia,” Karen heard herself screaming. “Know why they amputated your leg?”
Lydia stopped screaming just long enough to ask, “Why?”
Karen savored each word of her answer. “Because you deserve it!”
Lydia screamed even louder.
Karen hit the call button, delighted when it was answered by the middle-aged nurse. “Need one of your killer injections,” she said, nodding toward Lydia.
The middle-aged nurse looked at Karen. “Sure you won’t be needing a little one yourself, Blondie? As long as I’m here? I’m getting to like you, I am, but Lord Jesus Christ you can scream even louder than that Lydia.”
Frank! Karen remembered screaming so hard about his death that she didn’t think the whole planet full of people could, even if they all screamed at once, scream louder. But…
Frank? A slight twinge tightened her muscles at the thought of his death but…so very oddly…was then gone. She stared at the nurse, who she knew had almost killed her with one of her killer injections. But Karen didn’t care. Someone screamed in what was obviously excruciating agony in an adjoining room. She was amazed to find that she didn’t care even one little bit about that either. Fugettaboudit.
Karen smirked at the nurse. “That was another person, that version of me that used to scream. But she’s gone. You were right. I don’t have anything to scream about.”
