The New Heart

The sound of the monitor beeping from beside me was a kind of annoying and also sad at the same time. Just imagine myself, the twenty-something woman trapped in a hospital bed because of a small heart attack. I stared directly at an old man who was trying so hard to fight the sleepiness that came. I tuck his shirt and glared at him with all the tubes that were inside every hole possible inside my body.

“Go… Home… Gramp.” I said to my grandpa, who looks at me with a forced smile on his face.

He took my hand, and hold it dearly. “No, I’m not going anywhere until the doctors told me you’re stable.”

“I am… You… Should… Go home… Now.” Desperately tried to tell him to go home, my grandpa was not a young gentleman anymore, in his sixties, and got some arthritis, I was so sad to see him here when I was supposed to be the one that took care of him.

He refused to let go of my hand, even when he sleep on the chair by my side. I lost my parents at the tender age of five, and that’s when my grandpa from my father’s side took me in his care and become my second parent for all these years. He mentors me into a mixed martial artist just like himself, and then saw me graduate college. With only one wish, I don’t want him to see the weaker side of me, who’s now lying on the patient’s bed, waiting for her doctor about the new heart that is now beating inside of me.

After the arduous six hours, the team of doctors came to check on me. They saw my monitor and whispered, trying not to awaken my grandpa.

“How is she?” I heard my grandpa’s tired voice. He was half awake and tried to ask a question to one of the doctors.

One of them, a woman with thick glasses, came forward and speak with my grandpa, “Mister Hunt, my name’s Anne. I’m a doctor in charge of the heart transplantation of your granddaughter.”

“Alright, so what about her? Is she going to be okay, doc?” Asked my grandfather while he looks at me in the eye.

“We are still going to observe her, but as for now, we don’t see any sign of a rejection of her body to her new heart.” Doctor Anne was smiling at my grandpa while she delivered to him the good news, “We are optimist about her recovery.”

Tears came flowing from my dear old grandpa’s eyes, he even hugs doctor Anne, if only I could laugh after seeing the awkward hug between the two of them, but these darned cables, tubes, and all the machinery prevent me from even doing a slight movement. When the doctors finally excused themselves from my room, my grandpa took my hand once again and smiled at me.

After a week in the recovery room, and then finally on my own regular bed with just one needle on my finger hand for the infusion of nutrition to my body, I could finally move, go to the bathroom, and laugh as much as I want. Although something strange was happening here in my room, I think my room was haunted. I can feel another presence here beside me. Sometimes I can even hear a voice, a faint voice of a woman. I’m not a skeptic, but I’m not really a believer either. I know there is some higher power and another being, but never going to do any investigation sh*t.

My doctor was inside my room, a good doctor, not a kind one, but the one that will tell you the truth with her eyes looking straight at yours. My kind of people, I hate people that love to sugarcoat anything or the ones that always look like they ate a pound of sugar every day and always have their perfect smile intact. She was looking at my chart and smiled, a bit creepy, if I may say so, because she rarely smiles.

“Alright, miss Hunt, I read the chart and I must tell you I am impressed by how quickly you’re recovering and adjusting to the new heart.” Said doctor Anne to me.

“Doc, I was here for almost one month already, and you said I was recovering quickly?” If only I could roll my eyes at my own doctor. To tell you the truth, I was afraid of her. She was the one who put the new heart into my body. I ought to be afraid of her.

“Miss Hunt, I need to tell you that people who received an organ transplantation never recovered this quickly, at least in my case.” Doctor Anne tell me with a firm look on her face, she then looked around the room looking for something, or someone, “I don’t see your grandfather today.”

“Oh, he’s not coming today, his arthritis was acting up, so I told him to get some rest,” I told my doctor that seems very fond of my grandfather, they become friends after those awkward hugging moments when I was in the recovery room.

“Oh, too bad, send hi for me, and you need to get some rest now,” She said to me while writing a report into my chart, “Before I go, do you have any complaints? A headache maybe? Or your chest was hurting?”

I hesitated at first but, I can’t stand it anymore, the ghost is getting stronger every day so I tried to ask my doctor an unusual request, “Actually doc, can you move my room? I… I kind of having trouble sleeping here.”

Doctor Anne was looking at me with a frown on her face. “You have trouble sleeping? What happened exactly?”

Flustered, I tried to explain everything with some reasonable answer, “I just felt something wasn’t right with this room, I… I have been hearing voices, and I kind of felt that someone was here with me, when I was alone.”

Somehow, my words have just made her intrigue. “What did you say? You felt the presence of someone else in here?”

“I… I thought I have heard voices and…” I was trying to find the sanest words for it. Then my doctor said something mysteriously.

“Was it a voice of a woman?” Asked my doctor, which makes me curious, and looks at her.

“Wait, I never told you that it was a woman's voice.” Frowning, I tried to confront my doctor about her mysterious curiosity.

Flustered by my questions, doctor Anne told me that it was just a lucky guess, she however approved my request to change my room. Now, it’s actually getting worse, because I can confirm that not only that my previous room was not haunted, I think the one that was haunted is me.

I forlorn the day when I heard her voice clearly inside my head. It was the day that I finally was released from the hospital and tried to enjoy the comfort of my tiny house. Yes, I own a tiny house, a five hundred forty square feet house on the wheel, with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a spacious kitchen. I sold my late parents' farm to build my own dream house, and the rest of the money goes into savings that gave me a chance to do what I love the most. Training to become a professional MMA fighter.

“Gramp, why does my door now have a double lock?” I glared at my grandpa, who was cooking something in my kitchen.

“Cat, did you look into the safety of this size of a house?” Said my grandpa while he swish the pan and tried to flip two burgers.

I shrug at my grandpa. For now, he needs to be in control of my life. After all, he was the one who find me unconscious inside my tiny house. “Fine, I’ll keep the lock, happy?” I said to him with a gleeful smile.

“Good, now, let’s eat some burger, trying to test that new heart of yours.” He tried to make a joke, even though it failed miserably.

After enjoying some family time with him, he parked my house in one of the parks for the night and said his goodbye before going back to his own house; I tried to persuade him to spend the night in my house, after all, I have a spare bedroom. He hates the idea and was immediately gone before I could persuade him more.

Taking a deep breath, I prepare to go to sleep before I heard a faint knock on my door. Opening the door, I smile and said, “Gramps, I knew the time has come when I can joke about you being a senile old man.”

But instead of my grandpa, there were three guys in front of my door staring at me. Three good-looking guys and one of them begins to speak with a charming but firm tone towards me.

“Miss Cattleya Hunt?” Said the man with piercing brown eyes, and wearing very expensive clothing.

“No, wrong house!” I shouted at them with some annoyance, but when I tried to slam my door, a hand was holding into it, one of the men with a black shirt and muscles all day to be gawking at was the one who hold my door to be open. I tried to punch him, but then he opened his mouth and said something that was intriguing to me.

“Please, hear us, miss Hunt! Your life is in danger right now!”