Chapter 260: Chris's Predicament
Inside a carpeted corridor of a private hospital.
Chris had her arms crossed, pacing constantly outside the examination room.
Creak.
The wooden door suddenly opened, and Regan's attending physician came out.
Chris covered her chin with one hand, staring straight at the other party.
"Regan's symptom is..."
The doctor took out a cigarette and lit it as he spoke, "A typical brain chemical and electrical abnormality. That is to say, there's a problem with your daughter's temporal lobe, right in this location."
The attending physician pointed near his temple.
"This condition is not complex and usually causes complications like hallucinations and convulsions. Undoubtedly, the phenomenon of the bed shaking in your house is related to these."
"No... that wasn't a convulsion."
Hearing this, Chris's tone became somewhat agitated. "I was there at the time too! The entire bed shook violently back and forth, left and right. It couldn't possibly be caused by Regan. I was right on the bed! I saw it all!"
Opposite her, the attending physician's eyes were calm as he continued to explain: "The problem with your daughter is not the bed; it's a problem with her brain..."
Chris closed her eyes and covered her mouth again, then took a deep breath and nodded.
"Then how was her personality change caused..." she asked again.
"This..."
The attending physician thought as he walked.
"There are many symptoms of temporal lobe damage, such as strong destructive tendencies, or even committing crimes... This condition usually lasts for several days."
Chris's eyes looked disappointed: "Then... is there any good news?"
"If it's only brain damage, then we just need to surgically remove some parts... but this requires a more detailed examination..."
Before long, Regan was pushed into an examination room lying on a hospital bed.
Chris stood in the observation room behind transparent glass.
She watched the doctors change Regan into special clothes, attach examination equipment to both sides of her shoulders, and then apply iodine on Regan's neck with gauze.
Immediately after, a doctor took out a 5-centimeter-long syringe and inserted it into Regan's neck.
Squirt... Squirt.
A slender pillar of blood immediately spurted out, leaving a long bloodstain on Regan's body.
Chris immediately closed her eyes.
After biting her lip, she forced herself to open her eyes again.
The examination report came out quickly.
"...The blood vessels are fine, and other parts of the brain are also very normal." The doctor in charge of medical imaging looked at the attending physician, "Do you need me to check again?"
"I don't think so." The attending physician shook his head. "I think... let's prescribe some sedatives for Regan first."
A day later.
The attending physician received another call from Chris, begging him to rush over quickly.
A high-end residence in Manhattan.
The attending physician arrived in a hurry with an assistant.
As soon as they entered the door, they heard a noisy commotion.
The two went to Regan's room on the second floor.
They saw this girl shaking madly on the bed, constantly shouting: "Please save me! It's going to kill me!"
Chris also had an anxious face, constantly looking back and forth between the doctors and her daughter.
The attending physician looked bewildered; he could only approach the bedside first.
Accompanied by a Bang.
Regan suddenly stood up and fiercely punched the attending physician.
Subsequently, a sharp and unfamiliar voice came from her throat: "Get away! This person is mine!"
"Get away!"
"Get away!"
After a few roars, Regan recovered the girl's voice again.
She screamed madly. Her body seemed somewhat uncontrollable, actually starting to slap herself.
Seeing this scene, Chris could no longer suppress her emotions and also cried and screamed hysterically.
"We have to give her a shot of sedative first." The attending physician hurriedly opened his medical kit.
Aside, the nanny, afraid Chris couldn't stand this scene, hurriedly pulled her out.
In the moment before the room door closed, Chris heard her daughter's plea in her ears—
"Please don't let them do this to me."
Before long, the room door opened.
The attending physician and his assistant walked out exhausted.
"We gave her a lot of sedatives. She should sleep until tomorrow."
Chris looked nervous: "How could she become like this?"
"Uh... her illness might cause her to possess abnormal strength."
The assistant explained.
"There are precedents in medicine. A mother saw her child trapped under a truck and burst out with immense strength in a short time, lifting the truck an inch."
At this time, the attending physician also added: "We still think it's the temporal lobe..."
"Oh! My God!"
Chris could no longer tolerate these doctors, frowning and shouting:
"Didn't you see her appearance! It's like schizophrenia. What does this have to do with some damn temporal lobe thing! Three test reports didn't find a problem, and you still..."
