Hospital of Wonders (Remater)

Chapter II

Tw-Mentions of injuries and attempted murder.

-

"Mom, where are we going?" I ask as I turn my gaze from the passing trees outside the window to the rearview mirror. Mom didn't say anything. She just stared at the road ahead focusing on driving, humming soft.

Mom had told me and Lulu that we were going for a ride after I and Lulu woke up from a nap. Fortunately, she fed us before we left.

We'd been driving for at least an hour and a half before I finally spoke up about our whereabouts.

I turned my attention down to Lulu, she had put up the cup holder and laid down to sleep. We haven't slept right in forever so this long car ride was a chance I guess we both should take.

But with the way Mom is I don't know if I want to risk it. She was never normal, always lying down or yelling at Dad or passing out on the couch...I want to play it safe...but my eyes feel heavy...Even though I don't feel safe, I'm finding comfort in the situation.

The sound of outside, Lulu sleeping peacefully next to me, andthe soft humming from mom's lips are all comfortable...

I glance at the review mirror one last time and see Mom's eyes finally looking away from the road and meeting mine. And then I fell asleep.

-Time-

"Okay, I'll be back." Mom's raspy voice woke me out of my sleep. She got out of the car and rounded the car to the trunk. I glanced out the window, there was a small hill, and at the bottom was a lake.

I looked down and gently shook Lulu awake. "Lulu, wake up, we're here," I say before I unbuckle my seat belt and glance out the back window to see Mom. Digging through the trunk.

"Where are we?" Lulu asks as she looks around. "Some secluded area where she'll kill us," I say, half joking. Lulu looked back at me with a frown. "That's not funny, Yoka. You know how she is!" She scolded me as I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, okay..." I say before Mom opens the door.

"Come on, girls." Mom says as she moves out of the way so me and Lulu could get out. Me and Lulu get out of the car as Mom sets down a...safe?

"Okay..." Mom says with a sigh before she gestured for us to follow her. We all walked down the small hill and made it to the edge of the water. She glances at us for a moment before she opens the safe. "I know this might be scary and sound wrong...but...climb in."

Me and Lulu glance at each other before we look up at Mom. "Look girls, this is for our own good, I promise. Just get inside." Mom says.

I hesitate, for obvious reasons. It's obvious what Mom wants, I don't want to give it to her but I know she'll force us in if we don't go on our own. And I don't want her yelling at us and making Lulu cry again.

So, I take her hand and I slowly approach the safe with her following. Before we climbed inside Mom came around from behind the box, kneeled to our level, and gave both me and Lulu a kiss on our heads.

"I love you two so much. I love you both more than anything in the world, and that's why I'm doing this, for the good of both of you." Mom says.

We all sat in silence before Lulu let go of my hand to wrap her arms around Mom's neck, giving her a hug. Mom wraps her arms around Lulu and squeezes her before she kisses her template and lets go.

Mom looks at me, her Onyx eyes staring at me before she opens her arms to me. I didn't want to, but when it's your mother sometimes you can't resist her affection.

So, I step forward and wrap my arms around her, accepting the hug. After a while of me and her hugging, I whisper, "I love you, mommy..."

Mom was silent as our hug broke. Me and Lulu intertwined our fingers as we both climbed inside the safe. Mom closes it and I hear her grunt as she starts dragging the safe to the lake.

I hear soft sniffles before me and Lulu tremble around and there's a splash.

Me and Lulu groaned and held the parts of us that were sore after we bumped into each other.

Me and Lulu sat in silence before I spoke. "Told you..." I said before Lulu kicked my leg. "Ow! Lulu!" I groaned before Lulu spoke. "This isn't the time to joke, Yoka!" She scolded me before she spoke again. "I thought...I thought we made progress! Why doesn't she love us?! Now we're going to die of starvation at the bottom of this lake!" Lulu yelled as angry tears rolled down her face.

"Why do we have to suffer?...we didn't ask to be born..." She said, her voice soft as her tears and face turned from anger to confusion and hurt.

We both sat in silence before I reached out and took Lulu's hand. "It's ok, Lulu. It's not our fault. Mom just fell in love with the wrong person and we're the consequence. I promise you, it's not our fault."

Lulu was silent before she looked into my eyes with a sad smile. "I guess...At least we don't have to die alone."

-Time-

"Thank you, Dyani, this evening, we got a call from a man in Bayou, Allington, saying that he saw two young girls enter a safe-like object and a woman, who he said seemed to be the girl's mother, throw the safe in the lake." The woman on TV began.

"The woman left and came back, she then, jumped into the lake." She finished before she started again. "Police, ambulance, and others arrived an hour and a half later to find the safe and the woman. The girls, to our knowledge, are alive. Unfortunately, their mother passed away." She said before she glanced down at her papers and spoke again. "The woman was identified as Novie Koco. The mother of Lulu and Yoka Koco." She looks back up to the camera,

"Paramedics say that the safe was filled to the brim, and the girls almost didn't make it. From what we know, Lulu Koco is in a coma and Yoka Koco is alive." The woman says.

Before the woman gets to say anything else the channel was changed to a cartoon one. I looked up and saw my doctor holding the TV remote. She looked down at me before she smiled and said, "How about we watch something else? I don't think what happened would be good for your mental health..."

"How about we go see Lulu?"