The Reincarnated King (ManxManxMan)

Chapter Seven: A Normal Explanation

~Chapter Seven: A Normal Explanation~

My breath leaves me in a sharp hiss as I dab the hastily-bought, over-the-counter antibiotic cream over the scrapes on my arm, and not for the first time, I regret having forgotten to buy painkillers along with the other medical supplies I stopped by a mini market to pick up on my way to the hotel. The gashes on my arm are not deep enough to warrant bothering with a hospital visit - in a foreign country, no less - but even if they did, I am not sure I would have wanted to go because it would be a bit hard to explain how I got them without getting in trouble for causing a public panic or ending up shipped back to America to spend a few months in a psych ward.

Hospital or not, though, they need to be treated.

As a zookeeper, I know just how badly untreated animal-related wounds - or just dirty or rust-infested, really, because it had to have been a hallucination, but I still got them from somewhere - can turn. I have only ever heard stories of infected wounds that end up festering and turning near-fatal, but the reason that the head zookeeper uses said stories to scare all of the new trainees was not just for fun. And I really do not want to lose my arm or something.

Still, I had waited until I was somewhere secure with running water - my bathroom - before actually inspecting and then cleaning the wound with soap and water, thankful that no one stopped me to ask about it or try to get me help. Of course, this was likely aided by the fact that I had packed a jacket in my backpack and was able to pull it on to cover my torn shirt and the scratches, but...but it was also a light grey jacket, and I started bleeding through it pretty quickly.

So, it is a relief no one stopped me, and it is also a relief that I was able to sneak into the suite without being caught. Because Tom would've noticed for sure, and he would've had a conniption.

And as much as I know that I probably should tell him, just for the sake of safety in case I wake up tomorrow with a massive fever or in a few days with full body aches and the inability to move my jaw, but I am very up-to-date on my shots to guard against some of the more concerning diseases, including for rabies since it is a must for zookeepers.

Not...that rabies even matters, though, if it was just a hallucination. Instead, what I need to worry about is infection and not losing an arm.

And mentally planning my next doctor visit because I have a new symptom to discuss.

So, no, I am not going to tell Tom because he is going to worry and want to know what happened, and when I tell him that I hallucinated being mauled by a lion - because how would I even go about explaining acquiring a three matching, parallel scratches that I don't accurately remember getting? - he is going to worry more. His worry will only grow when I then have to explain to him why I immediately jumped to the conclusion of 'hallucination,' and then he will really worry. At which point, I will have ruined the trip because he would no longer be in the mood to enjoy our time here, and I would just feel horrible.

So, yeah, absolutely not.

Because I cannot tell Tom, though, that means that I have to shakily fix my arm one-handed while trying to juggle both the ointment, a tissue to wipe away any fresh blood, and, in a moment, the gauze and a long bandage that I am going to need to apply. It is awkward, and there is an embarrassingly large amount of blood on the tile floor because I can only see so much of the injury with how it wraps around half my arm, which means that a lot of the gathering drops escape my notice, but I am doing it.

Just very, very slowly, and with a lot of poorly-concealed grunts of pain.

As it turns out, though, slowly is not the best thing when my best friend wakes up on the impatient side of the bed and starts banging on the door of my bedroom, not ten minutes after I return, startling me into dropping the ointment bottle. "Jas," he calls, while still banging on the door and probably angering all our neighbors, depending on how thin the walls are or if we even have neighbors. I hurriedly snatch the bottle back up off the floor. "You back yet?"