Me After Meeting You

If Amber could have predicted what would happen later, she probably wouldn’t have used those drawings to force Elly’s father into action. Or, at the very least, she would have tried a gentler approach, so as to slowly uncover the past with him.

Just as the nurse had noted, Elly was very gifted at drawing. Her drawings were filled with emotion. Amber had seen one, and just that single picture had made her feel as if her own heart had been dipped in a bitter brine.

The drawings that she had made in the darkness were filled with dark emotion. The main body of the drawing was composed of uneven, messy lines. But in the messiness, you could always see a hint of something else: anger, despair, and a sense of helplessness.

The nurses said that her drawings were likely of ghosts and malicious spirits, but Amber knew that that interpretation was false. Elly was drawing the world as she saw it: ugly, dismal, and corrupt. Compared to a flower by the roadside, even a maggot in a coffin would be cuter.

And just as Amber knew this, so too did Elly’s father.

After seeing those drawings, he left without saying a single word. Amber didn’t question him.

She continued to stay by Elly’s side in the evenings and through the night, the period when she was most active. For this reason, after Amber finished her work in the clinic, she had applied for a month’s worth of night shifts that the other doctors were all too happy to hand over. Her personality was serious, and once a patient was handed over to her, she felt that she should do as much as she could to cure them.

And she hadn’t wasted her efforts in vain, because, after almost a month since Amber had started accompanying her every night, Elly finally responded to her.

There were no signs that it would happen that day. As Amber entered, Elly had ignored her as usual. As Amber drew and talked to her, she didn’t respond either. Honestly, Amber had become somewhat disappointed at that point, and was planning to adjust her strategy for the longer term.

However, she was so tired that day that she fell a sleep by a corner of the wall again. In the middle of the night, she suddenly woke up, roused by movement to her side. When she opened her eyes, she saw Elly half kneeling beside her. Under the dim light, her eyes gleamed bright, just like the eyes of a little animal.

And then she felt something on her neck, something very sharp. She realized that it was most likely the drawing pen that she had given to Elly, whose nib was sharp enough to be used as a weapon.

Behind her, the door opened. The doctors and nurses on duty had realized that something was wrong and rushed in. As the door opened, light leaked into the room. However, the ones who entered were still careful enough to not rush in like a crowd of bees. The nurse on duty was the first to poke her head in, and she slowly called out, “Dr. Camille.”

Amber wasn’t going to die from being struck by a pen; she was more scared of startling Elly.

Seeing this, the nurse didn’t come in, but she didn’t leave either. Everyone just stood at the door and watched them alertly.

Elly didn’t seem to notice any of the commotion at the door. She just continued to watch Amber with all her attention, the tip of her pen slowly sliding across Amber’s neck as it traced her artery up and down.

Amber was afraid even of swallowing her saliva. She looked up at her, and then softly called out her name. “Elly.” Softly, again. “Elly.”

The pen on Elly’s hand finally stopped moving. She listened for a while, and then looked at her.

Amber tried very hard to relax, and made her voice as soft and warm as she possibly could. “Do you want to listen to a story? Shall I tell you a story? There was once a girl named Elly Brown. She was very scared of the darkness. In a pitch-black house, she yelled out, ‘Is anyone there? Please speak to me. I’m scared, and it’s too dark in here.'”

“That’s not right.” Elly suddenly spoke up.This is property © of NôvelDrama.Org.

Amber stopped breathing. She almost thought that she had misheard, but just a moment later, she heard her say, “That’s not right, it’s a little rabbit.”

Ambet smiled, and lightly replied, “Yes, I’m sorry. It’s a little rabbit. A little rabbit was scared of the dark, who yelled out in a pitch-black room ….”

She retold the entire story from the very beginning. Elly listened very attentively. The pen nib next to her throat made Amber very uncomfortable, but she didn’t move, almost as if she wasn’t cognizant of it.

After finishing the story, she asked Elly, “This place is so dark. Are you scared?”

“No,” she said, then quietly shushed Amber. “Be softer. Don’t wake them.”

“Who?”

“Ghosts, evil. Very evil ghosts.”

“Who… are they?”

“Ghosts, there. So many of them.” Elly knelt by her ear, started muttering “so many” multiple times in quick succession, and then finally let go of Amber while shivering. She climbed back into the bed, sat down, and started ceaselessly drawing again.

This seemed to be the start of the barrier between them breaking down. When Amber entered her ward again the next night, Elly let her stand even closer to her. Occasionally Elly would even talk toher. When she finished drawing and Amber asked if she could see it, she would even show her the drawings. Her antics, very reminiscent of a little girl sharing her secrets, made Amber’s heart ache and her mouth sigh with sorrow.

***

After that day, Elly’s father never visited again. Despite the arduous task a head of them, the police were also making progress little by little. They had found some new information and were following up on it now.

Everything seemed to be progressing in the right direction, but her perilous situation that day eventually made its way to the head of the department. First, her head came to talk with her, and then the director. In the end, Amber wasn’t able to avoid her fate of being brought into their office “for tea.”