To Worship Ch. 09

Since this was the inter-department landline, I knew in my heart I didn't want to answer it. Nothing good could come of this. With trembling hands, I picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Good morning, Carolina, "replied the voice of Tomas. He sounded calm, at peace.

"Good morning," my voice squeaked. "What's new?"

"Josh passed away last night."

His words didn't hurt. In truth, I felt completely numb. "Where are you?"

"Just down the hall. I've got a cup of coffee with your name on it."

Opening the door to the hallway, I was greeted by the beautiful morning light pouring in from the windows. The world had been reborn. I easily located Tomas. Turns out Joshua had died a few hours prior, and due to the 'unusual' state of his body, an autopsy was performed. "An autopsy?" I asked Tomas. As his primary care nurse, he managed to get his hands on a copy of the findings.

It was the strangest thing. Joshua's cause of death was listed as, 'unknown organ failure.' I flipped through the pages, assuming I would find some kind of mention of cancer. There was nothing listed on any of the physical descriptions; heart- average, chest- average, muscle sample- average, etc. At one point my eyes were actively scanning for the word cancer, that was when I read the most haunting sentence I would ever see. "Upon examination for autopsy, the patient showed no physical evidence of cancer. This is contradictory to the available medical records." I looked up from my coffee, hoping Tomas would have some insight.

The exhausted nurse shrugged. "There were no tumors, no infection." His finger motioned to a line at the very bottom. "The only notable physical defect was Joshua's skin; he was warm, covered in sweat even hours after death."

"The patient died of fever, brought upon by an unknown infection." I couldn't help but smile. Josh didn't die alone. We were together, and that meant the dream had been real. "Did we defeat Suzanne?"

"Only one way to find out."