Fight, Flight, or Freeze: The Healer's Story
Chapter 96: A Fucked Up Dream

Chapter 96: A Fucked Up Dream

I had the most fucked up dream ever.

I dreamt that I had found myself inside Ming Zhu, like some weird episode of The Magic School Bus. I was so small I could see her heart pumping right in front of me, the organ bigger than I was. I watched the bright ventricle pump the oxygen-deprived blood to the lungs through the pulmonary valve while the left atrium received oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumped it into the left ventricle.

Was that a small hole in the left ventricle?

How had no one caught that before? She wouldn’t last long in this environment if she had a hole in her heart.

I reached out my hand and watched as tiny green threads left my fingers and weaved themselves through the ventricle, fixing the damage as if it never happened.

But as soon as it was fixed in my dream, I could feel my chest starting to hurt as I gasped for breath.

Shaking off the pain since it was only in my head... probably sympathy pains or something like that.

I blinked in my dream, and all of a sudden, I was in her throat, staring at the swollen larynx, pharynx, and epiglottis. The three different sections of muscles and soft tissues were incredibly swollen. I could only imagine the amount of pain she was in trying to speak to me.

But that was fine. I could fix her. I knew I could.

Once again, the green treads came out of my fingers and laid over top of the distended muscles. There were a few pulses, and I watched as the swelling retreated, leaving a perfectly healthy throat in its place.

However, as soon as her throat was fine, it turned to fire, and I had to suppress the urge to cough violently. I tried to open my mouth to curse, but nothing came out.

What can I say? This was a fucked up dream.

The dream me was once again sucked to another part of her body, and I was suddenly looking at her rib cage as if I was standing on top of her sternum. Ribs six and seven on the right side of her body were severely broken, a part of the seventh rib piercing into the lower right lung.

How could this girl have so much damage and yet still smile at me? How could she be struggling to breathe like this and still try to calm me down and help me?

I took in a deep breath and pushed back the tears. I could fall apart when I woke up, but for right now, I would heal what I could. Even if it was only in my dream.

Using both hands and sending out as many ribbons of green... stuff... I watched as they surrounded the broken rips and the hole in the lung where the air was escaping from. Ignoring the shooting pain in my own ribs, I concentrated, thinking about just what it would look like when everything was normal and healthy.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, even in the dream, and I pushed myself to connect the two halves of the bones.

I needed this girl to be healed. I needed it for me as much as I needed it for her.

She was one of the first girls to be nice to me... to treat me like a friend without wanting anything in return...

Or use me to get closer to the guys.

So I wanted her to be healthy; I needed it.

I watched as the pieces connected together and held the hole in the lung healing now that the rib had been removed.

The last thing I needed to worry about was the muscles. I needed to reduce the swelling around her eye and make sure that the zygomatic and orbital bones weren’t damaged from the blow to the face.

Transporting to her face, I studied the bone structure. There was the faintest of cracks in the zygomatic bone that was easy to heal, and the orbital bone was completely fine. It was just a matter of dealing with the swelling in the soft muscles around her eye.

Once all that was done, the dream me must have been satisfied that she was no longer injured anywhere, and I was all of a sudden kicked out of her body and back into mine.

I moaned as I tried to roll over to stretch my aching muscles. My ribs were killing me, and it felt like I had the mother of all headaches coming on.

But the cage I was in was too small. I didn’t even have the room to stretch out completely.

"The cages are built for large breed dogs," came another voice on my other side. I was about to try and roll over, but the voice quickly stopped me. "No point in rolling over. Just relax. I’m not going anywhere. But like I was saying. The cage is not even four feet in length, a bit over two feet in width, and a whopping two and a half feet in height. It is designed for dogs that are between 71 and 90 pounds. That means it would be suitable for Boxers, Retrievers, Setters, Spaniels, Weimaraners, Dobermans, Malamutes, Deerhounds, and Bloodhounds."

"Wow," I gasped, trying to force the words out of my throat. "You really know your stuff."

The voice, a woman, chuckled. "Not really. I used to work as a vet in a no-kill shelter. Learning the different sizes of cages fit what breeds was something I had just picked up. It must be karma that I am now stuck in the same thing that I put my own lab in when I was at work."

"I think it is more the working of that dick recruiter and the assholes that run this place," came a third voice. I had no idea where she was, but I took the advice of the other woman and just stayed where it was.

"Recruiter?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Yeah, that sick fuck, Sha Ling," came a fourth voice. "But if it is any consolation. You won’t be here longer than a week or two."

"What do you mean?" I pressed on despite the pain. I could deal with a week or two of anything if it meant that I was going to be freed after. Then I could go back to finding the guys. Or maybe the guys would be able to find me here.

"I mean, most of us don’t live longer than two weeks here," explained the third voice. But the cheerful way she was talking about her death made me shiver. It was like a bucket of ice water was dropped on my head, freezing me within seconds.