Cabin Fever

Epilogue

When Juro's eyes shoot open, he sees nothing at first and nearly panics for a second, worried that he actually died and this is some kind of afterlife. However, his eyes then land on a few lights near where he estimates his right wrist to be and he relaxes a little. When his eyes adjusts to the darkness he notices a dim light above his head, where he finds a window right above his face. He places his hands on the surface above him and pushes. It's heavy but he manages to move it and sits up straight when he has opened the pod. There's a beeping heart monitor next to him and he is still trying to orientate himself when he hears a loud banging not too far from him in one of the nearby pods.

Quickly realizing who it is, he rips the wires and electrodes that were stuck to his skin off, ignoring the mild stinging and rushes to the source of the sound. His heart monitor starts beeping but he ignores it to open Ryoko's pod.

Once to lid is removed, the cardist immediately shoots up, gasping for air. She looks around frantically before her eyes land on Juro and she hugs him tightly, a gesture he returns.

He remembers how frightened she had been when she first woke up in the cabins weeks ago until she saw the windows. Clearly a small, dark pod in a barely lit room would be even more terrifying.

Hearing more creaks from pods being opened, Juro figures that the other three must have also safely returned to their bodies.

He is just helping Ryoko remove the electrodes from her own skin after they both pulled back from the hug when lights suddenly flicker on. Juro has to blink a few times to adjust to bright light again before he sees Mai standing next to a light switch she just flipped.

"We're not that far from civilization, actually." She mutters "There's cell service outside the building, if you guys want to make a call. I'll give you a moment first." Then Mai turns on her heel to walk outside.

Juro pats his jacket to indeed find his phone in his pocket, before he lifts his head to look around. He does spot Minoru removing the electrodes and Chinami sitting up in her pod when the ghost hunter comes over to help her.

He also sees eleven pods left unopened, with the heart monitors next to them showing nothing but a straight line.

The sketch artist gets up to find the pods of Jihun, Hikaru and Daichi, standing next to them for a moment while tears quietly fall from his eyes to pay his respects. His friends' faces remain blank underneath the small windows and they look so peaceful Juro can almost convince himself they're only asleep, especially since he can't see their still chests through the windows. But the heart monitors he can see through blurry vision are a painful reminder of the truth.

Unable to look at their lifeless bodies for too long, Juro steps away and looks around the room at the others. Chinami has sunk to the ground between two closed pods, sobbing. Ryoko is standing next to one pod, head turned away from the rest of the group while she rests one hand on the cold metal.

"I'm sorry." Minoru mutters while his tears fall on the glass window "I'm sorry you had to suffer for me. I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

Finding the scene surrounding him too hard to watch - his chest feels too heavy all of a sudden - Juro walks outside following the direction he saw Mai leave in. The archer is lying in the grass, looking up at the sky as clouds drift by. Juro remains standing, watching the valley below them. In the distance, he can vaguely make out the shape of buildings. It seems they really aren't that far from civilization after all.

His sigh seems to draw Mai's attention, because she sits up and looks back at him for a moment before shifting her gaze to the valley as well "The others are still inside?"

"Yeah."

Silence washes over them after that. What can he say to someone who played a part in making them go through what they did except vile things?

He eventually finds the words.

"There's no way for you to make this right." Juro begins. Mai looks back at him again but patiently waits for him to continue "I'll be reporting both you and Seto Hanako for kidnapping and the murder of eleven students. The others don't have to testify if it is too painful for them, but I will..." He takes a breath "After that, it's out of my hands and I don't want to see you ever again. You'll leave us alone unless we tell you otherwise, got it?" Juro clenches his fists "We may have seen each other as friends at some point, but I can't forgive you for what you did, even if I spared your life."

"I can agree to those terms." Mai mutters.

"Also, find better friends next time." Juro sighs "There's probably someone out there who does love you, even though we don't, so try to make something of yourself for them rather than just an accomplice in kidnapping and murder."

"I'll try, but I don't think the world would give me a second chance." Mai smiles faintly "Can't say I blame them."

Juro shrugs "Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I can only speak for myself here."

He takes a few steps before sitting down in the grass, away from Mai, and takes out his sketchbook to copy the letters and other messages that people who died wanted to be sent to people who mattered to them. Since nothing from the Program was transfered to real life except the memories and the deaths, he made sure to memorize the messages once he learned that the place they were trapped in wasn't real, even if he hated to open people's letters and invade their privacy.

However, shortly after he starts writing things down, his phone rings. He looks at the caller's ID before picking up the phone "Mom?"

He smiles a little upon hearing her voice on the other end of the line for the first time in weeks, even if all she expresses is worry. A single tear rolls down his cheek.

"It's a long story that I don't want to talk about yet... But I'll be home again soon."

Five/sixteen

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A/N: And we're done! This was the end of Cabin Fever, a journey that took me about 2 years and we've finally reached the end. Thank you so much for reading this story and sticking with me the whole way through! I'm currently working on a new story that will be posted hopefully soon, so maybe I'll see some of you there. We'll see.

Much love!