Just A Kid

Chapter 25

Beep...beep...beep...beep...

Araile's eyelid twitched slightly as the annoying beeping sound continued.

'Where am I? What's that beeping?' she thought groggily as she slowly opened her eyes.

Bright lights made her squint for a minute, then her eyes adjusted to the brightness. She looked around her surroundings, surprised.

"What? Why am I in the hospital? What happened to the preliminaries?" Araile asked herself out loud as she carefully sat up.

She noticed a needle sticking out of her hand and ending in an IV machine; a bag of clear liquid sitting on top of the machine. She rubbed her eyes, trying to get rid of the sleep when she heard someone walking in.

"Ah, I see that your awake. Good," the person said.

Araile stopped rubbing her eyes to see one of the medical nins carrying another bag of clear liquid.

"You gave us quite a scare before, Araile. We thought we were going to lose you," the medical nin stated as he changed the two bags on the IV machine.

"What's that liquid?" she asked.

"It's liquid morphine, to help with the pain. You sustained a lot of minor and major injuries during that last fight," the medical nin stated matter-of-factly as he checked the needle in her hand.

"Oh yeah...that battle...with my...brother" she said, her words slurring.

Her eyes widened as a wave of sleepiness coursed through her.

'What's happening to me? Why can't I talk properly?' Araile thought in panic.

The medical nin noticed her heart rate speeding up and the look of panic in her eyes.

"Don't worry. It's the morphine taking its toll. Now relax and don't fight it," he soothed as Araile laid back against her hospital pillow.

She tried to fight it at first, but found herself falling into a comfortable slumber. The medical nin checked her temperature and heart rate, and then left the room.

Through the haze of Araile's mind, she heard a woman's voice talking to her. She couldn't understand it at first, and concentrated on that voice. Soon enough, she was able to understand whom the voice belonged to, and what the voice was saying.

'My little Araile, you've done well. Rest, sweetheart,' the voice said.

'Mom...?' Araile thought sleepily in her mind before returning to the peaceful sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Before long, Araile felt the morphine loosening its grip on her. Her eyes opened lazily and she sat up, yawning widely.

"About time you woke up, Araile," someone said close to her side.

Her ear twitched slowly as she turned her head towards the voice. She blinked as she recognized the person that spoke.

"Hi Kakashi!" Araile said as she tried to get out of the hospital bed to give her caretaker a hug, but she unfortunately forgot about the needle and IV machine.

This restricted her movement, so she only got halfway out of the bed until she was restrained.  Araile mentally growled at the machine as Kakashi chuckled, and situated the girl back fully in the hospital bed.

"How long was I asleep for?" she asked as she sat cross-legged on the bed.

"Well, a couple of days. That medicine was pretty strong, so it wasn't unusual that you were asleep for a while," Kakashi said.