Chapter Nine

Vida and Ivy arrived to find a well set table. The sweet aroma woke the pangs of hunger that they had and Vida was ready to pounce on the meal had Ivy not warned her not to touch the food until they find the cook. They had been ignoring Joy for sometime now. She found it quite suspicious that she lay the food on the table and was out of sight.

They decided against all odds to check on her first before diving into the food. Not that they really cared so much about her, but maybe one pretense wouldn't hurt. They were going to fake smiles and concern just to look grateful if at all it was necessary to get rid of her.

One knock, two, three, nobody answered. That was so unlike Joy. She was this hyperactive girl. Always on toes. Something was definitely wrong somewhere. Tension grew between the two friends when Vida touched the handle and pushed the door open.

On normal circumstances, whenever Joy was out, she locked her door. That means she was definitely in. The two looked at each other, unsure of what to expect. They started calling her out once again. Frantically. But no answer.

Joy was slowly slipping into unconsciousness.

Slowly she slipped into unconsciousness as the poison effects kicked in. Her hand hit the empty glass and it fell on the floor breaking at the first impact.

At that moment Vida and Ivy heard it and stormed into the bathroom, only to be met by a terrible sight.

The continuous peeping of the machine brought Joy back to reality. Was she already in heaven? Scratch that, hell, definitely hell. Committing suicide was definitely a hell sign. She wasn't going to even peep through the gates of heaven even if she wanted. She was a murderer now.

Her eyes were tightly closed and she didn't even have strength to open them.

"This is all our fault. She almost killed herself because of what we did to her." came the whisper.

"The bastard assaulted her. That's not what we signed up for." whispered another.

Wait, are there guilty angels of the dark? Or satan is passing a judgment here. Joy wondered.

"Ivy, we did wrong by her. We were the ones who set her up remember? She is in this condition because of what we did to her." the voices became clearer.

That was definitely Vida talking to Ivy. That means she wasn't dead yet. She was still alive.

This got Joy agitated and her blood pressure shot up causing the beeping to escalate.

The doctors came and stabilized her with a shot of sedatives. Before she fell asleep, she heard the doctor instructing her friends to leave since the patient had lost a lot of blood and was fragile. She needed a lot of rest.

Hours later, when Joy finally woke up after the sedative had worn out, she looked around and saw that she had been tethered to an IV on the right hand and blood transfusion on the left hand. Her wrists were stitched up and covered with a small bandage.

She was wearing a light blue hospital gown. The beeping machine slowly beeped displaying numbers and lines she didn't understand. She had only seen this in movies not in reality.

What was she doing here?

"The baby!" she exclaimed as her hands automatically held her belly.

Just then, the doctor came in to examine her.

"Hello there! Am glad you are finally awake," she smiled at her as she closed the distance between them.

"My name is Dr. Reyes and am here to check that everything is alright with you." she began

"Why am I here doctor? " Joy asked

"Well, first of all I must say you are a fighter. You are one of the few rare patients who gets to survive such an ordeal," she told her.

Joy was confused.

"What exactly do you mean by that?" she dared ask

"Your friends Vida and Ivy brought you here saying you had attempted to kill yourself and they didn't know why. For all we know, nobody tries suicide without a reason right. Now that's what I want you to tell me about." she looked at her straight in the eye and Joy became restless.

"Besides, you have a young life growing inside of you," she revealed.

Joy almost choked on her saliva.