Ultimately, she held some words back in her heart, lowered her head, and controlled her temper.
"My God... sorry."
Chris raised her head again.
"What do we do next."
The attending physician looked at his assistant and spoke: "I want to find the cause of Regan's brain lesion. Maybe we have to do another spinal tap."
Hearing this, the image of Regan spurting blood resurfaced in Chris's mind.
"Oh my God..." She turned around to face the wall. "This is also for Regan's own good. The problem the X-ray couldn't find before, maybe this can..."
Another day passed.
Regan's fourth examination report also came out, and the result was still the same as before—no problems were found.
Now Chris was truly somewhat in despair.
Even the attending physician lost some confidence, even asking her if she kept drugs in the house.
Ultimately, the hospital suggested she could consult a psychiatrist.
And Chris had no other choice.
After she returned home, another accident occurred.
A good friend of Chris in the industry came looking for her, but was found dead outside the stairs of her house. Even his neck was twisted 180 degrees, looking very tragic.
At the same time, Regan's condition further deteriorated.
She actually walked down the stairs backward, with blood dripping from her mouth, and started harming her own body with sharp objects.
Chris tried to stop her multiple times.
But Regan's strength became extremely great, and her mouth often spewed foul words like "bitch" and "lick me."
Even the furniture in her room started moving on its own.
At this moment, Chris already understood one thing in her heart—the soul in Regan's body was absolutely not her daughter!
Early one morning.
Chris dragged her exhausted body to the dining table.
The nanny suddenly rushed in holding a newspaper, a look of excitement on her face.
"Mrs. MacNeil, you have to see this!"
Chris took the newspaper in confusion, and then saw a huge headline: "Shocking! 287 psychiatric patients cured overnight! Is this a miracle?"
Chris immediately sat up straight.
As she read deeply into this report, a huge boulder seemed to smash into the stagnant water of her heart.
State Psychiatric Hospital, Premium Ward.
Karras sent off a group of doctors who came to check up.
After these few days of treatment, his mother's illness had been controlled, and even her previous leg injury began to heal.
A long-lost smile also appeared on Karras's face.
He returned to the bedside and picked up a pile of books from the table.
The top one was titled Chronicles of Church Exorcism. Karras opened the book, sorting out some major events within it chronologically.
These were all things Father William requested his help with.
Although he was unclear of the reason, Karras still completed them very attentively.
If it weren't for this kind gentleman, perhaps Karras would have lost his mother long ago.
Before long, the ward door was opened.
"Father William." Karras's eyes lit up.
"Did you find that hotel?"
William said: "Maybe they've already relocated; don't mind it. By the way, have those doctors come by?"
"They just left, saying Mother is recovering well..."
William nodded.
These past few days, besides helping patients, he had been looking up some history books of this world.
As a result, he really found some anomalies.
Originally, when he was at the West District Community Church, William had read massive amounts of Church texts.
But at this current time, a portion of them didn't match up.
Even some books simply didn't exist.
So he went looking for the Exorcist Guild again.
Calculating by time, although the current Guild wasn't large in scale, it should already have a certain level of renown.
But William only found an assassin organization named "The Continental" (or similar concept).
And the hotel of its headquarters was exactly at that intersection address.
Besides the above, there were many other cases that were "similar to the original world, but with minor differences."
This forced William to deduce a possibility—the world he came from might not be the same as this one.
"I still have to get the Holy Apostle Badge as soon as possible..." he thought inwardly.
As for this badge, William had long looked at Karras's, and also tried dripping his own blood on it.
But... the badge had no reaction whatsoever.
There were only two possibilities for this situation. The first one: there was a problem with the badge itself.
Regarding this point, William had asked Karras.
The latter stated that this item came from the Church. Because of his outstanding performance in theology, it was awarded to him as a souvenir. Such items were not many in the Church either and were once a symbol of an exorcism holy relic.
Therefore, William quickly ruled out the first possibility.
Then only one answer remained—he, William, was not that devout, brave, and merciful Holy Clergy Member.
This is simply nonsense!
Could the twenty-year and thirty-year vintage holy artifacts in his pocket be fakes?
Could his ability to learn the Holy Arts of all theological stages also be fabricated?
Could the Church find someone with more orthodox roots than him!
