Alive

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TW:  Cursing, violence, very minor death implications

The Nurse finishes leading me up the flights of stairs. There were five fucking flights. I'm literally almost gasping for air by the end. We're greeted by a really brightly lit corridor with white walls, and wooden oak doors lining each side. They each have small signs next to them with room numbers, and she takes us to the outside of one of them. 5B.

"Now, don't worry, they don't bite - just be nice, and they'll be nice to you." She smiles, taking a set of keys out of he pocket before knocking on the door.

"Come in!" A hoarse boy's voice calls from inside.
Nurse Lilabet unlocks the door and pushes it open. I stand meekly behind her. Inside is a room with light gray walls, and one large glass window looking over the place where the carriages park. There's four beds against the back wall where the window is, each with white bedsheets and grey steel bedframes.

There are three other people in the room. Two boys, and one girl, who has shoulder length brown hair and mid-toned skin. I'm left alone with them as the nurse who brought me up closes the door.

As soon as it shuts, the girl immediately runs up to me and pushes me against the wall next to the door and I gasp in surprise as she looks at me angrily.
"How the fuck do you know him?!" She pushes me deeper into the wall.

I don't reply, just staying there in slight shock.

One of the boys sighs. "Look man, we, uh, okay so, your stuff got dropped off and we kinda looked through it because we were bored."

I look over to this boy. He's pretty short, and has blondish hair and freckles. He can probably tell I look a little distressed.

The girl pulls me away from the wall and slams be against it again. "How do you know the tall one in that photo?!" She yells angrily. It kind of makes me want to cry.

The blonde boy walks over to the windowsil and picks up the printed image. He brings it over, showing it to me slightly. It's the picture we took in London, of me, Patton, Logan, Roman, Remus and Janus. We took it in a photobooth. In the photo, All of us are smiling, and doing various poses. I only brought it for moral support, but this girl really doesn't like something about it.

"That one." She points to Janus and pulls my collar closer to her.

I swallow in obvious fear. "He- he's my f-friend?" I ask, not knowing if it was the right answer.

"Oh my God! I'm going to fucking kill you!"

I duck under her and run towards the back of the room, she spins on her heel and starts running after me.

"Gah!" I scream as she pushes me against the window, causing the lock to break as it opens outwards, stopping after about twenty centimetres due to some metal rods that stop people from jumping out the windows. If those really small metal rods weren't there then this girl literally would've just pushed me to my death.

"Zariah! Oh my God, let him go; he's terrified." The other boy yells, looking at me worriedly. The girl, whose name I now know to be Zariah, looks at me, her eyes running up and down my facial expression. I nod, almost begging her to let me go from the edge of this window.

She groans, pulling me off the ledge, and dropping me onto the floor, where I immediately cough and let a few tears escape my eyes. Fucking hell. I feel nauseous.

The blonde boy offers me his hand and I take it, standing. "Sorry about her. She, uh, she really doesn't like that lad in the photo with you for some reason. I'm Caleb, by the way."
I nod. "Th-thanks. Virgil, I-I'm Virgil."

Zariah has moved to sit on the bed closest to the right wall now. I almost go over to speak to her, but the door opens. The head nurse hovers in the doorframe. Both boys immediately scamper to their beds and stand by the ends of them, just like we used to at Sanders'. Zariah reluctantly does the same, and so I follow suit.

She raises her eyebrows. "Caleb, Thomas. Come on, your treatment starts in five, and unfortunately for you, nobody else is free to take you."
They both tilt their heads towards the floor and walk away from their beds.

The Nurse looks to me sternly and then leaves with the two of them. I hear her keys lock the door behind her. It's weird, at the other hospital, they never locked the doors - only told us not to leave and that there'd be consequences if we did.

When I look back to her bed, I see that Zariah has dived under the blanket and is crying softly. I sigh internally, sliding off the bed that I'd assume is mine now, and walk over to her.

"Hey, um, y-you al-alright?"
"Go away."

"Please? J-just talk to m-me about it? Or atleast tell me why y-you attacked me..? Maybe? We'll probably b-be here for a while."
She pushes the blanket off of her body quickly, looking up at me, and then gesturing for me to sit on the bed with her.

"That.. boy that you're friends with. Janus."
I nod.
She looks up quickly. "I've not told anyone this story. Not even Caleb and Tee. But, you know him or whatever, so.."
Her face is etched with upset.

"He had a sister. Elizabeth, Lizzie."

She looks down to her bed, and her eyes water, tears pooling in them. My mind begins to race, trying to figure out what he could've done. She wipes her eyes, composing herself, then looks up to me.

"And you promise you won't do anything bad with this information?"
I nod.

"We, uh, we were in love."

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