"No! I still have to go take a look at that silver badge Father Merrin mentioned," William decided secretly.
As for the Church.
After reporters' coverage these past few days, William's deeds of saving people also attracted a lot of attention.
Every time he faced an interview, he would clarify his stance—I do not possess supernatural abilities; I only untied some people's mental knots through conversation. Some people saw William as a fraud, merely coming out to peddle faith during these difficult times.
Others came seeking help, asking William to also awaken their loved ones.
For the former, William naturally couldn't be bothered to pay attention.
For the latter, he helped as much as he could, and also took the opportunity to gather some clues.
And the Church didn't cause trouble for William; they just sent someone to warn him not to use this missionary method during this period.
This rendered William's pre-arranged countermeasures useless.
Later, through Karras, he learned that in the past two years, the Church had recruited a large number of Holy Clergy Members, and identity checks were relatively loose.
The purpose was to increase the number of Church practitioners in community non-profit services.
Looking back now, this situation seemed to have lasted until William arrived in the American Horror world.
It only changed after the "Holy Word" appeared.
Knock... Knock...
At this time, someone knocked on the ward door again.
A nurse walked in.
"Father Karras? You have a phone call. The other party says they are your friend."
Karras stood up blankly.
When he returned, he found William.
"Father William, that was a friend of mine from the Church just now. He wants to ask you for a favor."
William raised an eyebrow, waiting for the rest.
"Do you know Chris? The very famous actress."
"Somewhat familiar."
"Recently her film crew was shooting at the church where I used to work. My friend happens to be acquainted with her."
Karras took out a piece of paper with an address written on it.
"She learned about you from the news, and it just so happens I am with you, so she wants to invite you for some consultation."
Here it comes.
Chris indeed proactively sought him out.
William reached out and took the note; the time agreed on it was 9 AM tomorrow morning.
"If it's inconvenient for you, I'll go decline right now..." Karras said, about to leave.
"It's fine, I happen to be free tomorrow." William smiled slightly.
The second day.
The two followed the address to a park.
From far away, William saw a tightly wrapped figure.
"Ms. Chris?" Karras proactively stepped forward.
"Stay away."
"We came according to the agreement."
Chris then turned her head: "Sorry... I thought it was a reporter..."
After getting to know each other, Chris proactively inquired about William and Karras's backgrounds.
Besides the two's educational backgrounds, she particularly cared about the matter of whether "Holy Clergy Members will keep secrets for believers."
William naturally handled them one by one.
Finally, Chris brought up the main topic of this meeting.
"Gentlemen, what... do you think about the matter of exorcism."
Karras was stunned: "What did you say?"
"For example, a relative of a friend of mine is possessed by a demon. How should they be exorcised?"
Karras opened his mouth.
If it were him a few days ago, he might have told Chris this—Please ask your friend to take a time machine back to the 16th century.
But after meeting Father William and experiencing the incident at the hospital, Karras's heart experienced a trace of wavering.
So he turned to look at William.
Seeing this, Chris also turned her head.
"Before answering this question, I also have a question I want to ask you," William said.
"Please speak." Chris adjusted her sunglasses.
"Why are you paying attention to this issue? Exorcism... since the Church started researching mental illnesses, very few people mention this kind of thing."
"Why?"
"Most so-called exorcisms were ultimately proven to be mental problems," William said.
"So I highly recommend your friend go see a psychiatrist."
"Of course, if this is the reason you came to find me, then please ask your friend to go to the hospital with me."
Chris spoke in an urgent tone: "I'm not going to the hospital... I..."
After hesitating for a moment, she finally told the truth.
"The reason I came to find you this time is for my daughter Regan... Four examinations yielded no results, so the doctors suggested I seek some psychological and religious help."
"So that's how it is." William nodded.
Although he had been waiting for Chris to come knocking.
Before formally intervening, he still had to confirm clearly that the other party wasn't guided by the Church or incited by some demon.
"To answer your previous question." William looked at Chris. "To judge whether a person needs an exorcism, there must be some basis."
"For example, did this person's personality change drastically in a short time? Did they suddenly master a certain special language? Or, did they possess special abilities in a short time."
As soon as his voice fell, Chris took off her sunglasses and stared at William with an excited face.
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